This document outlines a session on developing effective dialogue to support learning. It discusses what effective dialogue is and why teaching dialogue skills is important. Various frameworks that support dialogue are presented, including the Thinking Together project and its focus on establishing ground rules. The session will explore dialogue in different curriculum contexts through different classroom activities and applying the ground rules. It emphasizes that dialogue skills are applicable beyond academics to gaining understanding of different perspectives.

1. Thinking Together: Developing effective
dialogue to support learning across and beyond
the curriculum
Neil Phillipson
neil@21stcenturylearners.org.uk
@21Clearners

2. Session outline…
Dialogue in the Curriculum
What is ‘effective dialogue’ and in what
contexts is it useful?
The difficulty of dialogue
Why do we need to teach for dialogue as
well as through dialogue?
Frameworks to support dialogue
Thinking Together and the 4Cs
Dialogue beyond the curriculum
The wider applications of dialogue

3. What comes next in this sequence?

4. Useful classroom talk?
What are the
characteristics of this talk
that make it effective?
In what contexts could this
kind of talk be useful in the
classroom?
Video of three children in
Dialogue around Raven’s
Reasoning tests, successfully
solving the problem on the
previous slide.

5. The difficulty of dialogue…

6. Identifying with dialogue…
Professor Ruper Wegerif, ‘Mind-Expanding’

7. Perspectives…
Maurice Merleau-Ponty

8. If only it were that
simple…
Video of the three children
from slide 4 in Dialogue
around Raven’s Reasoning
tests, before training
(unsuccessful dialogue)

9. Disputational Talk: trying to
‘beat’ each other, to be the
winner (identifying with the
self)
Cummulative Talk: trying to
agree to maintain the harmony
of the group (identifying with
the group)
Common ‘types’ of talk…
(taken from research for the Thinking Together project,
by Neil Mercer, Lyn Dawes and Rupert Wegerif)

10. “We subject learners to group work because it ‘develops the
skills needed later in life’; except it really doesn’t.”
Ros McMullen (blog – principalprivate)
“Group work: I hate the concept as I hate hell, all Montagues and
thee. I bite my thumb at it… An efficient way to learn? Not so
much.” Tom Bennett (The TES)
“Whenever I am asked where the group work is in my lessons, I
respond with the same answer. The class have been put into a
group of 30, and their group task is to listen to the teacher and
to work in silence.”
Robert Peal (blog – goodbyemisterhunter)
Does group work work?
(taken from a Slideshare presentation by James Mannion)

11. Frameworks to support dialogue…

12. The Thinking Together Project…
• Focused on the importance of preparing
children to talk in groups by establishing
clear ground rules
• Provided exemplar ‘talk lessons’ in
various curriculum contexts
• Led to measurably raised attainment
when working in group situations
• Led to measurably raised attainment
when working individually
(internalisation of dialogic skills – of
thinking skills)

13. Philosophy for Children…
• …about helping children to think
philosophically
• …about children engaging in critical
dialogue to reach a better shared
understanding of contestable concepts
that are important to them
• …about the way in which children
engage with ‘the other’
• …about developing caring,
collaborative, creative and critical
thinking

14. Caring Critical
Collaborative Creative
The ‘4 Cs’…
Listening, valuing
Responding,
supporting
Questioning,
reasoning
Connecting,
suggesting

15. Part 1: Caring
Thinking (eliciting
groundrules through dramatic
exploration of a story)
A synthesis – ground rules
around the 4Cs framework…

16. Caring Critical
Collaborative Creative
We all try to join in
We listen attentively to
each other
We share our ideas
We are ready to give
reasons for our ideas
We can challenge each
other’s ideas
We treat others’
ideas with respect
We look for and discuss
alternative ideas
We make
decisions based on
good reasons
We speak one at a
time
We build on each
other’s ideas
We look for evidence
We try to make
connections between
ideas
We care about the
task
We try to understand
other points of view
Help each other to
express our ideas
We find examples and
comparisons

17. Shape
The importance of conceptual understanding…
Form
Logic
Algorithm
Program
Design Nutrition Grammar Scale
Environment
Culture
Cause and
consequence
Pattern
MeasureMelodyChemical
changeForce
Edited version of video by Tim Oates,
discussing the importance of key
concepts to progress through the
curriculum. Full version available at
YouTube).

18. Three foundational
concepts:
• Force
• Scale
• Culture
Applying the ground rules in
context (circus of activities)…

19. Activities to promote talk -
Concept Cartoons (S. Naylor)

20. Activities to promote talk -
Odd One Out

21. Activities to promote talk -
Talking Points (L. Dawes)
Always True Always False It depends
Bigger
planets have
longer days
Adverbs
end in -ly

22. Activities to promote talk -
Thinking Maps (TSI)

23. Dialogue beyond the curriculum…

24. Me You
The Other
Encounters with
the other…

25. Qualification Socialisation
Subjectification
Gaining knowledge, skills,
dispositions etc. needed to
go on and do something.
Becoming part of society –
culture and tradition.
Becoming more autonomous and
independent in thinking and acting.
The purposes of education?
(Gert Biesta)

26. Rhetoric
Remaking Communicating
Dialectic
Challenging Analysing
Grammar
Learning Remembering
The Trivium…
(Martin Robinson)

27. The Dissoi Logoi…

28. The conversation
of mankind…

29. Human stories…

30. British Values…

31. “It is hard to be cruel once you permit yourself to
enter the mind of your victim. Imagining what it is like
to be someone other than yourself is at the core of
our humanity. It is the essence of compassion, and it
is the beginning of morality.
The hijackers used fanatical certainty, misplaced
religious faith, and dehumanising hatred to purge
themselves of the human instinct for empathy.
Among their crimes was a failure of the imagination.”
Ian, McEwan 2001
The importance of other
perspectives…

32. Stay in touch…
e: neil@21stcenturylearners.org.uk
t: @21Clearners
f: / 21Clearners
In: Neil Phillipson on LinkedIn