Sara Hennessy is a Reader in Teacher Development and Pedagogical Innovation in the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge. She is also Deputy Director of Research in the Faculty and a Fellow of Hughes Hall (college). Hennessy is research group leader of CEDiR: Cambridge Educational Dialogue Research Group together with Rupert Wegerif.
Sara Hennessy will give a guest lecture with the title: "What forms of teacher-student dialogue are productive for learning?" The talk based on data and analysis from a project called “Classroom dialogue:Does it really make a difference for student learning?” and is funded by The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC 2015-2017). ESRC is the UK's largest organisation for funding research on economic and social issues.
Abstract: Dialogic approaches based on active student participation, open, respectful discussion, and critique of different perspectives are increasingly found to support student learning. However, the specific productive forms of teacher-student interaction have rarely been studied systematically. This presentation first outlines a recent large-scale project using multi-level modelling to relate natural variation in use of dialogic teaching approaches to learning outcomes for students aged 10-11 in primary school classrooms. Methods included video recording and turn-level coding of 144 lessons in 48 schools. Then I report on a follow-up study aiming to generate rich insights into the forms of dialogue observable within classes achieving higher and lower learning gains in literacy and mathematics. The mixed-methods analyses combined corpus linguistics methods with in-depth qualitative analysis. The findings offer significant contributions to our understanding of which forms of students’ cognitive engagement with others’ ideas support learning, and how teachers can promote these. Outcomes have fed into an extensive professional development resource pack that has been trialed internationally.
More information about the project can be found here.