Browsing by Subject "dialogisuus"

Dialogicality is an actual topic in pedagogical studies. Both in theoretical and ordinary speech, the term is often used as a synonym of discussion and interaction. The use of the concept, however, only seldom reveals the equivocal nature of the phenomenon. In pedagogical discourses, it is often difficult to discern the background conceptions or theories determining in each case the concept of dialogue. The aim of the present study is to address this challenge and help to clarify the situation by examining the various ways in which dialogicality has been understood in pedagogical studies in Finland in the 21st century. The research material consisted of 24 international research publications written in English. The material was first studied in relation to the notions and definitions of dialogicality put forward in them, and these were then analysed in the light of Hans-Georg Gadamer’s hermeneutical philosophy. The research questions to be answered were: 1. How is dialogicality defined in the pedagogical research in Finland during the las two decades 2. What do these conceptions reveal of the understanding of dialogicality, when related to Gadamer’s phenomenological-hermeneutical understanding of its nature? The research combines two different approaches: the material was organized with the method of systematic literature review and it was analysed through philosophical research. The study’s vantage point, and the theoretical framework directing its questioning, was constituted by the phenomenological-hermeneutical thought of Hans-Georg Gadamer. According to the results of the study, there are four central theoretical frameworks defining the research of dialogicality in the pedagogical research in Finland in the 21st century. Apparently, the studies are to a certain extent compatible with each other in their thematic content and in their descriptions of interconnected phenomena, but their ways of understanding the nature of dialogicality prove to be incommensurate. When analysed with the help of Gadamer’s hermeneutics, the research also shows itself as internally divided: the decisive differences are, firstly, whether dialogicality is understood as communication of knowledge, and secondly, whether dialogue is understood instrumentally as a method. With the help of Gadamer’s hermeneutical though, the study attempts to clarify the phenomenon of dialogue and to sharpen the required conceptual grasp and so to elaborate pedagogical research of dialogicality.

Objects. In my Bachelor’s thesis I executed a descriptive literatute review about dialogic teaching and collected a table of the methods used by a dialogic teacher. In this research I observed lessons and used the grouping I had created in order to identify the methods of dialogic teaching. The objective of the study was to examine in what extent dialogue appeared in the teaching of class teachers and teacher students. My research questions were: 1. Which methods of a dialogic teacher can be identified from the observed teachers’ lessons? 2. How is dialogue manifested in the teaching of class teachers and teacher students? and 3. How is dialogue manifested in the teaching of different subjects? In this study I created information about the practices of dialogic teaching. Methods. I examined the topic with the methods of qualitative study with videotaped lessons as my research material. Three class teachers and three teacher students participated in the study. I collected my research data from one school located in the metropolitan area with the help of video observation. As a base for my analysis, I used the grouping from my Bachelor’s Thesis. I analysed my research material by creating different groups of the methods used by a dialogic teacher. Results and Conclusions. All of the class teachers and teacher students observed in this study used dialogic methods in their teaching. For example dialogue appeared in a conversational tone of voice, leaving space for the students’ voices and showing the importance of their claims. The dialogic methods used by the teachers observed could be placed in four groups: building of subject matter, teachers approach, teachers’ feedback and supporting students’ autonomy. From all of the lessons observed, it was possible to identify the most dialogic methods in the Finnish language lessons. It is possible to utilise these research results when teachers want to add dialogue in to their teaching. Concrete ways in which dialogue appears were listed in the study.

The subject of this article-formatted Master’s Thesis is the meaning of wordless connection in early childhood education. The study examined the meaning of wordless connection and asked what kind of meanings wordless connection could have. The theoretical-philosophical approach was based on the ideas of Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Martin Buber on the undifferentiated nature of human and world. Wordless connection in early childhood education was approached from a multi-species perspective in the light of solitude, being alongside and autotelic practices. Wordless connection as experience was approached from a phenomenological perspective. There has been little previous research on wordless connection from an early childhood education perspective. The research was carried out in collaboration between two researchers. The working methods were theoretical-philosophical reflection and thinking with theory. Due to the theoretical-philosophical approach of the research, no data was collected for the research, but the phenomenon under study was examined and described using research theory. The synthesis part of the thesis delved into the implementation of the research. The social and ethical relevance of the research was also examined. In this study, the meanings of wordless connection in early childhood education lie in the appreciation of ways of being and in the approach to the world that transcends anthropocentric ways of think and act. Recognizing the wordless connection in the context of early childhood education can, at best, create new, ecologically and socially more sustainable ways of interacting with others – both humans and more-than-humans.

Objective of the study. In university pedagogy, research has traditionally concentrated more on students’ learning than on the university teacher’s activities and instructional processes. The aim of this study is to investigate interactive dialogues and the ways in which they perform during university lectures, from the point of view of the university teacher. The study uses Mercer’s theoretical approach, which is used in the analysis of the language used in teaching situations. The research questions of this study are: 1) what kind of teaching phases do the university lectures consist of? 2) what kind of interactive dialogues and modes of talk feature in these lectures? 3) how do these modes of interactive talk make themselves visible in the various teaching phases of the lectures? Methods. The research material of this study consists of video material, containing 4 lectures, each 90 minutes in length. The data were collected in the research project ”Interaction between Teaching and Learning in Higher Education” at the Helsinki University Centre for Research and Development of Higher Education. The data were transcribed and then analysed using theory-based content analysis. Results and conclusions. The analysis showed that all four lectures have an almost identical structure. The teaching phases of the lectures are: the opening phase, the roll-call, group work and its results, the teacher’s discourse and the closing phase. Sporadic talk was typical of the interactive dialogue in the opening phase. Episodes of sporadic talk could be found in the opening phases. In the activating group work of students and the discussions that followed them with the teacher, there occurred the most frequent episodes of exploratory talk, which deepened the interactive dialogue as far as the level of constructing knowledge. Virtually the same number of sporadic and cumulative talk were also present in this phase of the lecture. It was during the teacher’s discourse that the majority of the episodes of interactive dialogue occurred. A majority of them were sporadic talk, but also included episodes of cumulative and exploratory talk. It became clear that each phase of group work and the teacher’s discourse included interactive dialogue both as sporadic and cumulative as well as exploratory talk. Interactive dialogue increased substantially during the various phases of the group work, first within the groups and the discussions that followed, and then during the phases of the teacher’s discourse. The result of the study underlines the pedagogical importance of group work and other activating forms of teaching in higher education aiming at interactive teaching.