In my current courses, we have been discussing the
importance of dialogue in the classroom.
Inspiring Dialogue emphasizes the
importance of enabling students to engage in discussion and dialogue in the
class as opposed to teacher lecture and recitation. The key idea in this book is that students
are talking to learn. That is, they work
out ideas as a class and as individuals by discussing them and giving voice to
their thoughts. The teacher’s role then
becomes that of facilitator. What
becomes of this idea, however, when we begin to integrate media and digital
literacies into our classroom? When the
idea of new literacies was introduced to me, I worried that students would lose
a great amount of value that the interactions in class discussions
provides. However, Richard Beach and
Candace Doerr-Stevens address this point and assuage my fears in their article,
“Learning Argument Practices Through Online Role-Play: Toward a Rhetoric of
Significance and Transformation.”
Beach and Doerr-Stevens depict the issues of the typical
form of argument in a high school classroom as consisting of an artificial
argumentative essay. The artifice lies
in the fact that true argument allows for rebuttal and changing views. Even in a debate, the object is less to learn
than it is to win. Problematically, by
placing students at opposite sides, community in the class is replaced with
competition. When this happens, neither
side wins. Instead, the authors argue in
favor of online, collaborative argument.
This concept seems to mirror the ideas from Inspiring Dialogue, but in an online format. Students work together to discuss issues,
raise concerns, and address points of disagreement. Through this, whether online or in person,
students are able to come to a greater understanding of whatever issue they are
discussing, and they are also able to see multiple perspectives, allowing them
to reassess their own opinions and ideas.
The virtues of online discussion are manifold. Not only does it create a collaborative
community of learners, but students are able to interact with an immediacy that
is not available in face to face interactions because of the potential multi-modalities
and hyperlinks within a given post or comment.
Further, the potential reach of online postings gives students increased
motivation to exceed expectations.
Finally, there is great opportunity for these posts to provide students
with tangible, real world outcomes. The
online community makes affecting change more accessible for students, and focusing
on a real world issue can also provide students with even greater motivation to
learn and engage.
What I like about the way Beach and Doerr-Stevens talk about
implementing technology in the classroom is that it is truly integrated; it is
not merely a tacked on assignment to say that you used technology for
technology’s sake. The blogs and forums
used for class become an extension of the classroom discussions and dialogues
in which students are engaged, allowing them to delve deeper into their
thoughts and opinions. This method
likewise seems to be a perfect combination of the dialogic discourse that I
want to utilize in my classroom and the instruction of writing. Further, the students become involved in
their own assessments. By engaging with
their classmates, raising issues and opposing points, and responding to these
ideas, students work together to improve their writing and argumentative
skills. They begin to be the judges of
what constitutes good writing.
Ultimately, that is my biggest goal for my students. I want them to be able to leave my class and
evaluate for themselves if their writing is good. I won’t be there to grade their papers before
they turn them in to a college professor; they need to be able to perform
assessments themselves. Blogging and online
forums might just be one place to start.
Teacher Resource:
If you're looking into Smart board technology in your classroom, this is a great place to start! You can search by subject area, standards, or even share your own ideas. There are lots of templates and lesson ideas for you to use! (I really like the koosh ball idea...)
