Dialogic pedagogy for the University and beyond

A Russian philosopher Mikhail Bakhtin argued that meaning making is essentially dialogic. Since I agree with that, I have become committed to dialogic pedagogy in my own teaching at the university level and beyond. Currently I define dialogic pedagogy through engaging students and myself in critical dialogue about their ideas, perceptions, worldviews, values, interests, inquiries, feelings, relations and so on. This critical dialogue both requires and promotes students’ agency and voice around academic issues, practices, and beyond, which can occur only through students’ democratic participation in defining their own education. Dialogic pedagogy put stress on students’ own learning and studying over teaching. Higher education provides both unique and common challenges and opportunities for dialogic pedagogy. As any mainstream institutionalized education, it is shaped by conventional assignment-­based chronotope promoting a relationship of monologism. However, higher education provides more leeway for professors to design their own curriculum and pedagogical regime. In my presentation, I’ll share and reflect on my pedagogical experimentation and challenges with designing
dialogic ontological provocations, internally persuasive discourse, students’ responsive authorship, students’ self-­generating authorship, Opening Syllabus, Open Curriculum, and Open Syllabus.

Professor Eugene Matusov
University of Delaware, United States
Professor Matusov was born in the Soviet Union. He studied developmental psychology with Soviet researchers working in the Vygotskian paradigm and worked as a schoolteacher before immigrating to the United States. He uses sociocultural and Bakhtinian dialogic approaches to education.

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