Critical Dialogic Teaching: Promoting Curiosity and Identity in Latinx Students

• In Event: Supporting Student Curiosity: Classroom-Based Research and Implications for Practice

Abstract

Objectives
In dialogic teaching, teachers pose critical problems for inquiry (Shor & Freire, 1987) and are required to reflect on students’ responses, decide what question to ask next, encourage classroom discussion, and refrain from providing the correct answer themselves (Alexander, 2004). Critical Dialogic Teaching (CDT) is a specific practice where teachers use texts that expand on or replace existing, often problematic, curricula (see Kibler, Valdés, & Walquí, 2021) to develop students’ skills in “questioning received knowledge and immediate experience with the goal of challenging inequality” (Shor, 1999, p. 11). Teachers engage with these texts using both spoken language—students’ and their own— as well as by leveraging multimodal repertoires of practice (e.g., gestural, digital, written; Gutiérrez, 2008) to pose critical problems for inquiry (Shor & Freire, 1987). As described by Kibler et al. (2021), CDT “is shaped by the voices of students teachers, and researchers, as well as by both the word and the world” (p. 186). While the body of literature on dialogic teaching has provided us with an understanding of the ways it promotes student argumentation skills (Resnitskaya et al., 2009), attention, and achievement (Nouri et al., 2018), less is known about the ways CDT promotes marginalized students’ outcomes. To that end, in this study we examine how CDT contributes to Latinx students’ curiosity and identity.

Theoretical Framework
Students from marginalized communities often experience a lifetime of socially transmitted messages that reflect deficit-based assumptions that ignore the depth of their insight and intellect (McKown, 2013). Countering deficit approaches, asset-based pedagogy (ABP) shares a fundamental belief that teachers who possess an understanding of the sociohistorical influences on traditional marginalized students’ trajectories are better able to cultivate students’ knowledge by building on their prior knowledge and incorporating knowledge that validates students’ experiences into their instruction (see Author, 2017).

Methods
Participants included 220 students across grades 9 - 12 and their English teachers (N = 3) in three high schools in an urban district in southern Arizona where approximately 60% of students identify as Latinx. The proposed study uses a mixed-methods design using teacher interviews and surveys; student interviews and surveys; classroom observations; and artifacts (e.g., assignments, padlet, zoom chat).

Results
Students’ curiosity scores were .78 SD higher (p < .01) whereas self-regulation increased by .56 over the course of the year (p < .01). Self-concept in speaking and writing was .54 SD higher, though not reaching conventional significance (p = .14). Classroom observations of teacher practices and student interviews provided insight into the promotion of these outcomes.

Significance
Despite the “high levels of stress and anxiety arising from online learning” that have contributed to difficulties in sustaining engagement and motivation during the pandemic (see Chiu, 2021), the present study suggests that educators who engage in CDT practices can promote curiosity and other important outcomes in learning situations that rely on technology and contributes to the growing scholarship on the ways educators who ensure students’ voices, perspectives, and experiences are heard and matter build on students’ assets in path-breaking ways.

Authors

• Francesca Lopez, The Pennsylvania State University

• Norma I. Gonzalez, Tucson Unified School District

• Rosario Hutchings, Tucson Unified School District

• Giselle Delcid, University of Arizona

• Crystal Raygoza, University of Arizona

• Lorenzo Lopez, Tucson Unified School District