ABSTRACT
Teachers play a critical role in inducting students into ways of thinking and reasoning by making explicit how to express ideas, seek assistance, contest opposing propositions, and reason cogently. It is well known that learning occurs when students have opportunities to interact with others where they learn to actively listen to what others have to say, reflect on their propositions, propose alternative propositions, if needed, and incorporate alternative ideas into their own understandings. This chapter introduces dialogic teaching and how teachers can use this approach to teaching to promote thinking, problem-solving, and reasoning in their students. The chapter also provides examples of how students can be taught to engage in discourse-intensive instruction that enables them to learn the genre of talk associated with reasoned discourse in science.
