ABSTRACT
Dialogic teaching approaches involve teaching through dialogue and teaching for quality dialogue. Engaging in dialogue can promote deeper conceptual understanding as participants explore ideas from different perspectives in a caring, collaborative, critical, and creative manner. Reflective practice supported by “ground rules” that help to define and develop good quality dialogue enhances efficacy and promotes personal development. The Thinking Together approach, developed by Dawes, Mercer, and Wegerif in the 1990s, has been shown to be effective through evaluations in the UK, Mexico, South Africa, and China. We outline the main principles for teaching Thinking Together and summarize the research evidence.
