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This dissertation offers the first set of empirical studies to examine the differential impact of didactic instruction and playful learning practices on geometric shape knowledge. Previous research demonstrated that successful child-centered, guided play pedagogies are often characterized by two components: (a) dialogic inquiry, or exploratory talk with the teacher, and (b) physical engagement with the educational materials. Building on this conclusion, three studies examined how guided play promotes criterial learning of shapes. Experiment 1 examined whether guided play or didactic instruction techniques promote criterial learning of four geometric shapes compared to a control condition. Results suggested that children in both didactic and guided play conditions learn the criterial features; however, this equivalence was most evident for relatively easy, familiar shapes (e.g., circles). A trend suggested that guided play promoted superior criterial understanding when learning more complex, novel shapes (i.e., pentagons). Experiment 2 expands on the previous study by examining how exposure to enriched geometric curricular content (e.g., teaching with typical shape exemplars only vs. typical and atypical exemplars) augments shape learning in guided play. As hypothesized, children taught with a mix of typical and atypical exemplars showed superior criterial learning compared to those in taught with only typical exemplars. Experiment 3 further explores the factors that facilitate shape learning by comparing the effectiveness of guided play, enriched free-play, and didactic instruction on children's criterial learning of two familiar shapes (triangles, rectangles) and two unfamiliar, complex shapes (pentagons, hexagons). As hypothesized, those who learned via guided play outperformed those who learned in didactic instruction who, in turn, outperformed those in enriched free play. In both didactic instruction and guided play, children's shape concepts persisted over one week. The findings from these studies suggest (1) guided play promotes equal or better criterial learning than didactic instruction, (2) curricular content (shape experience) augments criterial learning in guided play and (3) dialogic inquiry may be a key mechanism underlying guided play. The current research not only has implications for enhancing the acquisition of abstract spatial concepts but also for understanding the mechanisms that foster playful learning. / Psychology

Yes / Students of education encounter a range of pedagogies yet how future teachers’ appropriate moral principles are little understood. We conducted an investigation into this process with 10 international students of education attending an intensive course on ‘dialogic pedagogy’ in a university in Finland. The data comprising student learning journals and essays were coded for the level of questioning, acceptance and irreverence. In the findings, reverential acceptance was more frequent than questioning and irreverence; however, our qualitative analysis also found a large number of micro-transitions between questioning, acceptance and irreverence suggesting a dynamic interplay. Recognising this vacillation as part of a moral journey may support better understanding of what it means to engage with a different pedagogy.

Students' connections to place are important to bring into the classroom to help them make meaning. This multimethod study investigated the overarching research question: What is the influence of a place-based curriculum on high-performing, rural students as writers? This was broken into two sub-questions: (a) What is the effect of treatment condition on students writing ability, writing self-efficacy, and concepts of community and place and (b) In what ways do students reference place in their writing? In particular, this study examined students' writing ability, writing self-efficacy, connections to community/place, and references to place in students' writing. Working from a larger data set from the Promoting PLACE (Place, Literacy, Achievement, Community, and Engagement) in Rural Schools grant, students' pre- and post-test writing tasks, self-report writing self-efficacy, and community and place scales were analyzed using quantitative and qualitative approaches to explore the ways the curriculum supported students as writers. The sample included treatment and control students, randomly assigned at the district level. The treatment group access to the Promoting PLACE curriculum and the control group received the typical services their district provided. Quantitative analysis gave rise to more questions regarding sample size, gifted identification methods, and modes of instruction. Qualitative analysis gave insight into the importance of connecting to place in the classroom, so students can explore the richness of their rural places. Using a dialogic stance, with place-based pedagogy can provide students with opportunities to critically examine their places and the experiences they have in those places. / Doctor of Philosophy / This study explored how a dialogic, place-based curriculum influences high- performing rural students as writers. The sample included treatment and control students, randomly assigned at the district level, totaling 199 students across both groups. Through quantitative and qualitative analysis, the researcher examined student pre- and post-test writing tasks and self-report writing self-efficacy and community and place scales. Findings suggest that adopting a stance that in the classroom that values students’ lived experiences provides opportunities for students to make meaning using what they know and have experienced and critically examining their experiences as members of their local communities. This study provides insight into writing classrooms that embraces student experience and view students as valuable members of their communities.

British celebrity chef Jamie Oliver has been an active voice among those striving for food reform, directly influencing attitudes and behaviors among the culture of food around the world. Oliver's most recent campaign, Jamie's Food Revolution, can be considered one of his most successful attempts at influencing modern day food practices. The mission of the campaign is 'to create a strong sustainable movement to educate every child about food, inspire families to cook again and empower people everywhere to fight obesity' (Home Jamie's Food Revolution, n.d.). In addition to the campaign website, Jamie's Food Revolution campaign has a Facebook page, an Instagram page, a Twitter page, and a YouTube page, which are all used to contact with people around the world. The purpose of this thesis is to explore how the Instagram page, @foodrev, is used to post content that aligns with the mission and offers dialogic opportunities for publics to engage with the campaign through a grounded theory methodological approach and application of dialogic theory. More specifically, this thesis will: 1) highlight how the content of the @foodrev Instagram account represents the mission statement of Jamie's Food Revolution; 2) address whether the content posted to the Instagram account generates opportunities for dialogic engagement; 3)reveal whether the content posted to the Instagram account actually generates dialogic responses from other Instagram users; and4) reveal features of dialogic theory that transfer to social media, specifically Instagram, and what aspect of the platform provides dialogic affordances not already explained by dialogic theory. / Master of Arts

This project seeks to mediate one of the most significant issues with implementing writing groups in the secondary classroom: students do not know how to meaningfully engage in discussions about their writing. Students lack the necessary skills as well as understanding of the rhetorical nature of language to effectively request and provide feedback on pieces of writing. The application of theories of dialogue and collaboration to the research about writing groups suggest that the quality of student writing depends on the quality of their discussions about writing. Thus, my action research study investigates the types of language used between students in writing groups. I audio recorded students' writing group discussions and asked students to reflect on their experience in a written survey. Drawing on recorded small group conversations and student reflections, I consider how secondary students' rhetorical approach to writing groups allows them to collaboratively make meaning and improve their writing. The following research question guided my work: What rhetorical skills and understanding are necessary for meaningful participation in writing groups? In this context, meaningful participation is defined as productive discussions wherein comments build on one another as students create meaning and generate new ideas together. This was evaluated by the students themselves in their written reflections as well as my analysis of the recorded group discussions. Thematic analysis revealed that students who have an awareness of the rhetorical situation as well as skills such as responding and questioning are better able to participate meaningfully in writing groups.

This thesis is initiated by the need for public dialogue between the church and the other. As a faith-praxis, public dialogue between the church and the other is a response to “binary opposition” or “dichotomy,” that is, the separation of faith and praxis, knowing and doing, private sphere and public sphere, Christian and non-Christian, text and context, educator and learner. As explored in Chapter 2, religion is presently characterized by privatization and does not provide an answer to the culture of separation in today’s society. Consequently, the ghettoized church behind the wall is confronted by a dual crisis—an internal crisis of identity and an external crisis of relevance. Therefore, to shape a dialogic relationship through public dialogue is an essential task of the public church, the so-called “go-to-all” church. To execute “public dialogue” as the commitment to “go-to-all” three actions are necessary: (1) going outside the wall of the church, (2) entering into dialogue with the “all,” and (3) making disciples, baptizing, and teaching the all. How will the church dialogue with the other? In view of these three actions, this thesis researches three main elements of public dialogue—(1) preparing a place/field for public dialogue, (2) formulating a new communicative pattern for public dialogue, and (3) exploring a medium for public dialogue. In order to achieve these elements of public dialogue, the patterns of public dialogue toward faith-praxis that the Korean church has shown historically in the public sphere were explored in Chapter 3. This thesis concerns an art-cultural pattern of public dialogue, particularly madanggŭk. Madanggŭk is a compound noun: madang (open place) + gŭk (theatre). Madanggŭk contains the three elements for public dialogue—(1) “field or place” for public dialogue; (2) a mode of theatre as a medium for public dialogue; and (3) the “communicability” peculiar to the madanggŭk. Through the practices of cultural public dialogue in the Korean theological domain and the minjung cultural movement centering on madanggŭk studied in Chapter 4, it is revealed that madanggŭk showed the four characteristics of mutual communication which are essential in formulating an alternative pattern of public dialogue: (1) rediscovery of the audience, (2) re-creation of traditional culture founded on festivity and a communal spirit, (3) their own stories and reality-reading, and (4) activity outside the theatrical world in order to meet the audience. However, madanggŭk also had the limitation of a binary opposition of social-directivity and artistic-directivity, tending toward social drama. Therefore, an alternative form of public dialogue to overcome this binary opposition was required. As an alternative with the purpose of shifting from monologism to dialogism, this thesis suggests “Trinity Madang Public Dialogue,” i.e. three models of madang public dialogue—Incarnational Public Dialogue, Critical Public Dialogue, and Festival Public Dialogue. The first model, Incarnational Public Dialogue, explores how to accept the other and the difference under the principles of otherness, unfinalizability and polyphony, proposing the culture of participative dialogue. The second model, Critical Public Dialogue, explores practical strategies for recognizing and criticizing the distorted communication and relationship of monologism, and for developing the audience’s competencies of understanding and criticism without merging into an authorial single voice, proposing the culture of criticism and transformation. The third model, Festival Public Dialogue, is suggested as a time-space for fulfilling both incarnational and critical principles and for the harmony of a rational and a sensuous nature, proposing the culture of laughter, play and the imagination. The principles of the three models should be fully realized in the Christian community before performing dialogic madang-theatre. When the Christian community preparing for this type of public dialogue is transformed into a “dialogic” community, it will promote madang public dialogue with the audience. The core of madang public dialogue lies in the formation of a dialogic relationship and a dialogic community, rather than in the performance itself. Therefore, in Chapter 6, The “Six Stages of Dialogic Praxis” through which the madang Christian community can be recreated effectively to form a dialogic community is projected. And, an “Incarnational-Dialogic Paradigm” is suggested as an alternative to a schooling-instructional paradigm of Christian education. / Thesis (PhD (Practical Theology))--University of Pretoria, 2006. / Practical Theology / unrestricted

This quasi-experimental Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) study explored whether the vocabulary and reading comprehension mean scores of Hispanic Kindergarten ELs whose teachers were trained to utilize Dialogic Reading (DR) discourse were higher than the mean scores of Hispanic ELs in kindergarten whose teachers were not trained to utilize DR discourse strategies. Sixty-three self-identified Hispanic, English Language Kindergarten students and four teachers participated in the study. The teachers were randomly assigned to either the experimental group (DR trained) or control group by drawing names from a hat. Student assignment to experimental versus comparison group was based on the teacher’s assignment to either the experimental or comparison group. Thirty-one were assigned to the control group and 32 to the experimental group. The teachers were instructed to read the story to a group of six students (maximum) at a time, utilizing the DR discourse strategies they had been trained to implement. Subjects were read a story each week during the 8-week duration of the study. Teachers in the experimental group collaboratively selected 10 words each week from the Read Together Talk Together (RTTT) instructional stories that were utilized for vocabulary instruction. A test of homogeneity was conducted to evaluate whether the variance among the dependent variables was the same across the groups. An Analyses of Covariance (ANCOVA) was applied to analyze students’ vocabulary and comprehension mean scores in the experimental group and the comparison group. The results of the study demonstrated a significant increase in the vocabulary and reading comprehension mean scores for the students whose teachers had been trained in DR discourse strategies. When comparing the two groups, the results revealed a statistically significant difference (p < 0.05). In conclusion, this study was conducted to explore how DR discourse may be an effective technique to teach literacy skills. The findings of this study showed that vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension of Hispanic ELs were positively affected by the teachers’ inclusion of dialogue during storybook reading. Its outcomes accentuated the need for teachers to provide assistance to ELs as they develop vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension skills.