Rethinking Educational Theory ? Education as Expanding Dialogue

This book offers a coherent theory of education, education as widening and deepening dialogic space, that addresses the fundamental educational questions: What should we teach? How should we teach it? And, of course, why should we teach it? This dialogic theory, and the educational practice bound up with it, responds to the challenges of the Anthropocene and the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) by supporting education for collective intelligence and global citizenship.

The key to effectively preparing students for the future, Wegerif argues, lies in framing education as the expansion of dialogue. The author illustrates how dialogue can enable students to move from procedural to conceptual understandings of a subject. Employing extensive practical examples and guidance, chapters outline how to redesign education programmes to promote those moral and intellectual virtues that are essential to dialogue. The book also includes cutting-edge advice on how AI can be used by teachers and students to enhance general thinking skills by enhancing dialogue.

Providing both theoretical and practical insights, this book is an essential resource for students and scholars of education, as well as teachers at all levels of education. It is also a valuable read for educational technologists and policy-makers seeking to make informed design and policy decisions.

?Wegerif draws on philosophy and the human sciences to propose a ?third way? that takes us beyond the stale opposition between transmission and constructivism in education. Using dialogism as formulated by the Russian philosopher M.M. Bakhtin as a starting point, he guides readers through the long debate about the issue but also enters bravely into the new world being shaped by AI. His informed, brilliant argument will be food for thought for educators, indeed for anyone interested in the human condition.?