Deepening dialogue: White preservice teachers’ use of mode-switching to revise prior assumptions in an online synchronous class about linguistic racism

ABSTRACT

How might teachers and students deepen dialogic space in online discussions centered on race? This paper explores challenges of creating shared spaces of collective inquiry online across audio/visual/written modes. We explore why participants switch modes — e.g. from oral/visual participation to written chat — while participating in a synchronous video call. We use examples from an online teacher-preparation course at a Southern US university to demonstrate how primarily White prospective/practicing teachers mode-switched during dialogue about Black language and linguistic justice. We identify common types of mode-switching whereby participants resist, revise, and renegotiate dialogic space in online coursework. Across examples, dialogic space emerged or deepened when writing “in the background”– before and/or during class — was foregrounded, bringing prior assumptions and present perspectives into creative tension with emerging understandings. Teachers might consider how relationships among modes like writing and talk, across activities and platforms, can support or inhibit dialogue in face-to-face or online spaces. (150)

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional resources

1. Wegerif, R. (2007). Dialogic Education and Technology: Expanding the Space of Learning

This book addresses the challenges of online teaching and learning across a variety of contexts united by the new affordances and constraints of digital, online time-space. Drawing on a variety of examples, from young children using software for spoken reasoning to online communities of practice, this seminal work theorizes dialogic space in relation to computer-supported collaborative learning.

2. Kirkland, D. (2009). Researching and teaching English in the digital dimension. Research in the Teaching of English, 44, pp. 8–44

This article reviews research on pedagogical spaces for researching and teaching English Language Arts, with particular attention to trends in how those spaces are defined and applied (e.g., official/unofficial/third space). Drawing on examples of research and teaching in digital domains like Second Life and Facebook, the author explores the impact of online spaces on learning, culture, identity, and literacy.

3. San Pedro, T. & Kinloch, V. (2017).Toward Projects in Humanization: Research on Co-Creating and Sustaining Dialogic Relationships. American Educational Research Journal, 54 (1_suppl), 373S-394S.

The authors examine the centrality of stories for opening “an area of trust — a space between” in research and teaching that aims to create and sustain dialogic relationships that involve collaboration, rather than domination, in the co-creation of new knowledge. Such collaborative storying is part of projects in humanization (PiH) that aim to reform teaching, learning, and researching.

Notes

1. Omission of verb “to be” in phrases like “We __ cool;” also called “null copula,” this common pattern in Black English appears beyond it in some types of questions (“You ready?”) and even news headlines (“Jury selected”).