| This case study examines an undergraduate class, Introduction to Education--- the teacher and her students--- to evaluate where and when the teacher adopts dialogic and problem-posing or else banking methods of teaching. Grounded in the sociocultural theoretical frameworks of dialogical theory, action theory, problem-posing theory, and exploratory talk theory, the study demonstrates that the teacher predominantly used dialogic and problem-posing teaching methods in her classroom, and many of the students were also drawn to dialogic and problem-posing methods of teaching, partially due to their teacher's modeling of this method. Some students resisted the dialogic and problem-posing methods of their teacher and retained banking methods of teaching, due to their inexperience as teachers and extensive prior exposure to lecturing teaching. This dissertation considers key characteristics of dialogic and problem-posing teaching methods: breaking the IRE sequences with the use of open-ended questions; showing mutual trust and respect between teachers and students in the classroom; the embrace of spontaneous classrooms to enable student-initiated questions and issues; vacating the floor to allow peer-to-peer discussions, and the balance between authenticity and transformation. This study also finds that the dialogical and problem-posing modes of education are an alternative to the Common Core Standards, which often require teachers to use a scripted class discussion and scripted questions, which constrains students to a passive, uncritical role based on its mandates of text-centric close readings. The dialogical and problem-posing classroom allows for different reading experiences based on the diverse backgrounds and personal experiences of the student readers, whereas the Common Core classroom limits students to text-centric close readings that don't permit for reading variations. The dialogic and problem-posing classroom provided students with opportunities to use higher-order critical thinking skills, such as analysis, interpretation, contextualization, logic, use of evidence, and argumentation.Finally, this study proposes grouping Freire, Bakhtin, and Habermas together in future academic research on developing student thinking, due to the demonstrated similarities between problem-posing methods of education and the dialogical model of reason. |
