Introduction: Establishing a case for sharing research-based instructional strategies

Abstract

Deeper learning, dialogic learning, and critical thinking are by no means the only capabilities that are important in 21st-century environments, but they are being focused on because they play crucial roles in facilitating or enabling the acquisition of various other important capabilities. A person could memorize and recite multiplication tables without understanding much more about the process of multiplication itself: that would be learning about multiplication superficially. Important features of deeper learning include not only the abstraction of general principles, patterns, and rules, but also the apprehension of interconnections or relationships between various strands of knowledge, and information. Dialogic learning, again as noted earlier, essentially means learning through dialogue - ideally where the dialogue between participants is egalitarian. In contrast, an essential characteristic of dialogic learning is that the learner is an active participant in the construction of knowledge, as he or she engages in dialogue. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.