Meta-Reflective Practice in Teacher Education through Dialogical Circle Talks

In this paper, we present the results of a study examining our and student teachers’ participation in circle-based dialogical meta-talks. These meta-talks take place in circles and are grounded in the students’ previous video analysis of their own teaching practice.The circle talks serve as the basis for analyzing which dialogical spaces emerge within the discussions.

The purpose of the circle talks is for teacher education teaching practices to facilitate both our and the students’ meta-reflections, with the aim of enabling dialogical spaces (Wegerif, 2013) that foster awareness and understanding of the potential of dialogue (Littleton & Mercer, 2013).

The study is grounded in iterative research processes from a double-didactic perspective (Iskov, 2020), through video analysis and the continuous use of circle talks as a physical and didactic organizing principle (Hejl, 2024) in teacher education. The study is guided by the following two research questions:

• In what ways can architectures for circle talks create dialogical spaces, and what dialogical potentials emerge in the student teachers’ meta-talks about the analyzed teaching?
• How do our meta-talks as teacher educator influence the students before, during, and after the circle talks?

Sociocultural analyses (Mercer, 2004; Wegerif, 2013) are conducted in relation to research question 1, and autoethnographic (Ellis et al., 2011) analyses in relation to research question 2.

The empirical material consists of autoethnographic descriptions (Ellis et al., 2011) of our meta-reflections on the development, planning, and scaffolding of dialogical teaching, as well as transcribed audio recordings of the student teachers’ circle talks.

Our findings indicate that the facilitation and use of circle talks create opportunities for various types of dialogical spaces that open, expand, and deepen discussions, allowing the students’ own narratives to gain value and include multiple voices. Finally, we discuss how the study’s results and experiences with dialogical teaching and reflective practices can be integrated into teacher education.

The study contributes to the professional knowledge base of teacher educators from a double-didactic perspective, representing an emerging field within Nordic educational research.

Keywords: circle talks, meta-reflection, dialogical space, teacher education

References 

Ellis, C., Adams, T. E. & Bochner, A. P. (2011). Autoethnography: An Overview. Historical Social Research / Historische Sozialforschung, 36(4 (138)), 273–290. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23032294 
Hejl, C., K. (2024). Quality in educational dialogue – Investigating dialogic practices in Nordic classrooms [Ph.D-afhandling, Syddansk Universitet]. https://portal.findresearcher.sdu.dk/en/publications/quality-in-educational-dialogue-investigating-dialogic-practices-/  
Iskov, T. (2020). Læreruddannelsens andenordensdidaktik. Studier I læreruddannelse Og -Profession, 5(1), 92–114. https://doi.org/10.7146/lup.v5i1.116353 
Littleton, K. & Mercer, N. (2013).   Interthinking, Putting Talk to work, Routledge. 
Mercer, Neil (2004). Sociocultural Discourse Analysis: analyzing classroom talk as a social mode of thinking, Equinox Publishing.
Wegerif, R. (2013). Towards a dialogic theory of how children learn to think, University of Exeter, ORE Open Research Exeter.