Methodological reflections: supervisory discourses and practice-based learning

Abstract

The concept of dialogue is often examined apart from the social and historical context in which it is embedded. This paper identifies how dialogue between a superior and a subordinate generates a reorganisation of situated knowledge in the education and training of nurse teachers. We created an analytic method of supervisory discourse founded on differences between discourse-based and practice-based theories. The findings elicit two forms of dialogues: transformative and exploratory. Through the former, supervisors try to make their students reformulate their understanding by facilitating learning through questions and hints or to support their self-reflections in local contexts. Conversely, exploratory dialogue involves the participants' willingness to raise and share their tacit knowledge, including an orientation towards current practices and relational change, and go beyond the local contexts. We suggest that our findings create ways of understanding the meaning of generative discourse in higher education.

Transformative Authorship Through Critical Dialogue: Concepts, Theory, and Practice

“…As far as transformative learning discussions and future research are concerned, it would be important to have the authoring process guided by some external facilitators. In this regard, our finding of students' weak engagement in learning tasks (constructed as the shared object of learning) (Sarja & Janhonen, 2009) in the absence of pedagogical guidance is consistent with earlier research (cf. Gorli et al, 2015).…”

“…This means that in order to draw strong conclusions, a larger body of empirical data would be required, pertaining to the discursive patterns occurring within cultural contexts. However, on the basis of our previous studies on this data (Sarja & Janhonen, 2009), it was apparent that commitment to the ideals of expansive transformative learning was not very common among the students taking part in the studies.…”

“…In a discourse-based paradigm, transformative dialogue mainly focuses on one’s reflections on professional experiences in a certain situation (Gergen et al, 2001), while a practice-based paradigm involves an orientation towards work practices and a skeptical perspective (Bakhtin et al, 1987; Miettinen, 2000). A central feature of learning of this kind is going beyond a local context, made possible by a communicative competence acquired in professional practice (Sarja & Janhonen, 2009; Tynjälä et al, 2003) 1 .…”

Distributed pedagogical leadership and generative dialogue in educational nodes

“…Within this framework the article introduces the theoretical concepts of distributed pedagogical leadership (Jäppinen, 2009, 2010, in print) and generative dialogue , an effective communicative tool in management activities (Banathy, 1996; Sarja & Janhonen, 2009). We suggest that, through these, instructors are able to strengthen the commitment and self-efficacy of both students and staff and to identify areas of shared or different knowledge (Bandura, 1997).…”

Methodological reflections: designing and understanding computer-supported collaborative learning

“…Related to that, the role of the teacher is changing from that of a monologic (teacher as knowledge recourse explaining to students 'how things are') to a dialogic actor (teacher appointing stimulus for students' shared collaboration and problem solving). This transformation seems to be very demanding (Sarja and Janhonen 2009) as teachers do not typically find pedagogical support from the curricula (Voogt 2008) or collegial collaboration within educational organisations (Hö kkä, Rasku-Puttonen, and Eteläpelto 2008). There is an increasing need for teachers to orchestrate and support the students in shared knowledge construction; thus, instructional planning for effective instruction in technology-enhanced learning (TEL) settings has become an emerging concern in current research of higher education.…”