First, the students are given a worksheet with a series of tasks on which they work independently. They are asked to note all of the steps and ideas along the way in a so-called “learning journal”. These journals are handed in and the teacher chooses the most notable contributions to be discussed in class. (“Collection of autographs”)
“This is the idea of “dialogic learning”: it arises whenever students' texts are used as the point of departure for further progress in the following lessons.”
The author illustrates his method with an example by a girl from his class who was able to generate a core-idea for the technique of completing the tasks on the worksheet. Based on this idea she developed the general formula to solve any quadratic equation.
The article, which can be downloaded here, will be of interest to all teachers who want to try out new methods on the path of dialogic learning. We are convinced that the method of working with learning journals and collections of autographs can be adapted to other topics in a range of teaching subjects!
Full article
Forum group "Mathematics" see here