Dialogue beyond the spoken word is important in teaching and learning, even digitally

Even in digital courses, it’s not just the spoken word that’s important. Aspects such as tone of voice, eye contact, and gratitude are also important, as research from the University of Würzburg shows.

The pandemic has ushered in a huge boom in digital education events. Depending on the incidence and the respective regulations, instructors and students met completely digitally in specially arranged Zoom meetings. Alternatively, some students sat at a safe distance in the lecture hall while others studied at home using his PC to complete the lesson.

A team from the Julius-Maximilians-University Würzburg Institute of Education (JMU) investigated how these different settings affect teaching and learning using two seminars for the summer 2023 semester. The study was conducted by Regina Egetenmayer, professor of adult and continuing education at JMU, and sociologist Ramon Flecha, professor emeritus at the University of Barcelona and visiting professor at the Institute of Education at the time.Researchers are currently publishing their findings. Interdisciplinary Educational Research Journal.

Interactive teaching also works in a synchronous hybrid teaching setup

“This study shows that thinking about dialogue in teaching and learning situations beyond spoken language is highly relevant. Therefore, the teacher’s job is to observe learners and “It’s about designing appreciative dialogue in teaching and learning situations,” Egetenmayer summarizes. The central result of her research. Her two seminars in the summer 2023 semester showed that this is also possible at events where some students are present on-site and some connect via computer.

In fact, this study shows that interactive teaching has a positive effect on students, even in a synchronous hybrid teaching environment, where it is not just the words spoken that matter, but the tone of voice, Eye contact and gratitude are also important. “This assessment shows that students consider dialogue to be very positive to the learning process. In some cases, they even believe that dialogue has transformative potential when it comes to character development. ,” says Egetenmayer.

It is not enough to look only at speech acts

Explaining the background of the research, Professor Ramon Flecha says, “Recently, scholars have intensively studied issues related to interactive education, not only face-to-face, but also online and in hybrid sessions.” However, in his view, most analyzes of dialogue education are reduced to equating it with dialogue with words, so-called speech acts. But he says it has long been clear that looking at speech acts alone is not enough to capture dialogue, because speech acts do not take into account central aspects of human relationships.

“Therefore, new theoretical developments are taking place in place of traditional theories, one of which is the shift from speech acts to communicative acts,” said study co-author Professor Marta Soler from the University of Barcelona. ” he says. These are characterized by communication not only through words but also through signs such as appearance, pitch of voice, and body language. Therefore, it is possible to develop interactive education that goes beyond words. However, so far no empirical studies have been conducted based on this theoretical approach. The study published by the Spanish-German team is therefore the first of its kind in this field.

Positive reviews from students

Two seminars in JMU’s undergraduate master’s program were the focus of the study. Participation was possible both physically and digitally. In the synchronous hybrid seminar, students were provided with supporting materials. There you can also provide anonymous feedback about individual events. In parallel, the research team carefully monitored all forms of communication related to the seminar and created a document analysis of all feedback written by students at the end of each session.

Ane López de Aguirreta of the University of Barcelona, ​​who is also a visiting researcher at the University of Würzburg, said: “Our evaluations show that students consistently approve of this form of dialogical education, which is based on communicative acts that go beyond verbal acts. “I evaluate it based on the criteria.” during the summer term. On the other hand, seminar participants were very satisfied with their learning success. On the one hand, they believed that this method could be used to make a difference in their subsequent professional lives, such as in educational projects.

Based on this research, Egetenmeyer and Freka are currently investigating other teaching-learning environments at the University of Würzburg regarding the importance of “dialogic teaching beyond words” in order to expand knowledge about the possibilities of innovative teaching. I am thinking of doing so.