Introducing Online Dialogues in Co-Located Classrooms: If, Why, and How

These are exciting times for scholars of dialogic instruction and learning. As extensively shown in this volume, over 35 years of research has accumulated evidence on the impact of structured dialogue on student learning and cognitive development. The fact that these findings are consistent across theoretical frameworks, research paradigms, and educational settings is encouraging and significantly adds to the robustness of the findings. However, the majority of this research has looked at face-to-face (F2F) interactions. Today, a considerable amount of communication among teachers, among students, and between teachers and students has migrated to the digital sphere, either alongside or instead of F2F communication.