Education as Dialogic Relational Processes of Collaborative Sensemaking: Techniques to inspire dialogic conversations

Keywords: dialogic process; sensemaking; active learning

Abstract: Professors usually recognize that dialogue is important, but often have limited tools at their disposal. In this session, participants will practice a “generative dialogic process” and “socially constructed sensemaking” in an exercise that helps participants understand that all social meaning/construction is a co-created process. The facilitators of this 90-minute activity will lead the participants in the use of a generative dialogic teaching technique through a context mapping exercise. The professors guiding this exercise used these techniques for graduate students in organizational behavior and organization development, but by adapting the topic of focus, the technique works well with undergrad students as well.