The role of dialogic feedback in supporting students' active learning in higher education

This paper explores the role of dialogic feedback in supporting active learning among students in higher education. Dialogic feedback is conceptualized as iterative interactions among teacher and students that inform students on the distance between current and desired achievements and potential paths to attaining expected outcomes. It emphasizes the importance of addressing students’ needs to enhance uptake of feedback and encouraging their participation in feedback processes for collaborative knowledge construction with teacher and peers. Using classroom observations and interviews with six teachers and their students, the study investigates how teachers employed active learning tasks to facilitate students’ learning engagement, wherein dialogic feedback played a key role in scaffolding students’ thinking and understanding and providing cognitive and emotional support for them. Copyright © 2015 AERA.