"Our own experiences with learning about Paideia Seminars and dialogic discussion in general have led us to see the teacher, what she does and does not do, as pivotal."
(Billings, L., & Fitzgerald, J., 2002)

TEACHER DEVELOPMENT

“Our own experiences with learning about Paideia Seminars and dialogic discussion in general have led us to see the teacher, what she does and does not do, as pivotal. In our eyes, the teacher bears a great burden for initiating dialogic discussion, for setting the stage, for turning students’ outlooks on what it means to discuss.”
Billings, L., & Fitzgerald, J. (2002). Dialogic discussion and the Paideia seminar. American Educational Research Journal, 39(4), 907-941.

Several of the key participants [teachers] stated that the Paideia seminar was helping them build relationships with other teachers.
Mangrum, J. (2004). The evolution of a professional learning community: the role of dialogue initiated through faculty Paideia seminars. Unpublished doctoral dissertation.

“In addition to the demands of teaching in Adler’s three modes, Paideia teachers must fully understand how to integrate curricular areas. This requires a good knowledge of all contents.”
Nesselrodt, P. & Schaffer, E. (1993). Results from the first year of a nationwide, multi-method evaluation of innovative programs serving at-risk students: implementation of The Paideia Proposal. Atlanta, GA.: American Educational Research Association.

“The most significant finding that we derived from our year-long study of the Paideia Seminar in Lynne Murray’s classroom was that the seminars began to improve only when she focused considerable post-seminar time and energy on assessing what happened during the dialogue and then used the data gleaned from that assessment to deliberately plan the next seminar in the series.”

“Part of Lynne Murray’s planning always reflected appropriate sections of the North Carolina Standard Course of Study, specifically that which she was responsible for delivering to her students.”

In reflecting on the very first seminar of the semester, the August 22, 2002 seminar on “The Hoard,” she wrote: While I was pleased with the level of interaction, my map tells me that we need to build the number of textual references. I had three males involved in sidebar conversations, and they were very, very quiet [in terms of speaking to the group]. The dialogue was dominated by 8 people, and 5 people didn’t speak at all. We need to work on encouraging everyone to speak in seminar and make the sidebar guys feel comfortable enough to share their ideas with the whole group. (Reflection, August 22, 2002)

Billings, L. & Roberts, T. (2004) “Planning, Practice, and Assessment in the Seminar Classroom,” High School Journal (in press).