Nudging dialogic pedagogical design of peer feedback towards exploratory collaboration: a four-year educational design research study

Dialogical peer feedback is an important element of socio-cultural pedagogy design. However, many student teachers have unbeneficial experiences with dialogical – or collaborative – peer feedback. To advance the development of theory and pedagogical support practices for dialogical, collaborative, and exploratory peer feedback, this study combined theories of dialogical peer feedback, higher-level collaborative learning, and exploratory social thinking. Video data collected during a four-cycle educational design research study (conducted over four years in subject teacher education) were analysed to identify observable patterns in students’ interaction modes. The research design involved yearly shifts in pedagogical support practices towards (a) feedback exemplars involving repetition and multiple presentational modalities and (b) demonstrations exemplifying dialogicality and the use of a feedback protocol. The results show that each yearly change in pedagogical design nudged students’ interactions towards more dialogical and exploratory feedback across successive cohorts, while unilateral feedback and demonstrations of individual expertise became less common.