Abstract
Considerable evidence supports claims that a dialogic teaching approach which is collective, supportive, reciprocal, deliberative, cumulative and purposeful provides opportunities for students and teachers to co-construct understanding. In a higher education seminar context, it is crucial that students engage in classroom discourse that encourages reasoning, justification and argumentation to develop disciplinary understanding. However, there is little focus on what disciplinary higher education discourse looks like and what opportunities for 'dialogic space' are afforded. This chapter puts to work Lefstein's conceptual framework of the interactional, cognitive and relational dimensions of dialogue and Alexander's six principles of dialogic teaching and answers the following questions: How are dialogic dimensions and the six principles of dialogic teaching reflected in classroom discourse? Which dialogic dimensions and principles of dialogic teaching are reflected in teachers' commentary on their classroom discourse? The chapter outlines how the classroom talk and dialogic interaction can support or impede the co-construction of disciplinary understanding and suggests ways in which teachers and students can better understand these processes, for example, through practice-based research.