A model of dialogic teacher transformation: Evidence from a three-year research-practice partnership

While dialogic teaching is recognized as an effective pedagogical approach, limited research examines how teachers' understanding of dialogue evolves through sustained, school-embedded professional development and the conditions that enable such progression. This study followed teachers' dialogic transformation over three years in a school-embedded collaborative research-practice partnership. Data included 37 interviews and observations, analyzed thematically and temporally.Findings reveal that teachers' dialogic understanding transformed from technical conceptions through cognitive, social, and collaborative dimensions to ontological appropriation. The study introduces 'dialogic personality' —a coherent sense of self encompassing dialogic principles as a fundamental way of being— as a key indicator of transformation. The study presents a three-dimensional model of transformation: conceptual progression, experiential expansion, and institutional-relational integration combining individual development with institutional capacity building. The model explains why traditional professional development achieves limited impact and highlights research-practice partnerships' affordances in fostering teacher growth and institutional capacity for sustained dialogic practice.