What is T-SEDA?
T-SEDA stands for Toolkit for Systematic Educational Dialogue Analysis. It’s a collection of tools and resources to support you in promoting high-quality dialogue in your teaching and learning setting. These are openly available under a Creative Commons BY Attribution license, permitting re-use and modification.
The toolkit can help you carry out a reflective inquiry to find out more about the dialogue in your setting and to make the changes that you want to see.
This page and accompanying supporting resources will be available in the following languages – those already available are highlighted.
Why use T-SEDA?
Dialogue is linked to learning gains and higher student participation. The toolkit offers lots of practical support for developing dialogic approaches in your context.
T-SEDA has been used by 100s of practitioners in at least 15 countries to date.
Who is T-SEDA for?
Practitioners working at any educational level:
- With learners of any age, from young children to adults
- With professional colleagues
- In any subject or area of focus
Where can T-SEDA be used?
- face-to-face or online learning settings
- formal settings such as school classrooms and university seminars
- informal settings such as children’s clubs
Try out T-SEDA! We invite any interested teachers, lecturers, school leaders and professional development leaders to try out T-SEDA. See the self-paced introductory mini-courses below to learn more.
T-SEDA Courses
Camtree offers courses to help you use the T-SEDA toolkit to develop high-quality dialogue in your teaching and learning setting.
D101: What is educational dialogue?
This is the first of three free, introductory, Level 1 courses about Educational Dialogue from Camtree. It introduces the idea of educational dialogue and T-SEDA: the Toolkit for Systematic Educational Dialogue Analysis. The course will take you about 25-30 minutes. You will need to be a registered Camtree member
D102: How dialogic is your practice?
This is the second of three free, introductory, Level 1 courses about Educational Dialogue from Camtree. It involves you in auditing your existing practice and introduces the T-SEDA coding scheme. The course will take you about 25-30 minutes. You will need to be a registered Camtree member
D103: Reflective inquiry with T-SEDA
This is the third of three free, introductory, Level 1 courses about Educational Dialogue from Camtree. It introduces the T-SEDA reflective cycle and prepares you to undertake an inquiry into an aspect of educational dialogue. The course will take you about 25-30 minutes. You will need to be a registered Camtree member
T-SEDA in the Camtree Digital Library
If you have used T-SEDA to carry out an inquiry into practice, we would encourage you to write it up using one of Camtree’s research report templates for publication in the Camtree Digital Library. Here are some of the most recent reports published in the library which have used T-SEDA:
- Boissard, Bénédicte: Can whole class discussion effectively prompt self-reflection on personal opinions? A T-SEDA inquiry in Québec
Setting: Upper secondary education, Canada Added: 12-02-2024 Permalink: https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14069/446 - Boissard, Bénédicte: T-SEDA trial in a French-speaking context: setting up educational dialogue in secondary 4 Québec-Canada history courses
Setting: Upper secondary education, Canada Added: 28-03-2023 Permalink: https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14069/44 - Feliciani, Karolyn: How can microblogging be used to facilitate an online community of practice and increase dialogic thinking?
Setting: Short-cycle tertiary education, Pakistan Added: 26-02-2023 Permalink: https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14069/43 - West, Rachel: How might explicitly increasing the use of dialogic approaches affect whole-group dialogue in virtual teacher professional development session run for an international examination board?
Setting: Lower secondary education, United States of America Added: 07-11-2022 Permalink: https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14069/41 - Connolly, Liam: Developing meaningful child-led class discussions: centring children in classroom dialogue to motivate learning and encourage oracy development
Setting: Primary education, United Kingdom Added: 28-09-2022 Permalink: https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14069/32
You can find these and further reports, along with resources developed by educators and examples of the T-SEDA tools, in the Camtree Digital Library.
Contact Us
Feedback is welcome about any elements of the T-SEDA materials and is incorporated into the toolkit on an ongoing basis. Please contact us with your suggestions, comments or adapted resources.
Register here for Camtree mailing list and T-SEDA updates
Further info and mailing list: T-SEDA@educ.cam.ac.uk, camtree@hughes.cam.ac.uk
Research team: Prof. Sara Hennessy (sch30@cam.ac.uk)
Cambridge Educational Dialogue Research Group
To cite the T-SEDA toolkit: T-SEDA Collective (2023). Toolkit for Systematic Educational Dialogue Analysis (T-SEDA): A resource for inquiry into practice. v.9. University of Cambridge. http://bit.ly/T-SEDA
Sara Hennessy, Ruth Kershner, Elisa Calcagni, Farah Ahmed, Victoria Cook, Laura Kerslake, Lisa Lee and Maria Vrikki of the University of Cambridge Faculty of Education, and Nube Estrada and Flora Hernández of the National Autonomous University of Mexico. We are very grateful to the numerous colleagues who have contributed in some way or other to T-SEDA development over the last few years. This includes those who assisted with translation into Spanish, Chinese, French, Arabic, Italian, Japanese, Hebrew and Dutch (Ana Laura Trigo Clapés, Elisa de Padua, Elisa Izquierdo, Qian Liu, Yun Long, Ji Ying, Chih Ching Chang, Delphine Cestonaro, Benzi Slakmon, Orianne Monashe, Orly Shapira, Haydeé Ceballos, Keiko Aramaki, Tomonori Ichiyanagi, Ayano Ikeda, Kaori Kanai, Naomi Kagawa, Kiyomi Shijo, Lu Xiaoyun, Arwa Al Qassim, Chiara Piccini, Patricia Brooks).
The original work on T-SEDA (and its precursor SEDA) was supported by the British Academy (International Partnership and Mobility Scheme) through the 3-year project entitled “A Tool for Analysing Dialogic Interactions in Classrooms” (2013-2015), led by Sara Hennessy and Sylvia Rojas-Drummond at the University of Cambridge, UK, and the National Autonomous University of Mexico: http://tinyurl.com/BAdialogue. The Mexican work was supported by the Dirección General de Asuntos del Personal Académico of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (DGAPA-UNAM) (PAPIIT Project Number: IN303313 and PAPIME Number: PE305814). We appreciate the support of the Economic and Social Research Council (RES063270081; RES000230825), sponsor of most of the UK team’s preceding work in this area. Our most recent ESRC project (ES/M007103/1) entitled ‘Classroom Dialogue: Does it Make a Difference for Student Learning?’ (Christine Howe, Sara Hennessy, Neil Mercer, Maria Vrikki & Lisa Wheatley, 2015-17: http://tinyurl.com/ESRCdialogue) drew on SEDA to develop CDAS, a new 12-category scheme and rating scales, testing them extensively with a large sample of 72 teachers of children aged 10-11. Statistical analyses of the relationships between dialogic teaching and student attainment and attitudes produced findings that have shaped this version of the toolkit. An ESRC Impact Acceleration grant supported further development of the toolkit and trials across diverse educational contexts in seven countries in 2018-19.
T-SEDA is used globally by practitioners from pre-school years to higher education. We thank all of the facilitators, teachers and students who participated in our research and testing across several countries from which examples in this toolkit have been taken with their kind permission. Some names have been changed where teachers wished to remain anonymous. Photographs appearing in the toolkit are derived from our research studies; permissions have been received to use them for educational purposes.
