Welcome to the conference!

On behalf of the Academy of Professional Dialogue, we are delighted to welcome you to the eighth in a series of annual international conferences The World Needs Dialogue! The three online half-days with people from all over the world include whole-group plenary sessions, focused dialogic enquiries, spotlit microcosms and paired break-outs where you can meet others and discover what interests you have in common. You can learn more about the subtle and powerful influence of dialogue, and add your experience to the way we all learn together.

Jane Ball, Peter Garrett and Bill Isaacs (Hosts)

What is the conference all about?

The conference theme this year is the radical proposal: Dialogue as a Way of Learning. Teaching and training have long been assumed to be the obvious source of learning. But we now find ourselves in a fast-changing world where we don't need to learn anything to have the answer. Knowledge and information are becoming freely available to all. The automatic reaction to any question is to look up the answer. It used to be found in the book, but now it is immediately accessible online and through AI. Why bother to think about it if the answer is a couple of clicks away? This has implications. It disincentivizes thinking for oneself. It reduces the fabric of relationships. It places the authority in an external source that is of unknown origin and includes persuasive misinformation.

In this conference we will be exploring the three social Learning Spaces where much of our learning occurs: in the school classroom, the university campus and the employment workplace. What difference would it make if they incorporated Dialogue as a Way of Learning? Dialogue is more about knowing and know-how than it is about knowledge. In dialogue people can test their own and others' assumptions, explore what logic or reasoning is most helpful, and consider the potential consequences of a decision before making it. This has implications. Dialogue calls for authenticity and authoring one's own solutions. It places the authority back with the individual and their own first-hand learning, and encourages developmental learning in relationship with others.

This conference introduces and celebrates the significance of a Dialogic Classroom, a Dialogic Campus, and a Dialogic Workplace. Together, we will explore how to bring them about.