Effective teacher⇆student dialogue:: a model from biological education

This article considers effective dialogue between teacher and student essential for promoting meaningful learning in the classroom. Effective dialogue enables teachers, and students to be active in the:construction of shared understanding by making explicit the overlap between the perspective held by novice (student) and expert (teacher). Concept maps provide a visual tool to illustrate such overlap. in understanding, and create something tangible to promote meaningful discussion. A description of a model of practice to help uncover and explore this overlap is given.