To compete in the knowledge economy of the 21st century, organizations need to innovate and develop new capabilities to harness values of knowledge resources (Carlucci, 2014). Consequently, education of the workforce must adapt to the new business environments in the knowledge economy. In Singapore, the key goals suggested by the Committee on the Future Economy (2017) include the need for workers to develop and apply deep skills and strengthening enterprise abilities to innovate and scale up innovative practices. It is thus imperative to identify and improve adult learning approaches that can enhance the capacity of our workers to be innovative and productive knowledge workers.

A promising approach is dialogic teaching, which refers to “a pedagogical approach that involves students in the collaborative construction of meaning and is characterized by shared control over the key aspects of classroom discourse.” (Reznitskaya & Gregory, 2013, p. 114) It gives learners agency and control over their learning processes and topics for inquiry, and more critically, engages them in collaborative meaning making and tapping into their rich experiences as resources for learning. Dialogical inquiry, knowledge building and co-construction, all aspects of this study, are important future readiness capabilities. Yet, research on a dialogic approach to adult learning is limited, internationally and locally. This qualitative project collects a rich range of data from two courses in two different Masters programs conducted at NIE, NTU to address the following research questions:

1. How do adult learners in formal graduate courses 1 develop awareness of their inquiry and how do they co-construct knowledge?

2. How do adult learners perceive the relevance and effectiveness of dialogical approach to teaching and learning?

3. What are the implications of the dialogical approach for the practices of adult educators?