Dialogic understanding of teachers' online transformative learning: A qualitative case study of teacher discussions in a graduate-level online course

• Bakhtin’s Dialogism deepened our understanding of teacher discussions and learning.
• Dialogic online teacher-to-teacher discussions led to teacher transformative learning.
• Teacher transformative learning supported their educational use of technologies.
• Essential characteristics of dialogic teacher-to-teacher discussions were analyzed.
• Developing a supportive online course CoP facilitated dialogic teacher discussions.

Teachers are expected to implement new educational technologies and adapt to new teaching environments. However, it involves a complex learning process that can lead to their perspective transformation. We have developed and taught a discussion-based online course to facilitate teachers' transformative learning. This qualitative case study examines teachers' perspective transformation in our course to understand the nature of effective online teacher-to-teacher discussions. Based on a theoretical framework that integrates Mezirow's transformative learning model and Bakhtin's dialogism, this paper builds on previous literature on teacher-to-teacher discussions as well as providing a fresh perspective to inform the current globalized teacher education context.