Teaching as conversation: the methods adopted by an inside inquirer of social work relationship based teaching

The focus of the article is an attempt to answer my question of how I develop a relationship based practice as a social work educator (Walker, 2014). There has been recognition in the UK of a need for social workers to develop effective relationships with service users and professionals. In response, I am inquiring into how I can teach using a relationship based approach. The approach is built on a combination of Edwards and Richards (2002) Relational/Cultural model, the Matching Principle introduced by Ward (2010), the metaphor of “teaching as conversation” McNamee (2007), theoretically underpinned by systemic practice. I intend to capture the naturally occurring dialogue in the teaching environment by audio recording teaching sessions and analyse the recordings usingCoordinated Management of Meaning (CMM). This provides a framework of analysis incorporating interactive patterns between emotion, meaning and action.