What Do Teachers Imagine Classroom Talk Accomplishes? Aligning Purposes for Meaningful Student Learning

• In Event: 14.043 - Roundtable Session 1
  In Roundtable Session: 14.043-5 - Classroom Talk and Preparing Teachers for Work With Diverse Student Populations

Abstract

Purpose
Preservice teachers (candidates) face compound challenges in their fieldwork, including managing classroom talk. The purpose of this study was to instantiate the identified “core practice” (Grossman et al., 2009) of fostering academic discussions in teacher preparation to disrupt candidates’ reductive practices and promote equity.
Perspectives
Vygotsky (1998) explicitly links speech with understanding, situating language as a means for social interaction that reflects thinking and inevitably leads to learning. In English classrooms, classroom talk often revolves around response to literature, with the purpose of students’ developing and deepening understanding of complex texts. However, the continued pattern of “discussion” in ELA uses either the Initiate-Respond-Evaluate (I-R-E) pattern (Cazden, 2001), or reproductive, closed questioning, limiting language leading to meaningful learning (Applebee et al., 2003). Academic discussions engage students in conversations, use language to discuss abstract concepts, and construct meaning with text for the purpose of enriching their lives and the lives of others (Appleman, 2009; Langer, 2011; Lewis, 2000).
This work is critical in preparing students for participation in a democratic society (Banks, 2004; Gurin, Nagda, & Lopez, 2004) to forward individual and community interests through dialogue from informed perspectives. Grappling with facilitation of academic discussion as a core-practice is centered on proming reasoned argument, developing multiple perspectives and alternate interpretations, and testing hypotheses. Attempting to shift teacher-controlled classroom talk to teacher facilitated discussions led to the question: What practices might prepare candidates’ to facilitate academic discussions?
Method
Qualitative case-study methods followed five candidates over two methods courses and into their fieldwork practicum, totaling 30 weeks; the researcher was the instructor for two participants. The coursework and fieldwork were designed to embed instruction during methods courses for candidates to examine expectations, rehearse in fieldwork, then debrief and revise (McDonald et al., 2013). Data included work samples of planning, lesson video of teaching rehearsals and revisions; transcripts of debriefings and informal interviews.
Findings
Evidence revealed adoption of closed-questioning and transmission approaches due to misunderstanding the relationship of a learning objective and learning task. An exemplar of the data was one participant who had planned for critical thinking and student-to-student interactions, reverted to control of knowledge and recall questions. During debriefing, he shared the “need” to “make sure that the low-level kids got it,” which included telling them his version of the text’s meaning. After debriefing this disconnect between his plan and practice, he re-adjusted his purpose from an unintended deficit-centered, reductive approach to productive-questioning leading to students’ shared meaning making. Debriefing was central the process. Participants as a whole noted that classroom talk was not for telling, but for explaining and learning.
Implications
Identifying a core practice within teacher education, and examining how it is instantiated for candidate take-up, forwards the field (c.f., Zeichner, 2012). Developing candidates’ facilitation of academic discussion in ELA allows students to “develop understandings and consider issues on their own” in response to literature (Langer, 2011, p. 63), beginning the shift in paradigms for democratic classrooms, focused on designing opportunities for students’ equitable participation and educational attainment.

Author

• Paula M. Carbone, University of Southern California