Challenges for Preservice Teachers in Learning to Lead Discussions: Inquiry in Diverse Classrooms

• In Event: 77.040 - Literacy and Inquiry-Based Teaching

Abstract

While research documents learning and academic affordances of discussion, less is known about how novice teachers learn to enact discussion and how teacher education supports such learning, especially for culturally and linguistically diverse classes. Our study features an innovation to guide and learn from 115 preservice teachers over five years about their first attempts at class discussion and the challenges they report in this work. Analyzing data from teachers’ classroom-based inquiry, including videos, student surveys, and written reflections, we identified a broad set of themes in dialogic first-attempts and student-focused and teacher preparation related challenges in realizing the potential of dialogic instruction.

Authors

• Steven Z. Athanases, University of California - Davis

• Sergio L. Sanchez, University of California - Davis