Quantitative Modelling of Implicit Social Communication in Teacher-Student Interactions: A New Route Toward Inclusivity

• In Event: AERA Graduate Student Research-in-Progress Roundtable Session 2
  In Roundtable Session: Examinations of Teaching and Learning From Pre-School to Graduate School (Table 9)

Abstract

The present study continues the unearthing of novel insights by dissolving historic boundaries between social, cognitive, and affective dynamics by randomly assigning undergraduate students to engage in novel scientific reasoning tasks with their science teacher from the previous semester, or a teacher with equivalent classroom experience who they have never met before. Familiarity moderated the relationship between facial action synchrony and student performance, such that students working with a familiar teacher learned procedural rules faster, and scored higher the more they synchronized their facial actions with their teacher. Unfamiliar dyads didn't show this relationship until the second task. These results suggest that student learning may be improved by teachers and students taking time to 'get in synch' before learning tasks.

Author

• Joshua Friedman, Teachers College, Columbia University