The Role of Physical Positioning in Collaborative Group Work in a Secondary Mathematics Classroom (Poster 34)

• In Event: AERA Virtual Poster Session 2
  In Poster Session: Mathematics Education Research

Abstract

When students engage in collaborative activity, they negotiate the roles that they take on. This negotiation occurs not only verbally, but also via gesture, bodily movements, and physical positioning. Further, teachers’ interactions with groups of students extend beyond words exchanged and include gaze, physical location, and other aspects of physical positioning. The goal of this paper is to examine the role of physical positioning in an episode of joint exploration among a teacher and a group of students by analyzing the physical positioning of the individuals and associated shifts in authority. This work extends previous analyses of groupwork to center physical positioning and suggests that shifts in physical positioning may be associated with key shifts in authority in a group.

Authors

• Erika David Parr, Rhodes College

• Nessrine Machaka, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

• Elizabeth B. Dyer, University of Tennessee

• Christina Krist, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign