Arya, P., Christ, T., & Chiu, M. (2014). Facilitation and teacher behaviors: An analysis of teachers’ video-case discussions. Journal of Teacher Education, 65(2), 111-127.
As a teacher educator, I’ve staked a career on the belief that it is the teacher who makes the difference when it comes to student learning. I believe that what we do and say in classrooms, and how we do and say it, can make an impact on whether our students learn, how much they learn, and at what levels they learn.
One of the areas where teachers can make an impact is the kinds of talking they do in the classroom. I’ve recently become more and more fascinated with the nature of teacher talk and its effects on learning. As a teacher educator, my “lab” for trying different kinds of talk is my literacy methods courses, and Arya et al’s study takes place within a similar context.
The study documented the talk of 14 teachers who were enrolled in a graduate practicum and were teaching in elementary schools. The first two authors were their professors, and the course focused on literacy assessment. Data collection focused on capturing the discussions these teachers and their professors had as they watched video cases depicting the implementation of various literacy assessments. Discussions were recorded and coded for the various kinds of talk engaged in by both the teachers and the professors. The coded data were then analyzed using some complex data analysis procedures (invented by the third author) that were designed to reveal patterns in this classroom talk. The researchers were especially interested in what kinds of teacher talk about the case videos seemed to be associated with various kinds of peer and professor talk that preceded it. Although cause and effect cannot be determined here (as the authors are careful to remind us), there’s a definite sense that when a teacher hears certain kinds of talk from peers and professors, that teacher is more likely to engage in the kinds of talk that we want teachers in a graduate practicum to be doing about literacy assessment.
As happens to me a lot these days (my graduate program went as far as multiple regression analysis and factor analysis, and those were considered sophisticated then), I found the description of the analytic methods dizzying, though fascinating. We can look at data on phenomena like classroom talk so much more easily today that we could only a few years ago. Out of only 12 discussions involving 14 teachers and two professors, the researchers were able to capture and code a total of 1,787 discussion “turns” (the unit of analysis in the study). The researchers note that some recorded data was inaudible, but they state that it was 1%--and they word this admission as if it was a significant limitation of the study! Not long ago, the loss of data due to poor quality recordings was just a part of life when recording classroom events. You could just expect to lose some of the data. Now, devices are so advanced that 1% is a disaster because it means it wasn’t 100%.
I don’t pretend to understand the statistical procedures involved here, though I admire how the researchers were able to construct a model that looked not only at what was said, but when it was said and how different kinds of talk were sequenced. Anyone who has been in a classroom knows that it isn’t just what is said, it is when. Timing is everything, and this research attempted to capture that. The methods here are still experimental, but they have a lot of potential.
The actual findings here were less interesting than how the research was designed. I did take note of some of the kinds of talk that seemed to generate higher level talk by teachers. In teaching, it seems that it is those “Why?” questions that really prompt higher level thinking. Prompts that help learners make connections also seem powerful, as do affirmations that one is on the right track and that others have similar experiences and thoughts. As I read through some of the samples of classroom exchanges provided here, I found myself highlighting words that were used that had these kinds of effects. Here were some that stood out to me:
“What do you notice?” (This was a big one in the context observed here; it’s one of my favorite prompts for all ages.)
“Why did you say that . . . ?” (Here’s another really big one that automatically kicks the level up a notch; it’s what we are trying to do with children these days when we ask them to cite evidence for their assertions.)
“Why did you . . .?”
“How many of you . . . ? Do you . . . ?”
“I think the same thing.”
“What’s the purpose . . . ?”
These kinds of talk seem to generate more of the same kinds of talk, and get people going at higher levels of thinking and talking. The authors use a fire metaphor to discuss this phenomenon; they write about connections that “ignite” more connections or prompts that do or do not “spark” certain kinds of talk (p. 122). That is an apt metaphor, I think; I might also offer that certain kinds of talk can be a bridge, or maybe a chain, to other kinds of talk. Of course, there are certain kinds of talk that do not generate higher level talk; some kinds of teacher talk can cut off responses or limit where they can go. We don’t see much about that here, but it is just as important to be aware of the kind of talk we don’t want to do as it is to be aware of the kind we do want to do.
Learning about teacher talk can help us better shape the kinds of talk we do as teachers and promote among learners, whether they are teachers or children. The ante is up for teacher educators, because at the same time we are teaching the content and skills of our profession, our own teaching behavior is under the microscope, and we have to be sure we are models of good teaching for the teachers we are educating. Arya et al’s research is helpful for me in that endeavor. These findings tell me that effective teacher talk is a skill that can be observed, studied, and learned. If we are aware of our talk and how it affects learning, if we can learn from good models, and if we have the opportunity to practice in a safe, supportive context, we CAN change our talk, and that of the learners we work with, for the better.
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