Improving the Quality of Children’s Discussions about Learning (original) (raw)
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The Digest edition 2009/2 : Talking to learn: dialogue in the classroom
This Digest is focused on research studies about using classroom talk for improving learning, and particularly on the use of teaching methods incorporating classroom dialogue. A selection of websites is listed and a full reference list provided. Links to those references for which full-text online access is freely available are also included. Classrooms are full of talk: some commentators have even suggested that schools are ‘saturated’ with it. There are different types of classroom talk for a range of different purposes. An international research study conducted in primary classrooms in five countries (the ‘Five Nations Study’) has demonstrated the powerful learning effects of skilfully used ‘dialogic teaching’. This approach has been defined as classroom teaching where teachers and children both make substantial and significant contributions through which children’s thinking on particular ideas and or themes is moved forward (Mercer & Littleton, 2007). Another description of dial...
Quiet pupils can be effective learners
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This paper investigates the importance for pupils’ learning of being generally visibly active participant in a classroom discussion. A class of six year-old pupils was taught about the human skeletal system and other organs. To determine what they had learnt, they were asked to produce drawings before and after the course of teaching. The pupils’ participation in the class discussion during the course of teaching was given values on a scale from 1–8, the most talkative receiving the value 1 and the least talkative (or most quiet) the value 8. The study showed that the less talkative the pupils were in the discussion the more they gained from the teaching. The results could not be accounted for by ceiling effects and similar patterns obtained across the materials used support the robustness of the findings. The study suggests that it cannot be assumed that participating in classroom discussion during the learning process is a necessary precondition for learning.
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This paper reports the findings of a systematic review of the literature looking at what characterises effective teacher-initiated teacher-pupil dialogue to promote conceptual understanding in mathematics lessons in Key Stages 2 to 4. The review was based on an in-depth analysis of 15 studies. Eight key characteristics were identified: going beyond IRF (Initiation-Response-Feedback); focusing attention on mathematics rather than performativity; working collaboratively with pupils; transformative listening; scaffolding; enhancing pupils' self-knowledge concerning how to make use of teacher-pupil dialogue as a learning experience; encouraging high quality pupil dialogue; and inclusive teaching.
2015
How do we teach children to philosophize? To think in a critical, agentive, creative, collaborative, and reflective manner? These are complex questions that are at the heart of the articles within this special issue in general and in Eva Marsal’s contribution in particular. In our commentary we will not discuss what philosophizing with children is (or should be), but instead we will draw upon the notion of productive classroom dialogue, which is an elaboration of Sarah Michaels’ and Cathy O’Connor’s work on productive talk, to reflect on both these general questions and Marsal’s ideas on philosophizing and dialoguing with children in primary school classrooms.
Dialogic practices in primary school classrooms
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Research into classroom dialogue suggests that certain forms are especially productive for students' learning. Despite the large number of studies in this area, there is inadequate evidence about the prevalence of the identified forms, let alone their productivity. However, scarcity is widely presumed. The overall aim of the study reported in this article was to examine the extent to which the forms are embedded within current practice in English primary schools. Video-recordings of two lessons from each of 36 classrooms formed the database, with two subjects from mathematics, English and science covered in each classroom. Each lesson was coded per turn for the presence of 'dialogic moves' and rated overall for the level of student involvement in specified activities. Results revealed that the supposedly productive forms were not always as scarce as sometimes presumed, while also highlighting huge variation in their relative occurrence. They also point to the role of professional development (PD) for teachers in promoting use of some forms.
Widening Access to Educational Opportunities through Teaching Children how to Reason Together
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