The paper of Judith Kleine Staarman and Neil Mercer introduces a dialogic approach to teaching and learning. Based on previous and current research on student group work and classroom interaction, these authors propose ground rules for teachers and students to establish and sustain constructive classroom dialogue. Sylvia Rojas-Drummond and her colleagues compare the use of talk in two very different collaborative task settings. They found that working together in open ended tasks induces students to use different types of talk than in closed tasks. Linda Biro and her colleagues report on the introduction of a programme for improving collaborative reasoning in multi-ethnic classrooms. These authors created a specific intervention to adapt to the challenges of a class population with diverse cultural and language backgrounds. Eva Vass and her colleagues make visible that collaboration processes show cognitive, social and affective dimensions which cannot be separated because they are integral to the process of collaborative knowledge building. The symposium will end with a discussion of the papers led by Karen Littleton.

This paper describes research on dialogue between teachers and students in primary and secondary classrooms. A central concept for our investigation is ‘dialogic teaching’, which, using the recent comparative, cross-cultural research of Alexander as a basis, has been strongly identified with effective classroom teaching. A second key concept is ‘Exploratory Talk’, a form of reasoned discussion which our own research has shown is associated with successful problem solving in small groups. In the current paper, we bring these two concepts together in an analysis of the strategies that teachers can use to engage students in constructive dialogues related to the teaching and learning of science. The research provides new insights into the discursive processes of teaching and learning in science classrooms and how teachers can use dialogue to support student learning more effectively.

Using qualitative and quantitative methods we have identified ‘Exploratory Teaching Talk’ as a specific kind of whole class dialogue within various possible teaching strategies that form part of a dialogic pedagogy. As with Exploratory Talk, Exploratory Teaching Talk aims to open up a dialogic space in which people are expected to participate, ideas are compared, mistakes are allowed and agreement and shared understanding is sought. We argue that the teacher and the students need to establish ground rules for this kind of dialogue to become possible because the normative basis for this type of whole-class interaction is fundamentally different from more common and well-established transmissive and authoritative styles of interaction.

 

 

A central concept for our investigation is ‘dialogic teaching’, which, using the recent comparative, cross-cultural research of Alexander (2001) as a basis, has been strongly identified with effective classroom teaching. Alexander provides valuable insights into the ways in which pedagogical assumptions shape dialogue in primary classrooms, showing how teachers can encourage students to participate actively in extended dialogues which enable the students to articulate, reflect upon and modify their own understanding – and, conversely, how teachers may actually discourage such active contributions. In our own previous work we have described ways in which children can use language more effectively as a means for learning (Mercer et al, 1999). A key concept in our work has been the notion of Exploratory Talk, which can be defined as talk in which “partners engage critically but constructively with each others’ ideas. Relevant information is offered for joint consideration. Proposals may be challenged and counter-challenged, but if so reasons are given and alternatives are offered. Agreement is sought as a basis for joint progress. Knowledge is made publicly accountable and reasoning is visible in the talk” (Mercer, 2000, pp. 153). In the current paper, we have re-examined the concept of Exploratory Talk in the light of our current project on Dialogic Teaching in science classrooms. In this project, we have identified strategies that teachers can use to engage students in constructive dialogues relating to their perspectives, assumptions and beliefs about natural phenomena. Our main aim has been to describe how differences between everyday and scientific accounts are manifested in classroom dialogue, how they are dealt with by the teacher and what implications this has for the teaching and learning of science. The research provides new insights into the discursive processes of teaching and learning in science classrooms and how teachers can use dialogue to support student learning more effectively.

Our investigation was pursued through the analysis of talk in primary and secondary schools. It involved: 1) identifying and analysing ways in which scientific topics appear and are pursued in teacher-student interactions, through a series of related lessons and activities, 2) evaluating uses of teacher-student dialogue for enabling students to adopt scientific perspectives on natural phenomena and processes and for learning new ways of using language to describe and explain them and 3) relating the temporal analysis of a series of lessons to the quality of students’ learning.

A series of three consecutive lessons on a particular scientific topic have been video-recorded in six primary and six secondary classrooms in the UK. In each lesson we recorded all the teachers’ talk and one or two groups of students. Copies of the written work of all students relating to the science topic were gathered, along with teacher assessments (end of unit tests, and so on). Interviews with teachers before each of the lessons were undertaken to provide information about the intended purposes of specific activities which might be expected to promote classroom dialogue and the development of students’ learning on the selected topics. Interviews with pairs of students were carried out after the final lesson of a sequence and then several weeks later. The interviews were used to elicit the students’ own reflections and insights into interactions during lessons and their perceived value for learning.

We have used both qualitative and quantitative methods for the analysis, involving iterative moves between the qualitative and quantitative procedures, as the preliminary results of each may reveal interesting features which can explored through the other. The qualitative analysis consists of a detailed examination of video and transcript data, using AtlasTi. First we created notes on topic themes, lesson content and non-verbal aspects of interpersonal interaction (including the use of technical equipment and other artefacts). We then traced the ways particular topics, themes and issues were introduced and pursued by participants and we described and distinguished particular types of interaction. Descriptors of types of teacher-student interaction generated in earlier research provided an initial resource, but new descriptors were generated through our analysis. The quantitative analysis involved concordance analysis to generate quantitative measures such as the relative frequency of any speaker’s contributions to a discussion, the collocations of key words and the distributions of particular terms or linguistic forms amongst speakers. Moreover, descriptors generated by qualitative analysis were analysed quantitatively to assess the relative extent to which teachers, individually and collectively, use particular types of interactional strategies.

One of the new descriptors of teacher-student interaction we identified through our analysis was ‘Exploratory Teaching Talk’. We found that there are strong theoretical and conceptual links between Exploratory Talk in groups, as we have defined it previously, and Exploratory Teaching as a specific kind of whole class dialogue within various possible teaching strategies that form part of a dialogic pedagogy. As with Exploratory Talk, Exploratory Teaching Talk aims to open up a dialogic space in which people are expected to participate, ideas are compared, mistakes are allowed and agreement and shared understanding is sought. Just as ground rules for Exploratory Talk need to be established in classrooms, the teacher and the students also need to establish ground rules for Exploratory Teaching Talk. Based on the evidence we gathered in our current project, we cannot assume that students automatically understand how to participate in more exploratory ways of teaching and learning, because the normative basis for this type of whole-class interaction is fundamentally different from more common and well-established transmissive and authoritative styles of interaction (Alexander, 2001; Mortimer & Scott, 2003).

Alexander, R. (2001). Culture and Pedagogy: International Comparisons in Primary Education. Malden, MA: Blackwell.

Mercer, N. (2000). Words and Minds. How we use language to think together. London: Routledge.

Mercer, N., Wegerif, R., & Dawes, L. (1999). Children's talk and the development of reasoning in the classroom. British Educational Research Journal, 25(1), 95-111.

Mortimer, E. F., & Scott, P. H. (2003). Meaning Making in Science Classrooms. Milton Keynes: Open University Press.

 

In this paper we will compare the talk used by 6^th grade children (11 to 12 years old) in two different tasks. In both tasks children worked in triads. The children studied in a state primary school in Mexico City and came from a poor socioeconomic background. They participated in an innovative educational program called “Learning Together”. This programme strives to form a learning community with the participation of the children, their teachers, the administration authorities and University researchers. The first task administered to the children was a closed task – an adaptation of the Ravens Test of Progressive Matrices created by R. Wegerif. In this type of task there is only one correct answer to the problem. In contrast, the second task is an open one where there is not one correct solution. In particular, the task is a psycholinguistic problem where children have to read three texts of different linguistic genres. One is a note from an Encyclopaedia, the second one is a news report and the third one corresponds to an interview. All texts are genuine and talk about the same topic. Children had to read the three texts and write a summary integrating them. Results will be reported comparing the use of the talk by the children in the close versus the open task.  

In this paper we will compare the talk used by 6^th grade children (11 to 12 years old) in two tasks of different nature and corresponding to two knowledge domains: a logic-mathematical one and a psycholinguistic one. In both tasks children worked in triads so that we could analyse their discourse in a microgenetic fashion.

The children studied came from a state primary school in Mexico City and belonged to a poor socioeconomic background. They participated in an innovative educational program called “Learning Together”. This programme strives to form a learning community with the participation of the children, their teachers, the administration authorities and University researchers. The programme strengthens social, cognitive, psycholinguistic and technological abilities in the children in a functional and motivating environment. This contrasts sharply with the atmosphere in their classrooms where, in general, teachers follow a more directive-transmissional approach. The enriching of oral and written language is of particular importance in Mexico given the high indices of functional illiteracy in our population, as shown by international assessments such as those carried out by PISA-OECD (2001, 2004), as well as national ones such as those administered by the National Institute of Educational Evaluation (2005 -INEE).

The first task administered to the children was a closed task – an adaptation of the Ravens Test of Progressive Matrices created by R. Wegerif. In this type of task there is only one correct answer to the problem. In contrast, the second task was an open one where there is not one correct solution. In particular, the task is a psycholinguistic problem where children have to read three texts of different linguistic genres. One is a note from an Encyclopaedia, the second one is a news report and the third one corresponds to an interview. All texts are genuine and talk about the same topic but in very different ways. Children had to read the three texts and write a summary integrating them, and giving their essay a novel title. This task is more creative in the sense that children have to adapt the interview to reported speech, as well as having to generate a unique summary and title which is quite demanding given the differences in texts genres.

In order to analyse the data of the children´s discussions while solving the two tasks administered, we started of by using the method for analysing the different types of talk offered by Neil Mercer (e.g. 2000), which in summary classifies talk as:

1.      Disputational Talk- where there is mainly opposition of ideas but without argumentation. Positions are individualistic and the orientation is mainly competitive rather than to collaborative.

2.      Cumulative Talk – where partners engage positively but   uncritically with each other´s ideas. Knowledge is generated by accumulation, with agreements and elaborations by participants.

3.      Exploratory Talk (ET) – where partners engage critically but constructively with each other´s ideas, giving arguments for their opinions. Participants can express challenges and counter-challenges, but if so, justifications are offered. Reasoning is visible in the talk.

Results will be reported comparing the use of the talk by the children in the close versus the open task. In summary, in the Raven´s test children used mainly cumulative talk in the pre-test and Exploratory Talk (ET) in the post-test. In contrast, in the psycholinguistic task children also used mainly cumulative talk, this time both in the pre- and in the post-test. But for this task we did not consider adequate to use only the same type of analysis as that used hereto because, at first glance, we could perceive changes from the pre- to the post-test which we could not account for using the same methodology as that used to analyse the types of talk proposed by Mercer. So we complemented the analyses by using the Ethnography of Communication (Hymes, 1972). In this methodology Hymes proposes a nested hierarchy where communicative acts are embedded in communicative events, which in turn are embedded in communicative situations. With this methodology, we could confirm that in the psycholinguistic task children used mainly cumulative talk in the pre-test, but used a more sophisticated type of talk, with a greater quantity and sophistication of communicative acts in the post-test. We termed this type of talk “Co-constructive”, following the scheme of types of talk presented below.

Thus, in order to analyse the data of the children´s discussions while solving the two tasks administered, a slightly different version of the types of talk offered by Mercer (e.g. 2000) is proposed, with the following changes:

Previous studies on reasoning skills in multi-ethnic classrooms have shown that migrant children are less successful in schools than native children who speak the school language at home. In order to support students’ reasoning skills we introduced an adapted version of the Thinking Together Program of Dawes, Mercer & Wegerif (2000) in a Dutch multi-ethnic classroom. Because our aim was to introduce the program in a classroom with children with various language and cultural backgrounds, we adapted the program to the educational needs of the population in the classroom. We did so by expanding the program with activities to enhance students’ meta-linguistic and communicative skills.

We set up a pilot project in a Dutch multi-ethnic classroom. The program consisted of 12 lessons and ran from the beginning of November 2006 until the end of March 2007. During the lessons the students always worked together in small groups of three students. We video-recorded the students collaborative activities in the small groups. For comparing the students’ reasoning skills in the small groups before and after the intervention, we also used a pre- and post-test.

In our contribution we will present analyses of our video-data. We will focus on the metalinguistic and intercultural communicative skills which we have fostered in the program. In relationship to the adapted program we will also discuss the improvement of the reasoning skills of the students in the small groups. Preliminary results show that students’ awareness of communicative arrangements is raised, and that students express their ideas in different ways.

Previous studies have shown that migrant children, defined as students with different cultural and linguistic backgrounds, perform less well on standardized tests and are less successful at school than native students (OECD, 2003). There are at least two reasons for this. First, migrant children have deficient linguistic skills with respect to the school language (OECD, 2003). Second, the children may not be familiar with cultural and communicative norms which are used in Dutch and western schools in general (Elbers & De Haan, 2004; De Haan & Elbers, 2005). For example, in some cultural communities, it is not common that children argue with or enter into a discussion with a caregiver or with someone higher in the social hierarchy. In Dutch schools, children are asked to develop such skills, also in the interaction with authority figures such as teachers.

Our study on teaching reasoning skills in multi-ethnic classrooms in Dutch primary education is based on the intervention programme ‘Thinking Together’ by Dawes, Mercer and Wegerif (2004). This programme was developed to improve students’ reasoning skills in classroom talk. The main goal in ‘Thinking Together’ is the development of ‘exploratory talk’, which consists of ‘pupils listening to others, responding and building on their ideas and views constructively’. ‘Exploratory talk’ is stimulated through the use of a set of ground rules.

Because of our particular focus on multi-ethnicity and multi-lingualism we had to adjust ‘Thinking Together’ to the special educational needs of multi-cultural and –lingual classrooms. We did this by expanding the curriculum with meta-lingual and communicative skills. Because of the wide range of communication habits of children in Dutch multi-ethnic classrooms, we developed activities in which the children could explore each others’ communicative norms. By participating in these activities, students learn to take their different orientations into account when they develop a set of rules for constructive collaboration. Their awareness of communicative and linguistic differences forms the starting point for the development of constructive and exploratory discussions in the classroom. Like in ‘Thinking Together’, students develop a set of ground rules for talking together. The establishment of ground rules is approached from inductive and deductive angles with space for discussion in between. The discussion is fostered by specific contexts that encourage students to express their opinions and to build up an awareness of their own communicative practices.

To improve children’s linguistic skills we designed and implemented three specific language lessons. In these lessons students practiced lexical, syntactic, semantic and pragmatic elements of language which are necessary for improving their reasoning skills.     

Our main research question is: to what extent does our revised programme contribute to the improvement of reasoning skills in multi-lingual classrooms, in particular with respect to students’ language and communicative abilities?  

We set up a pilot project in a Dutch multi-ethnic classroom, in which we introduced our adjusted programme. This programme consisted of 12 lessons and ran from the beginning of November 2006 until the end of March 2007. During the lessons the children worked together in small groups of three students. We made video records of all 12 lessons and we recorded the students’ talk in the small groups.

We compared the students’ reasoning skills in the small groups at the beginning and the end of the program by using the adapted Raven’s SPM (Mercer, Wegerif & Dawes, 1999), as a pre- and post-test. In the pre- and post-test the students worked together in the same groups as in the classroom. We used qualitative and quantitative analyses to interpret the results.  

In our contribution we will present the results of our pilot project. We will concentrate on the discussions in the small groups about the ground rules and the students’ talk about their notion of culture and communication, (which correspondents to our focus on the meta-lingual and intercultural communicative skills in the Thinking Together Program.) In relation to this adapted intervention we will also discuss the improvement of reasoning skills of the students before and after our intervention. Preliminary results show that students’ awareness of communicative arrangements has been raised, and that students express their ideas in different ways.

 

References

Dawes, L., Mercer, N., Wegerif, R. (2004). Thinking Together. A programme of activities for developing speaking, listening and thinking skills for children aged 8-11. The Questions Publishing Company Ltd.

Elbers, E. & M. de Haan (2004). Dialogic learning in the multi-ethnic classroom. Cultural resources and modes of collaboration. In J. van der Linden & P. Renshaw (Eds.), Dialogical Perspectives on Learning, Teaching and Instruction. Dordrecht: Kluwer, pp. 17-43.

Haan, M. de & E. Elbers (2005). Peer tutoring in a multiethnic classroom in the Netherlands. A multiperspective analysis of diversity. Comparative Education Review 49(3), 365-388.

Mercer, N., Wegerif, R. & Dawes, L. (1999). Children’s talk and the development of reasoning in the classroom. British Educational Research Journal 25(1), 95-111.

OECD (2003). Learning for Tomorrow’s World. First Results of PISA 2003. Paris: OECD.

Despite the increasing number of courses taught through teaching and learning dialogues in an online medium, there is little certain knowledge of the factors that influence the educational quality and outcomes of these dialogues. The relatively new field of Computer Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) research has focused upon notions of shared knowledge construction. Some would argue that CSCL contexts are a new paradigm in instructional technology, providing a platform for envisaging learning as essentially social and cultural rather than individual and cognitive (Koschmann, 1996). Nevertheless, a number of CSCL studies concentrate on processes associated with knowledge building and see the social context as playing a minor supporting part (e.g. Meyer, 2003). Building on socio-cultural theorising, the study presented here challenges existing conceptualisations of online discourse which foreground the cognitive dimension of computer-mediated interactions.

Two distance-learning courses - at the Open University, UK and the University of Otago, NZ - served as the basis for the analysis. The UK-based course is a virtual summer school of psychology students at the Open University. The communication environment uses First Class conferencing software. In this course we focused on two groups (six students in each) (N=12). The New Zealand-based course is a core paper in the Postgraduate Diploma in Teaching presented online by the Faculty of Education, University of Otago. The course is a full year (26-week) paper, with 13 students enrolled in 2006. The communication environment uses Web Crossing software.

Drawing on these two data sets, the paper explores the relationship between the cognitive, social and affective aspects of online group work, and the role of these dimensions in processes of shared knowledge building. The analysis involved the message-level documentation of the cyclical process of online practical inquiry, assigning messages to different stages - trigger, exploration, synthesis and solution – within each cycle(Garrison and Anderson, 2003). This was combinedwith the exploration of cognitive, social and affective dimensions within each message and at each stage of the shared knowledge building cycles. The cognitive dimension of online presence, following Garrison and Anderson’s model, was broadly defined as the sharing of information, ideas and reflections associated with one of the four phases within the practical inquiry cycle. The social dimension of online presence was referred to as discourse aimed at organizing and managing the group and maintaining effective group processes (for example, by inviting, encouraging and recognizing the other participants’ input). The affective dimension of onlinepresence was described as the expression of feelings, use of humour, and self-disclosure. To aid the analytic process through visual mapping, a conference activity graph (Hara, Bonk and Angeli, 2000) of each cycle was drawn, where each message was numbered and the interaction between these was indicated by the use of arrows.

Our aim was to demonstrate that each phase within the online practical enquiry builds on cognitive, social and affective presence, and to unveil the interconnected nature of these different dimensions. By showing that cognitive, affective and social aspects of the dialogue are all integral to the shared knowledge building process, we aimed to reveal the limited descriptive as well as explanatory power of existing analytic approaches. Our ultimate aim was to develop an integrative framework which captures shared online knowledge building in its full complexity.

The analysis of online discourse showed the all-pervasiveness of the social dimension. For example, the joint exploration of an idea or a problem (cognitive dimension) often led to the discussion of role division and group management (social dimension). Equally, an exchange on different participants’ availability at a particular point in time typically led to modifications in the ways in which the ‘cognitive cycle’ was shaped. Thus, discourse aimed at organizing and managing the group or simply supporting each other had a significant influence on cognitive processes.

The analysis also shows that a central function of discourse with affective content was to drive the knowledge building process. The expression of emotions often served as the trigger to address an issue or solve a particular problem, and self-disclosure was often used to support processes of exploration and integration. Thus, while social dimensions were associated with management and organisation, shaping the processes of joint knowledge construction, affective dimensions were linked to motivational aspects and influenced the content of collaborative work.

The paper suggests that cognitive processes involved in shared knowledge building are inextricably interwoven with the development of a social, collaborative community of enquiry. Furthermore, it is argued that the affective and cognitive dimensions of online presence are closely linked, and messages with affective content can be integral to the cyclical process of practical inquiry. We posit that each aspect of online presence is essential for both the development of a supportive and well-functioning community and shared knowledge construction. These arguments indicate that further research needs to be undertaken which takes these analytic considerations into account.