Download - Practices over time: Tracking the development of dialogic practices in pre-service teachers
Practices over time: Tracking the development of dialogic
practices in pre-service teachers
Samantha Caughlan
Mary Juzwik
Carlin Borsheim-Black
Jodene Fine
Acknowledgements
Bates-Byers Award for Technology and Curriculum, Michigan State University
Spencer Foundation Small Grant Program
Our mission is to advance knowledge related to literacy achievement in the
U.S. and the world.
Literacy Achievement Research Center
www.msularc.org
The problem Teachers overuse lecture and underuse
discussion (Applebee, et al., 2003; Juzwik, 2007; Nystrand, 1997).
Dialogic instruction, including discussion, is linked to English student achievement (Applebee et al., 2003; Nystrand, 1997).
Little is known about what designs in teacher education promote dialogic instruction or support teacher candidates in their development of dialogic practices.
Research Questions Given participation in VBRR, to what extent do
teacher candidates achieve dialogically organized interactions in their classrooms over time?
Given participation in VBRR, how do teacher candidates plan for organized instruction over time?
What is the relationship between planning and achievement of dialogic instruction?
Dialogism
Property of all language and refers to the intermingling of voices.
Exists in contrast to monologism where a single authoritative voice dominates discourse (Bakhtin, 1981; 1984; 1986).
Dialogic Instruction
A cluster of practices that include certain discussion-based approaches to teaching, certain kinds of questioning processes (e.g., authentic teacher and student questions), and certain genres (e.g., responsive narratives).
Operationalizing “dialogic”
Teacher authentic questions (TAQ) Teacher nonauthentic questions (TNQ) Teacher uptake (TU) Student questions (SQ) Student participation High Participation Dialogic tools
Dialogic Tools Tools mediate interactions in ways that
encourage dialogic participation (Wertsch, 1993; Vygotsky, 1978; 1986).
In this case, tools refers both to physical objects, ways of organizing instructional space and speech genres.
Description of program 2-year methods course sequence Year 1
Introduce terms Watch “expert” video examples
Year 2 Video record selves teaching 3 - 4 times Learn how planning contributes to dialogic Analyze transcripts Compose a digital video reflection
Description of program
Interns 1. Video record themselves2. Select clip3. Transcribe clip4. Post clip with contextualizing materials
(introductions, lessons plans, transcriptions, reflections) to Voicethread
5. View each others’ posts and comment6. Analyze in class through dialogic lens
Data Generation
Downloaded Voicethreads (88 interns; 301 posts)
Printed hard copies of print materials
Data Analysis Developed a code book for 26 categories
grouped under demographics, planning, questioning patterns, and participation patterns
Calibrated coding procedures and met regularly to resolve questions
Coded 301posts Constructed “the chart”
Data Analysis
Descriptive statistics Average incidence of dialogic indicators Average incidence of dialogic indicators across four
posts Catalogued instructional focus, dialogic tools, etc. Began looking for connections and relationships Began to see dialogic tools and high student
participation as being important Brought in quantitative expertise to ascertain the
significance of what we were observing.
There is a significant development between video post 1 and subsequent video posts
Number of teacher questions decreases Ratio of authentic questions to non-
authentic questions increases Number of student questions increases There is a sharp rise in the number of
student utterances in proportion to teacher utterances after VP 1
TAQ & TNQ over time
Student questions over time
Ratio of student to
teacher utterances
over the four video
posts
Video posts 2, 3 and 4 are significantly
different than post 1, but not
from one another.
The number of student utterances in proportion to teacher utterances rises sharply after VP 1
There are more high participation posts in second semester than first semester
Year 1 Year 2
VP1 3 4
VP2 9 10
VP3 9 14
VP4 11
Upward trends in dialogic indicators are associated with planning
We were able to link high student participation to the use of dialogic tools found in lesson plans.
Mixed-model analyses with video post as a repeated measure demonstrate this relation.
Use of dialogic
tools over the four
video posts.
More dialogic
tools used in post 3
than post 1.
Use of dialogic tools in post 4 is not significantly different from post 1, but this may be due to having too few posts at time 4….
…only year 1 had a fourth post.
A simple correlation with all
video posts together suggests
a positive correlation
between dialogic tool use and the ratio of student-
teacher utterances
Dialogic tools in high-participation posts (HPP)
Year 1: 32 HPP Year 2: 28 HPP
0 DT, all posts 38 (24%) 30 (21%)
0 DT, HPP 3 (9.4%) 3 (11%)
DT used, all posts 122 (76%) 111 (79%)
DT used, HPP 29 (90.6%) 25 (89%)
DTs combined, all posts 57 (35.6%) 52 (40%)
DTs combined, HPP 22 (69 %) 16 (57%)
Tools appearing in higher concentrations in HPP (20% of total posts):
Year 1:Pass toy: 100%
Socratic seminar: 100%
Drama: 57%
Meta-lesson: 50%
Circle: 50%
Take a stand: 50%
Student-written questions: 37.5%
Year 2: Exit cards (100%)
Gallery walk (100%)
Grades (100%)
Student-written questions (75%)
4 corners (66%)
Take a stand (50%)
Tokens (50%)
Conclusion
Teacher candidates can implement dialogically-organized instruction
Planning is important Dialogic tools appear to be key Certain dialogic tools appear particularly
useful in promoting dialogic interaction, where student voices are more prominent.