'Explain to your partner': teachers' instructional practices and students' dialogue in small groups

'Explain to your partner': teachers' instructional practices and students' dialogue in small groups

Collaborative group work has great potential to promote student learning, and increasing evidence exists about the kinds of interaction among students that are necessary to achieve this potential. Less often studied is the role of the teacher in promoting effective group collaboration. This article...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Cambridge journal of education Vol. 39; no. 1; pp. 49 - 70
Main Authors: Webb, Noreen M., Franke, Megan L., De, Tondra, Chan, Angela G., Freund, Deanna, Shein, Pat, Melkonian, Doris K.
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Cambridge Routledge 01-03-2009
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Subjects:
Academic Achievement
Classroom communication
Classroom discussion
classrooms
Collaboration
cooperative group learning
Educational Practices
Elementary education
Elementary School Mathematics
Evaluation
Group dynamics
grouping
Groups
Intervention
Learning
Mathematics
Mathematics Education
Outcomes of Education
Problem Solving
Professional Development
Recordings
Small groups
Social interaction
Student teacher relationship
Students
Teacher education
Teacher Improvement
Teacher Role
Teachers
Teaching Methods
United States > US
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Summary:Collaborative group work has great potential to promote student learning, and increasing evidence exists about the kinds of interaction among students that are necessary to achieve this potential. Less often studied is the role of the teacher in promoting effective group collaboration. This article investigates the extent to which teachers' instructional practices were related to small-group dialogue in four urban elementary mathematics classrooms in the US. Using videotaped and audiotaped recordings of whole-class and small-group discussions, we examined the extent to which teachers pressed students to explain their thinking during their interventions with small groups and during whole-class discussions, and we explored the relationship between teachers' practices and the nature and extent of students' explaining during collaborative group work. While teachers used a variety of instructional practices to structure and orchestrate students' dialogue in small groups, only probing students' explanations to uncover details of their thinking and problem-solving strategies exhibited a strong relationship with student explaining. Implications for future research, professional development, and teacher education are discussed.
ISSN:0305-764X
1469-3577
DOI:10.1080/03057640802701986