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.