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The common sense aspects of traditional practices promise to be a conservative force with respect to the efforts of policymakers to improve the quality of science learning in schools. This study of the teaching of grade 11 chemistry indicates how an experienced teacher made sense of his teaching roles in terms of four cultural myths related to the transmission of knowledge, being efficient, maintaining the rigor of the curriculum, and preparing students to be successful on examinations. These cultural myths were supported in this study by the teacher and students and provided a strong rationale for maintaining the types of classroom practices that reformers are wanting to change. If teachers can be brought to a level of consciousness about myths such as these there is a chance that their viability can be addressed directly and alternative myths can be generated to propel reform in the direction advocated in the myriad reports that presently exhort changes in policy and classroom practice. 0 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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Ten classes were randomly assigned to a group that received feedback and assistance to maintain an average teacher wait time of between 3 and 5 seconds during a sequence of mathematics lessons. A control group of 10 teachers maintained a regular wait time and received placebo feedback. The study was replicated in a sequence of language arts lessons. The use of an average teacher wait time of between 3 and 5 seconds in whole class instructional settings was associated with higher mathematics achievement and improvements in the quality of teacher and student discourse. In extended wait time classes in the mathematics component of the study, decreases were observed in the number of utterances per unit time, the average length of teacher utterances, the frequency of teacher interruptions, failure of students to respond to teacher questions, the proportion of teacher reacting to student responses, and the proportion of teacher mimicking of student responses. Increases were observed in the average length of student responses, the proportion of teacher soliciting, the proportion of teacher structuring, and the proportion of probing after a student response. Similar results were obtained in the language arts component of the study. Changes in the types of teacher questions were observed also. In mathematics there was an increase in the proportion of questions requiring application of concepts, and in language arts there was an increase in the proportion of questions requiring student comprehension.Teacher discourse is an important vehicle for focusing student cognition. However, for teacher discourse to influence student learning, the infor-191 at LAKEHEAD UNIV on March 15, 2015 http://aerj.aera.net Downloaded from

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