Exploring Prospective Classroom Teacher Question Types for Productive Classroom Dialogue

Abstract

Purpose This study explores prospective classroom teacher (PCT) question types and their role in initiating productive student-led talk. Design/Approach/Methods This study is a naturalistic inquiry focusing on the structure, nature, and productivity of PCT questions using data collected from 24 fourth-grade (exit-level) PCTs. Video-based data were analyzed via systematic observation. Findings This study identified nine types of teacher questions. Of these, six types—namely, communicating, monitoring-framing, critiquing, legitimating, evidencing, and modeling—were explicitly related to productive classroom talk indicators. While the remaining three question types—observe-compare-predict, concluding and naming, and maintaining—contributed to the variation in PCT questions, they were not directly linked to the indicators of talk productivity. Moreover, the critiquing, legitimating, and modeling questions expected to foster talk productivity were seldom asked, with classroom discourse dominated by communicating questions. Originality/Value The literature has yet to observe and systematically analyze the productivity of PCTs’ in-class questions. In addressing this gap, this study presents a wide-ranging and qualitatively oriented coding catalogue to identify several aspects of academically productive classroom discourse that can be triggered and maintained by PCTs’ questioning behaviors.

The nature of science dimension in the teaching discourse. a case study

“…From the sociocultural perspective, learning is seen as a social process in which language plays a decisive role as a mediating agent of action. 7 Communication is a central element in science classrooms, because spoken language is the vehicle through which much of the teaching is carried out, as well as through which students show the teacher much of what they have learned. 8 Therefore, the classroom is assumed as a social communication scenario, where meaning is constructed in the context of the verbal interaction that takes place between teacher and students.…”

Establishing a Nuanced Phenomenographic Argument for the Prospective Teachers’ Conceptions of Teaching

“…It is highly recommended that Turkish teacher educators should ask questions about “how and under what conditions teacher candidates learn the complex skills of teaching as part of developing a reflective practitioner stance.” (Cochran-Smith & Villegas, 2015, p. 390). However, some Turkish teacher educators (Günel & Tanriverdi, 2014; Soysal & Soysal, 2022) contend that reflective practice is a sporadic practice among Turkish teacher educators. Expectedly, in the context of the present study, the teachers of the participating PTs might not guide them to experience and conceptualize somewhat different breadthways of seeing the teaching phenomenon.…”

“…In global terms, Cochran-Smith et al (2015) conclude that there is ample research on how PTs learn to reflect on, inquire into, and learn about changing classroom situations. However, some Turkish teacher educators (Günel & Tanriverdi, 2014; Soysal & Soysal, 2022) claim that adaptive-pragmatic teaching is an infrequent practice, for instance, regarding classroom talk, in the context of teacher preparation. Instead, teacher educators see the teaching phenomenon as an intellectual activity where PTs “must understand, adapt, and modify practices so they are fine-tuned to local histories, cultures, and communities.” (Cochran-Smith & Villegas, 2015, p. 390).…”

“…Reflective teaching is making alternative pedagogical decisions (Taylan, 2017) on-the-fly during the teaching activity or after thinking profoundly or carefully about (Hébert, 2015) what was happening during teaching regarding many aspects of it. Recent studies argue that teacher preparation should encourage PTs to devise alternative instructional decisions based on classroom-based observational data (Soysal & Soysal, 2022). PTs see the teaching phenomenon as organic by generating alternative instructional plans and implementing them the next time they teach the same topic.…”

An analysis from teaching interventions focused on levels of conceptualization

“…Previous research has investigated how Physics teachers use a variety of generic discourse strategies to foster classroom interaction and school content mastery. [1][2][3] However, there has been relatively little research used on how teachers' discourse can. Convey the construction of discursive genres, such as scientific explanation.…”