Investigating Teacher Talk Moves in Lessons on Basic Genetics Concepts in a Teacher Education Classroom

Abstract

Recent reforms in science education highlight the need for student-centred approaches to teaching in school curriculum policy in South Africa. Science teachers are required to move away from traditional teacher-centred practices which regard students as mere passive recipients of knowledge. In this study, we examine classroom talk for the type of student participation encouraging moves employed in lessons on basic genetics concepts and the related quality of instructional strategies employed by a university lecturer during a semester course on genetics. A key feature of the course was the lecturer's use of students' prior knowledge including alternative conceptions from a diagnostic assessment to facilitate the learning of pertinent genetics terminologies. Through a qualitative approach, we combine two recently published frameworks-the Analysing Teacher Moves (ATM) and the Elaboration frameworksto analyse teacher talk from transcribed videoed lectures and explore the likely influence on student participation. The findings reveal two dominant student participation stimulating talk-related instructional strategies that seemed to elicit diverse and deeper responses from the students. These include higherorder initiating and rejoinder moves, supplemented by other moves, through which the lecturer provided students with factual information, often in a manner that enabled knowledge synthesis. The intentional use of open-ended questions, explanations and representations and probing students for further contributions signal deliberate pedagogic intentions to promote student interaction while navigating observed language proficiency challenges. The combined analysis framework is recommended for use in future studies on instructional practices which aim to promote fruitful classroom interaction.

Teacher moves for supporting student reasoning in mathematics instruction

“…It shows that the teacher tried to make the students establish a connection between previous knowledge and new concepts. A deep understanding of the content and associated concepts should be the goal of productive classroom interaction (Correnti et al, 2015; Morton, 2012) to build students' meaningful comprehension of knowledge (Buma & Nyamupangedengu, 2020). Accordingly, it was observed that with facilitating moves, the teacher aimed to support the students' knowledge construction and mathematics learning.…”

“…The dialogues that include eliciting moves reveal that the teacher evaluated students' prior knowledge before introducing a new mathematical concept through questioning related facts or procedures. According to Buma and Nyamupangedengu (2020), teachers should prompt students' responses to make a link between their prior knowledge and new concepts. Thus, it can be said that the teacher displays attempts for providing this essential connection in his lessons and tries to construct knowledge through teacher-student interactions in the classroom setting (Chin, 2006).…”

“…The teacher gives importance to making the students aware of each other's thoughts in the class by focusing on different responses. Similarly, Buma and Nyamupangedengu (2020) defend student learning based on students' sharing of ideas. The teacher sometimes asked for a more detailed example with the help of a student's explanation to assess students' understanding.…”

“…Classroom discourse is widely regarded as a pedagogical medium for encouraging students to participate in lessons and assisting teachers in generating meaningful student learning (Morton, 2012). Productive classroom discourse should allow student learning that is strengthened with the ideas shared by students and their contributions (Buma & Nyamupangedengu, 2020) and provide a deep understanding of the content and related concepts (Correnti et al, 2015; Morton, 2012). At this point, teachers should establish a relationship between students' existing knowledge and new concepts by prompting their responses to ensure meaningful comprehension of knowledge (Buma & Nyamupangedengu, 2020).…”

“…Productive classroom discourse should allow student learning that is strengthened with the ideas shared by students and their contributions (Buma & Nyamupangedengu, 2020) and provide a deep understanding of the content and related concepts (Correnti et al, 2015; Morton, 2012). At this point, teachers should establish a relationship between students' existing knowledge and new concepts by prompting their responses to ensure meaningful comprehension of knowledge (Buma & Nyamupangedengu, 2020). Teacher talk and teacher‐student interactions enable the construction of knowledge in a classroom setting (Chin, 2006).…”