Making Student Explanations Relevant in Whole Class Discussion

Abstract

Students explaining their mathematics is vital to the teaching and learning of mathematics, yet we know little about how to enable and support students to explain in whole class discussions beyond teachers asking particular questions. In this chapter we use a conversation analytic approach to explore the interactional structures that make student explanations relevant. Through a detailed examination of interactions where a student explanation occurs, three distinct structures are identified where a student explanation is perceived to be relevant Our focus in the analysis is the social actions students themselves do in their explanations to display their interpretation of the interaction as requiring an explanation and constraining the type of explanation. However, these structures also offer ways that teachers can use the structure of interaction to encourage students to offer explanations in their responses.

Moving forward with ethnomethodological approaches to analysing mathematics classroom interactions

“…Within mathematics education it is still usually the researcher recording the interactions (such as in the examples offered below), but as the videoing of lessons is becoming more common in schools, more recent work has involved teachers themselves videoing lessons of their choice and sharing these videos with researchers (e.g. Ingram et al 2018). The emphasis on analysing the participants' understanding of the situation is not studied by interviewing them and asking them for their perspectives but instead from observing how they act and respond during the interaction itself.…”

When students offer explanations without the teacher explicitly asking them to

“…Each offers an account for why they are disagreeing, for why their answer of 2 h is correct, and not for why the other answers are incorrect, again minimising the disaffiliative action within their turns. Thus, the explanations focus on defending the alternative answer given by the student, rather than critiquing the answer given by another student (Ingram, Andrews, & Pitt, 2018a).…”

Mathematics classroom talk in a migrating world : synthesizing epistemological dimensions

“…Giving reasons I defined, following the general ideas of inferentialism, as declarative talk that made beliefs explicit to explain some behaviour. I have taken a broad definition of explain by considering turns or sequences of turns that comprise talk that clarifies previous claims, displays knowledge, or defends beliefs to be explanations, since in mathematics classroom talk it is not easy to make distinctions between explanations and arguments (Ingram, Andrews, & Pitt, 2018). Declarative talk typically includes the use of that-and/or if/then-propositions .…”