Towards Dialogic Teaching in Science: Challenging Classroom Realities through Teacher Education.

Abstract

The aim of this study was to explore dialogic teaching in school classroom and teacher education contexts. Despite moves towards more socially-oriented and student-centred curricula, science classroom communication remains prevailingly authoritative and monologic. In order to address the dialogic gap existing in the field, within this study an intervention was developed and executed to increase student teachers' awareness of the dialogic aspect and its role in science classroom communication. Drawing on previous scholarly work in the field of dialogic teaching and teacher education, an interventional teaching programme focussing on teacher talk was designed covering the planning, execution, reflection and analysis of student science lessons and orchestrated by student teachers themselves. Thus, in addition to introducing the background theory of dialogic teaching, the empirical aspect was also given cogent weight. Participants of the study within the teacher education context included both science student teachers and primary school student teachers who had been introduced to dialogic teaching. The second part of the study assessed how dialogic teaching manifests in the science classroom without pre-intervention. Participants in this part of the study included volunteer science teachers and their classes.

Contexto socioeconómico, práctica pedagógica y aprendizaje autónomo en el aula

“…La intervención con que educador inicia un diálogo define el tipo de demanda cognitiva que realiza a sus alumnos (Cuadrado y Fernández 2008;Tornero, Ramaciotti, Truffello, y Valenzuela 2015;Wells y Mejia 2005). Dicha intervención se inserta en la estructura de conversación básica en la clase Inicio-Respuesta-Cierre/Evaluación y la investigación al respecto reconoce variantes según el contexto, la interactividad, el objetivo pedagógico, entre otros aspectos (Emanuelsson y Sahlström 2008;Lehesvuori 2013;Nathan y Kim 2009).…”

Discourse Analysis of the Communicative Approaches Used by The Pre-service Teachers

“…In general, the most critical thought in dialogic instruction concerns how much active roles are assigned to students as participants in building their own knowledge base in classroom speech (van Zee and Minstrell, 1997;van Zee, Iwasyk, Kurose, Simpson and Wild, 2001). Therefore, the role of teachers is to encourage students to participate actively in class, stimulate ideas and opinions, and support their reasoning, thus helping them to construct their knowledge base (Lehesvuori, 2013).…”

“…van Zee ve Minstrell, 1997; van Zee, Iwasyk, Kurose, Simpson ve Wild, 2001). Dolayısıyla da öğretmenlerin rolü; öğrencileri aktif olarak derse katılmaya teşvik etmek, fikir ve görüşleri uyandırmak ve mantık yürütmelerini destekleyerek, bu yolla anlamlandırma ile bilgi dağarcığı oluşturmalarına yardımcı olmaktır(Lehesvuori, 2013).…”

Presentación de un modelo de análisis de la conversación y experiencias de aprendizaje mediado en la interacción de sala de clase

“…Con la aproximación sociocultural a la cognición iniciada por Vygotsky se han desarrollado diversas propuestas de análisis de interacciones en el aula vinculadas al aprendizaje y cognición en tanto proceso y no solo en los resultados (Lehesvuori, 2013), un ejemplo de esto es el habla exploratoria del personal docente para promover el desarrollo cognitivo de estudiantes en el aula, que pone de manifiesto mayor conciencia de la tarea (Wegerif et al, 1999); la indagación de estructuras dialogales vinculadas a demanda cognitiva (Wells y Mejia, 2005); y la teoría de modificabilidad cognitiva estructural de Feuerstein (2006), que destaca el rol docente como mediador responsable, afectivo y competente para promover aprendizajes y el desarrollo de estructuras cognitivas en sus estudiantes (Orrú, 2003).…”