When teachers offer pupils fragmented activities that don’t build from one to the next, classroom dialogue tends to revolve around clarification of the task. One study showed how this kind of dialogue can make pupils more dependent on their teacher’s judgement and instructions and less on their own understanding and interpretation. There tends to be little discussion or exchange of ideas between the teacher and the pupils during lessons.  Where discussions do occur, pupils may view them as leading to a right answer already known to the teacher.

Evidence and reflection

Gathering evidence about the way you interact with your pupils can help you to develop your pupils’ thinking and understanding. One way you could do this would be to record a teaching session on audiotape. You could choose three five-minute periods from the session (e.g. beginning/middle/end) and make transcripts of three interactions from each that take place between you and your pupils. You could then organise the transcripts into two groups: interactions that involve clarification of the task and interactions that involve an exchange of ideas. What do you notice about the kind of interactions that take place in your classroom? What does this tell you about the kind of activities that your pupils were engaged in?

Moving forward

Now that you have a picture of the extent to which you give your pupils opportunities to engage in exchanges of ideas, can you think whether and how you might increase the frequency of these kinds of exchanges in another lesson? Would it be helpful to get a colleague in to observe your lesson to help you explore how to go about this?

Find out more

You can find out more about fostering learning on the TLRP Learning how to learn project at: http://www.tlrp.org/proj/phase11/phase2f.html

You can find out more about using dialogue to probe pupils’ understanding and develop their thinking on the Research Informed Practice website: http://www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/research/themes/speakandlisten/talktalk/