Examining participation
processes for action in an
inclusive classroom community
Judith MacCallum and
Veronica Morcom
Murdoch University
ISCAR Congress 29 Sept-3 Oct 2014
Overview
•
Context of the study – year 3 classroom
•
Sociocultural perspective
•
Classroom participation research
•
Brief methodology and data sources
•
Participation and communication patterns over a
school year
•
What next?
Research context - Year 3
classroom
•
Democratic classroom with students participating
in decisions for action, with direction offered by
cultural and social values
•
Teacher’s practice not privileged in the school
•
School is situated in middle class urban area
•
Social practices included
• class agreements
• daily social circle
• weekly class meetings
• Tribes with child selected leaders and vice leaders
Daily social circle
Sociocultural perspective
•
The learner is constituted by cultural and
historical processes, embedded within cultural
activities in communities which provide the tools
for making sense of the world
•
It is usually understood that these tools are
appropriated in social interactions, providing the
means to maintain and transform those
communities (Rogoff, 2003)
•
Used Rogoff’s planes for analysis –
institutional/community, interpersonal, personal
– this paper foregrounds interpersonal
Aim of this study
•
To examine student participatory roles in class
meetings over a school year
•
To examine communicative support provided by
the teacher in class meetings to support student
participatory roles
Participation in communities
•
Legitimate peripheral participation to mature
participation – individuals (Lave & Wenger,
1991; Rogoff, 2003)
•
Social construction of participatory roles in
primary school classroom (Kovalainen &
Kumpulainen, 2007) – identified different and
relatively stable modes of student participation
with differing teacher participation
•
•
•
•
Vocal participants
Responsive participants
Bilateral participants
Silent participants
Different participatory roles
Based on
•Amount of participation – number of coded
interaction pieces
•Discourse moves – initiating responding, follow-up,
responding
•Interaction sequences – SIM, SIM/T, TIM, TIB
•Communicative functions – EVI, INFO, VIEW, EVA,
CON, ORC, DEF, NEU
•Nature of teacher participation – providing
structural support, analytic support, social support,
encouraging
Communication and interaction
patterns (Kovalainen & Kumpulainen, 2007)
Interaction sequences (8) – e.g. teacher TI or student
initiated SI, bilateral TIB/SIB or multilateral TIM/SIM,
with (SIM/T) or without teacher participation
Communicative functions (10) –e.g. asking for and
providing evidence, reasons (EVI); asking for and
sharing experiences, feelings (EXP); orchestrating
the discussion (ORC); elaborations (DEF); views,
opinions, perspectives (VIEW); confirm,
acknowledge (CON); non-verbal (N-VERB);
evaluate, correct (EVA)
Range of participatory
opportunities
•
Social circle – student solo initiation SI
•
Class meeting – TIM, TIB, SIM/T, SIB/T, SIM,
SIB
•
Tribes leader and Vice leader – SIM, SIB
•
Tribes members – SIM, SIB
•
Philosophy lesson – TIM, TIB, SIM/T, SIB/T,
SIM, SIB
•
Think Pair Share – SIB, SIB/T
Method and data sources
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Year long ethnographic study in Year 3
classroom with teacher/researcher and 24/25
students aged 9
•
Researcher spent about 1 day per week in the
classroom
•
Multiple data sources, including observation,
videoing class meetings and other activities,
reflection logs (teacher/researcher, researcher,
students), sociometric surveys, interviews with
students and parents (with photo stimulated
recall)
Data for this analysis
•
Video of class meetings over the school year
(23) – approximately 30 minutes each. Students
could ‘put up’ an item they wished class to
discuss
•
Analysis for this paper of three class meetings –
beginning term 1, early term 3 and end term 4
•
Teacher reflections & researcher field notes
•
Students’ views of class meetings
Number of student items over year
Mean No. of Student Items per Class
Meeting
4.5
4
3.5
3
2.5
Individual
2
Pair
1.5
1
0.5
0
Term 1
Term 2
Term 3
School Term over Year
Term 4
Number of students with item
20
Number of Students involved
18
16
14
12
10
Number of students
8
6
4
2
0
Term 1
Term 2
Term 3
School Terms over Years
Term 4
First class meeting
Communication patterns
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Class meeting 1, first week of term 1, 2/02/2007
•
Three teacher items – addressed first, with teacher
encouraging participation from class and individuals - TIM,
TIB sequences
•
Three student items – in order of placement on the
whiteboard. These three students participated as vocal
participants SIB/T, SIM/T
•
Other students participated in mainly bilateral interactions
initiated by the three students or the teacher
•
Teacher provides structural, analytic, social support
Teacher Item
TIM
Teacher Initiated sequence at beginning to all Ss
TI First of all I want to talk about instructions
[Talks about something that
happened at end of previous day]
INFO
EXP
INFO
TF What do you think that means for your desk?
VIEW
SR [Hands go up]
N-VERB
SIB/T Student Initiated sequence with T
S1I [Hand up ready to provide explanation]
N-VERB
TR What do you think S1?
VIEW
S1R [explains ]
INFO
TF Mm
CON
First student item
TF: Where’s S2?
S2: [moves to front of class]
ORC
N-VERB
TIB TI: S2 you put down a really important item
EVA
S2, I want you to explain to the class what this means to you EVI
TIM
TI: I want you to listen very carefully
because you might have some really good ideas too
SIM/T
S2: [explains to class]
ACT
EVI
INFO EVI
S2: [looks to teacher]
N-VERB
TR: [nods]
N-VERB
S2: [continues speaking]
TR: That sounds like a really good idea, S2
EXP INFO
EVA
TF: Does anyone have any questions that they would like to ask S2?
VIEW
S2: [points to S3]
ORC
S3: [asks more about S2’s experience]
EXP
TF: What kind of activities are they S2?
DEF
Class meeting 17
Class meeting 17, 10/08/2007
•
Three teacher items. Four student items (2 individual, 2
pairs)
•
Students voted as to which items would be discussed first
•
Teacher wrote down discussion points on another board
•
SIM, SIB and SIM/T sequences
•
Students’ communicative functions recounts of experience
and feelings (EXP), observations (INFO), views and
opinions (VIEW), reasons for view (EVI)
•
Teacher’s communication functions predominately
orchestrating (ORC) and acknowledging (CON), later asked
‘are these stories or solutions?’ (INFO?) - structuring and
social support, meta work?
Last class meeting
Class meeting 23 6/12/2007
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There were no teacher items and five student items (3
individual, 2 pairs)
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Teacher asks if anyone wants to take teacher role – almost
all hands go up, and negotiation with class as to how to
decide. Several students without an item on board took
turns as Teacher. None were initially Vocal participants
•
Teacher takes a position at the blackboard out of mat area,
but intervenes to remind students to be respectful then,
‘Let’s try again’ (ORC) – mainly social support and meta?
•
SIM and SIB sequences. Student T support participation
(ORC) and provide ideas (INFO), rather than to ask for
ideas (INFO) opinions (VIEW)
•
Some multilateral sequences between students using
‘agree’ and ‘disagree’ phrases from philosophy lessons, e.g.
‘I do agree about …., but I don’t agree because …’
Students’ perspectives
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Talking about things that we need to do more or get better
at … sometimes gets a bit boring
•
We can discuss things
•
…help people change what’s happening at lunchtime and
in our classroom
•
We can agree and disagree
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… to listen to people, sort of like a sit down. ..[learn to
be] nice and respectful
•
when we have problems, to sort out our problems, class
goals, people not feeling good, put them up
•
I like the debating, even if we don’t win
•
I don't like discussing
•
Back gets sore sitting down on the mat that long
Conclusions
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Over the year the classroom practices provided opportunities for
students to develop different participatory roles. Class meetings
provided opportunity for students to initiate multilateral
sequences
•
Class meetings provided the teacher with the opportunity to
model a range of communicative functions (asking for, and
sharing), nature of support changed over year, included meta
work
•
Students mainly orchestrated discussion (ORC), shared ideas
(INFO), opinions (VIEW), feelings and experiences (EXP), offered
evidence (EVI) or clarification (DEF) and evaluated feedback
(EVA). A smaller number of students asked for other students’
opinions and experiences
•
Needed ACT for request action, WAIT for silence, waiting – meta
level?
•
Items with student pairs offered opportunity for a different range
of participatory roles
What next?
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Review coding and consider meta level of
teacher support
•
Examine wider classroom practices – e.g. Tribes
and Leader and Vice Leader sequences for
communicative functions - do students ask for
ideas and opinions in the smaller group? Relation
to class meeting roles?
•
Examine changes in participatory roles of initially
Silent, Responsive and Bilateral participants
Thank you
Comments? Questions?
jamac@murdoch.edu.au