Examining participation processes for action in an

inclusive classroom community

Judith MacCallum and Veronica Morcom

Murdoch UniversityISCAR 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 rolesBased 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 participationCommunicative 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

• 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

Term 1 Term 2 Term 3 Term 40

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

3

3.5

4

4.5

IndividualPair

School Term over Year

Mea

n N

o. o

f Stu

dent

Item

s per

Cla

ss

Mee

ting

Number of students with item

Term 1 Term 2 Term 3 Term 40

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

18

20

Number of students

School Terms over Years

Num

ber o

f Stu

dent

s inv

olve

d

First class meeting

Communication patterns

• 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 INFO

[Talks about something that EXP

happened at end of previous day] 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 MmCON

First student itemTF: Where’s S2? ORC

S2: [moves to front of class] 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 ACT

because you might have some really good ideas too EVI

SIM/T S2: [explains to class] INFO EVI

S2: [looks to teacher] N-VERB

TR: [nods] N-VERB

S2: [continues speaking] EXP INFO

TR: That sounds like a really good idea, S2 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• There were no teacher items and five student items (3

individual, 2 pairs)

• 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• 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

• … 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• 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?

• 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