Supporting teacher learning of classroom talk: An analytics-supported reflection approach

Dr Chen, Gaowei   (Principal Investigator (PI))

Professor Chan Carol Kwai Kuen   (Co-Investigator)

18

2015-01-01

2016-06-30

118804

Supporting teacher learning of classroom talk: An analytics-supported reflection approach

Analytics-supported reflection, Classroom talk, Professional development

Education: Research on Teaching & Learning

201409159007

Seed Fund for Basic Research for New Staff

2014

Completed

Purposes and objectives The proposed project aims at exploring an analytics-supported reflection approach that leverages technology for teacher professional development (PD) in classroom talk. In this approach, teacher(s) and facilitator (""who guides teachers as they construct new knowledge and practices""; Borko, 2004) work collaboratively, supported by a discourse analytic tool (Classroom Discourse Analyzer; Chen, Clarke, & Resnick, in press) to analyze and reflect on the teacher’s own classroom discursive practice. Specifically, the project has the following objectives: to understand teaching discourse and teacher-students talk in Hong Kong classrooms; to pilot and refine the analytics-supported reflection approach and improve its adaptability to Hong Kong classroom teaching; to investigate the impact of this new approach on teachers’ and students’ classroom talk after the PD sessions. Key issues and problems being addressed Classroom talk that involves reasoning and argumentation is fundamental to student learning. Teachers play a crucial role in leading these kinds of classroom discussions. However, it is challenging for many teachers to learn and effectively integrate these discursive practices into their instruction (Clarke, Chen, & Stainton et al., 2013; Howe & Abedin, 2013). The growing evidence shows that students’ active participations, particularly the elaboration of their own ideas and thinking with others, are largely absent in the classroom (Mercer, Dawes, & Staarman, 2009; Pimentel & McNeil, 2013). Thus, effective PD approaches that aim at improving teachers’ classroom talk skills are strongly needed. To promote teachers’ classroom practices, a body of research which investigated the use of video for facilitating teacher reflection has started to unfold the use of technology in teacher PD programs (Borko, Koellner, Jacobs, & Seago, 2011; Tripp & Rich, 2012; van Es, 2012). In comparison to traditional reflection without technological aids, video-based reflection can promote teacher learning more effectively. Video has the advantage of providing the opportunities of re-experiencing the teaching situation and can be played repeatedly to satisfy the reflective teachers’ needs (Spiro, Collins, & Ramchandran, 2007). However, video can be overwhelming, especially for novice teachers (Erickson, 2007), and teachers may easily lose reflective focus or get distracted by irrelevant information during the navigation. Besides, the use of a whole video recording of one’s own teaching is time consuming and slow in presenting information linearly, which may drag teachers into an exhaustive and cognitively overloaded PD situation (Blomberg, Renkl, Sherin, Borko, & Seidel, 2013). Hence, merely providing video recordings to teachers without further analysis or guidance is not likely to be efficient. The emerging field of learning and teaching analytics has started to inform not only the process of student learning but also the process of teaching and teacher development (Fishman & Chan, 2014; Shum & Ferguson, 2012). Extending this line of research, we will pilot an analytics-supported reflection approach that has the potential to address the challenges as well as to incorporate the strengths of video-based reflection. This new approach applies an interactive analytic tool, Classroom Discourse Analyzer (CDA; Chen et al., in press), to transform and map lengthy video/audio and transcripts of classroom talk into graphical displays of discourse patterns. Then, teachers and facilitators can use the visual representation as a lens to identify potentially meaningful discourse segments quickly. The visual analytics, transcripts, and video/audio are structured and linked so that they provide multi-layer information for teachers and facilitators to reflect and discuss in a PD context. In sum, the proposed project will pilot the analytics-supported reflection approach in Hong Kong, and collect first-hand evidence on the implementation as well as its effectiveness on teaching improvement. The primary two research questions of the project are: 1) How can the analytics-supported reflection approach be used in Hong Kong to help teachers reflect on their classroom discourse? 2) What is the impact of using the analytics-supported reflection approach on teacher and student talk in Hong Kong classrooms?