Group+One

Group One: Melissa B. Christine, Amy, Melissa P., Meghan

**McIntyre, Kyle, & Moore Discussion**
The __purpose__ of the present study was to describe how one primary-grade teacher promoted small–group dialogue about books and literary concepts with second grade poor and working class rural students. __Rationale__: Few studies have shown how teachers structure their own talk in ways that enable primary students to construct understandings, construct appropriate new discourse, or produce responses, and even fewer with poor and working class students. This study contributes to the literature on classroom dialogue by illustrating how one teacher scaffolds young students' participation in dialogue and construction of meaning in one 2nd grade classroom that serves students typically at risk for school failure.
 * I. RATIONALE FOR THE STUDY**

Several key assumptions of both transactional and cultural historical activity theory ground the current study. The social and historical precedents and the current experiences of a learner's life play a role in what is learned. Mediated action posits there is "always a human mediating between the linguistic symbol and its referent" --- that’s where dialogue comes in to the theoretical framework as does Vygotsky’s theory.

CAN YOU ELABORATE ON THE STUDY'S USE OF VYGOTSKY'S THEORY? (from Hiller)  Vygotsky theory was put into practice when the teacher used language as a tool to scaffold the instruction and create a deeper understanding than they would have achieved prior to the dialogue.

Main research question was how the subject implemented the most difficult standard for teachers to accomplish - instructional conversation.

Twelve second grade students from a first and second grade multiage classroom and one experienced teacher participated in the study. They were selected purposefully from a larger qualitative four year study to further examine how the teacher implemented instructional conversation which was one standard investigated in the larger study. The researchers explained Gayle, the teacher's, educational level, attributes, and characteristics that may have impacted the way that her classroom was run and discourse was facilitated. This was important because she contributed to the context in which this study occurred. Researchers engaged in informant checking when they gave Gayle the opportunity to read and respond to their analysis of the lessons. Also, researcher bias was discussed as an issue due to the close relationships that researchers formed with teachers through weekly meetings and shared data collection over the course of the larger four year study.
 * II. CRITIQUE OF RESEARCH METHODS**

CAN YOU CONNECT THE USE OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS AS A RESEARCH METHOD (from out text) WITH THIS STUDY'S APPROACH? WHAT SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES DID YOU OBSERVE? (from Hiller) Our text refers to "spoken exchanges between or among participants in particular activities, social contexts, and cultural settings. These exchanges have theoretical significance in that they reveal human beings creating and negotiating social identity and meaning in their talk" (Hymes, 1974, in Duke and Mallette, 2011, p. 87). Likewise, McIntyre, Kyle, and Moore's article focuses on a student-centered classroom. The teacher provided guidance and encouragement, but students were expected to independently participate in dialogue as well as read texts in small groups. An example in Duke and Mallette (2011, p. 93) reveals that some students sometimes don't understand what is expected of them and teachers don't quite know how to guide students, but McIntyre, Kyle, and Moore (2011) seem to understand that "linguistic and paralinguistic cues include close proximity, eye contact, and open palms with sweeping gestures" (p. 50) can aide students in engaging in successful collaborative reading, analysis, and dialogue.

A four day lesson about the genre of mystery was videotaped and transcribed multiple times until researchers were confident that it accurately captured the talk and gestures of Gayle, the teacher, in the classroom. Using a constant-comparative method, three categories of codes were used to analyze the transcription.
 * III. CRITIQUE OF DATA ANALYSIS**

Validity could have been strengthened with multiple data sources that would have allowed for triangulation. I made a note when reading that the researchers used multiple data sources: classroom observation, interviews, student assessments, family interviews, and videotapes. This was mentioned in the research design section where it mentioned that this was part of a larger study. This may not have been as evident in the paper because it seemed the classroom observations/videotaping was the main focus.

The results were clearly rationalized. It was determined that there are multiple supports for encouraging dialogue in the primary classroom: teacher-fronted, choreographed aspects of conversation, cues from the teacher (or lack thereof), and a culture of respect and involvement. Another important finding was the importance of Gayle using encouragement instead of just praise. The encouragement was another way to scaffold so children would engage in the discussion with their peers about mysteries. Limitations include the placing the microphone only on Gayle and studying just one teacher over a 4 day period.
 * IV. CRITIQUE OF DISCUSSION**

Future Research: When should teachers begin to conduct these dialogues and about what topics? What are the best conditions for teachers to learn how to conduct instructional conversations? What makes learning this kind of approach easier for some teachers and harder for others? A comparison study of several different teachers' development over several years would contribute to our understanding of what it takes for many teachers to change their practices and what good dialogue in classrooms looks like.

-It seemed that the researcher did NOT intend for the bias to develop that caused them to change their focus from creating grounded theory to investigating an instructional practice. Yet this was not addressed as a limitation or problem in any way. Is this simply an artifact of the emergent nature of qualitative research? It seems to me that so many factors were involved in creating the right environment for the dialogue to occur, I wonder about the complexities of the professional development needed to replicate the results. I know generalizing is not the point of qualitative research, however the researchers did state a desire to "focus more professional development on this important area of teacher development." The focus in Gayle's classroom was not just on the discourse used by the teacher, but also the classroom environment that allowed for the democratic culture that was crucial to the sharing of power in the dialogue.
 * V. ADDITIONAL OBSERVATIONS (QUESTIONS/CONFUSIONS??)**