Research and Development
Staff from Everton Nursery School and Family Centre and Our Lady Immaculate Catholic Primary School are working with the University of Cumbria on a new and exciting research project about 'Learning Conversations' with young children.
Staff from Everton Nursery School and Family Centre and Our Lady Immaculate Catholic Primary School are working with the University of Cumbria on a new and exciting research project about 'Learning Conversations' with young children.
Learning Conversations: teacher researchers evaluating dialogic strategies in early years settings
Pete Boyd University of Cumbria, England
With teachers from Everton Nursery School and Family Centre and Our Lady Immaculate Catholic Primary School , Liverpool, England
Corresponding author: pete.boyd@cumbria.ac.uk
Dr Pete Boyd
Reader in Professional Learning
University of Cumbria, Fusehill Street, Carlisle, Cumbria, CA11 0UU
Keywords: adult-child interaction; dialogue; sustained shared thinking; speech and language development
Abstract
Learning conversations, dialogic interaction with adults, are important opportunities for children to develop their thinking as well as their speech and language skills. This area of teachers’ practice is informed by a well-established body of research evidence and professional guidance literature. The design and facilitation of this practitioner research project was framed by a metaphor for teachers’ professional learning as ‘interplay’ between the vertical domain of public, published, knowledge and the horizontal domain of the teachers’ practical wisdom. The teacher researchers used a framework based on the published literature to analyse video clips of their conversations with children in early years workplace settings. The study highlights the complexity of the teachers’ work and the power of video analysis as a prompt for professional learning. The use and development of conversation strategies by these teachers involves a balancing act between competing agendas within their workplace setting and their identity as a teacher. In addition to modifying the strategies in the general evidence base, to suit their own workplace settings and practice, the teacher researchers identified a useful strategy, based on transportable identity, of ‘stepping out’ of being a teacher, for example by positioning themselves as a playmate or family member.
Learning Conversations: teacher researchers evaluating dialogic strategies in early years settings
A practitioner research project This paper presents findings from a project completed within a collaborative practitioner research partnership between a nursery school and a Primary school with research mentoring and support from a university based educational researcher. The purpose of the project, commissioned by the schools, is to build practitioner research capacity within the early years teaching team (working with children from 4 to 7 years in age) in both schools through the completion of a collaborative research project. The development of teachers as practitioner researchers is seen by the school leaders as enabling them to more effectively act as change agents in evaluating and developing practice and to enhance their role as school-based teacher educators who support professional learning of new and experienced teachers. The two schools are located close together near the centre of an industrial city in Northern England and it is important to note that it is an inner city area with very high levels of disadvantage, child poverty levels are two and a half times the national average. The schools identified a focus for the research which was to investigate teacher strategies for developing dialogue in everyday interactions with young children, of 3 to 5 years in age, in order to develop speech and language skills and sustained shared thinking (Tizard & Hughes, 1984; Siraj-Blatchford, Sylva, Muttock, Gilden & Bell, 2003).
Conversations in nursery or early years school settings are not isolated interactions but form just one element of the complex learning experience of children and teachers in their daily work. Conversations with a teacher are just one feature of a child's development of thinking, multimodal literacies and learning across home and school (Wolfe & Flewitt, 2010). Conversations in nursery or early years school settings are not simply technical linguistic interactions, they are socially and culturally positioned (Street, 1984). The significance of home is particularly important because one to one conversations, which are more likely to promote sustained shared thinking, may be less frequent in more formal early years settings than in the home (Tizard & Hughes, 1984). Whilst acknowledging the significance of conversations at home and linked to their wider lives, this current study focuses on the conversational strategies of teachers whilst talking to children within more formal early years school settings. The study also provides a case study of professional learning with early years teachers as practitioner researchers engaging critically with a well-established body of existing research evidence and professional guidance literature (Fisher & Wood 2012). The project adopted a collaborative practitioner research approach with teachers using small unobtrusive cameras to capture video clips of their conversations with children. The teachers then collaborated in analysis of their own conversational practice and that of their colleagues.
Teacher learning A body of work summarised in systematic research reviews has provided an evidence base for designing continuing professional development for teachers (Cordingley, 2008). The characteristics of such effective development for teachers include sustained critical engagement with an issue or new approach, collaboration and good levels of trust with other teachers, external specialist input and challenge, and an element of classroom coaching to support change in classroom practice. Above all Cordingley argues that ‘research…needs to be actively interpreted by users for their own context’ (2008:49). This requires teachers to critically engage with the research evidence base and evaluate it in terms of its relevance to their workplace setting and implications for current local practice.
Cordingley refers to this active interpretation as ‘knowledge transformation’ to produce useful professional knowledge that leads to enhancement of teaching and learning. Alternative terms to describe this process include knowledge exchange, knowledge mobilization and research-informed practice (Levin, 2011; 2013; Nutley, Young & Walter, 2008). This perspective suggests that school leaders should be proactive in engaging teachers with research findings that are relevant to their needs and interests but generic policy interventions will only have an impact on classroom practice and children’s learning if skilled teacher interpretation and judgement is involved in their mediation and implementation (Blasé & Blasé, 2004).
Teachers’ professional learning may be usefully viewed as an ‘interplay’ between practical wisdom and public (published) knowledge (Boyd & Bloxham, 2013). Practical wisdom foregrounds ‘ways of working’ in particular classrooms and educational workplaces and the situated and social knowledge held by teams of teachers. Public knowledge is hierarchically organised through review and publication processes and foregrounds learning theory, research evidence, professional guidance and policy. The metaphor of ‘interplay’ helps to capture the power relations within the engagement of teachers with the vertical and horizontal dimensions of knowledge (Boyd & Bloxham, 2013). This issue of power is important because the research mentor in the current study was acting as an intermediary, broker or boundary spanner in the knowledge mobilization process (Cordingley, 2008; Levin, 2013).
Previous research and development projects have found video to be a powerful tool for teacher learning, especially where it is accompanied by coaching (Osipova et al., 2011; Fisher & Wood 2012). In addition to the individual teacher level of learning, analysis of video may also support collective learning of the team of teachers involved in analysis (Derry, 2007). Some features of the research design acknowledged the risks taken by teacher researchers in capturing video clips of their practice for analysis. Teachers were in control of making and selecting video clips, they were also involved in the analysis. In addition, support from a school-based professional coach was made available to the teachers so that they could develop their practice in learning conversations in practical ways as part of the project.
Analytical Framework The study used an analytical framework based on three elements which were each applied to the transcripts of video clips made by teachers. These three elements are concisely outlined in this section.
Learning conversations The importance of talking for children’s learning as well as for their development of speech and language is a well-established principle (Tizard & Hughes, 1984; DCSF, 2008a). However, there is evidence of ‘insufficient understanding of the centrality of speech, language and communication’ by policy makers and professionals (DCSF, 2008a:6). Perhaps due to their early years workplace settings, and their location in an area with high levels of children from disadvantaged backgrounds, the teacher researchers in the current project were particularly concerned about development and assessment of speech and language skills.
Closely inter-related with speech and language development there has been a considerable body of research and development work in the UK focused on ‘sustained shared thinking’ in adult-child conversations, meaning that they work together in an intellectual way to solve a problem with both participants contributing (Siraj-Blatchford et al., 2003). Professional guidance and support on talking for teachers focused has identified a range of teacher strategies to help develop dialogue in interactions with children (Alexander, 2004; DCSF, 2008b; DCSF, 2009). Teacher strategies identified in the research included building on the child’s interests, recasting, extending, questioning, allowing thinking time, making connections, introducing new vocabulary and aiming to achieve a balanced dialogue despite the teachers position of power.
Analysis of teacher-child dialogue is at the heart of this study. Dialogue is important for development of speech and language as well as for pursuing children’s’ conceptual understanding related to the topic under discussion (Mercer, 2000; 2003). Much of this dialogue takes place at home or with peers in school but dialogue with a teacher is important because of the opportunity it offers for learning challenge and formative assessment. Mercer argues for a sociocultural perspective with a focus on ‘language as a means for collective thinking’ and proposes the term ‘interthinking’ as an alternative or extension to ‘interaction’ (Mercer 2008).
Analytical frameworks for classroom interactions A traditional framework for analysing teacher-child conversation is ‘Initiation, Response, Follow-up / Evaluation’ (IRF/E) which can referred to as the 'IRF' framework (Sinclair & Couthard, 1975; McCarthy, 2002). This is unlikely to be helpful in analysing situations where the teacher is pursuing conversations that are less teacher dominated. More dynamic learning environments, where teachers are facilitating open ended learning activities and are encouraging learners to (re)construct the story in their own words (Skidmore, 2001; Bakhtin, 1981). This means that the IRF framework is not useful in analysing interactions within the less formal and more child-centred approach that is typical of early years continuous provision including the two case study school settings.
As an alternative to IRF new frameworks for analysis of teacher-child conversations have been developed through research in Modern Languages classrooms that are aiming for spontaneous talk in the target language (Crichton, 2013). These frameworks may particularly lend themselves to early years settings where speech and language development is also a high priority. Crichton argues convincingly for the potential of Goffman’s ‘production’ format (1981) and Wadensjo’s ‘reception’ format (1998) as frameworks to analyse classroom dialogue that is more conversational and that also engages and provides a resource for other learners.
Goffman’s production format (1981) focuses on three possible roles in relation to an utterance. The ‘animator’ is the speaker of the utterance, the ‘author’ is the originator of the content and form of the utterance, and the ‘principal’ is the person that bears the responsibility for the meaning being expressed. This final role is important although the boundary between author and principal appears to be rather fuzzy. The ‘reception format’ developed by Wadensjo identifies three types of ‘listener’ to a conversation: the ‘reporter’ simply repeats the utterance, the ‘recapitulator’ re-authors the utterance, and the ‘responder’ builds on the utterance with their own contribution to the conversation (1998). The integration of these frameworks proposed by Crichton seems useful because for practical purposes in analysing dynamic learning environments it is not usually easy to identify the starting utterance and to distinguish between roles as a listener rather than participant. Also the development of these frameworks in modern languages classrooms may be argued to align in some ways to the focus on speech and language development in early years settings
In integrating the Goffman and Wadjensco frameworks there appeared to be a lack of emphasis on learning and so we introduced the use of metaphors. Metaphors of ‘acquisition’ and ‘participation’ may be linked to behaviouralist / transmission and social constructivist perspectives (Sfard1998) and a third metaphor of ‘contribution’ may help to capture a situated learning theory perspective. These three metaphors importantly also help to capture a progression in learning as teachers’ use formative assessment and ‘in the moment’ strategies for guiding conversations. Merging the formats of Goffman and Wadensjo in combination with these three metaphors for learning produces a potential framework (Figure 1.) for conversational analysis by teachers in a fast moving, collaborative and play focused early years setting where teachers are pursuing sustained shared thinking but realistically will often have only limited one to one time with individual children.
Progress
Metaphor for learning
Speech role of the child or adult
Criteria
1
acquisition
repeats
repeats the utterance
2
participation
edits
reconstructs form and content
3
contribution
authors
introduces new content
4
framing
leads
Sets a new focus for discussion
Fig. 1. A framework for analysis of classroom discussion
The acronym for this proposed framework 'repeats, edits, authors, leads is also very helpful for teachers to bear in mind because 'REAL' helps to promote empathy with the child's agenda so that 'keeping it REAL' becomes a potentially powerful guide for reflection-in-action (Schon, 1987). The REAL framework analyses each contribution to an interaction, from adult or child, in the same way, rather than focusing on the teacher strategies. This is more useful when considering conversations with more than one child involved and where the teacher is seeking a ‘basketball’ group discussion rather than a ‘ping-pong’ style one to one conversation. This tentative analytical framework was applied and evaluated within the current study.
Teacher identities and dialogue The teacher strategies and even the REAL discourse analysis framework create an emphasis on technical aspects of learning conversations. This tends to contradict the practical wisdom of early years practitioners which emphasises the passion needed for working with children and the fascination that an effective early years practitioner will hold for listening to children. Even the general approach to professional learning adopted by the project, which has emphasised collaborative workplace learning, might be critiqued for not placing sufficient focus on the individual biography, values and dispositions of individual teachers (Rainbird et al., 2004). Teacher identities, meaning the multiple stories that individual teachers might hold and tell about themselves, do provide a way of considering learning conversations. These teacher-child conversation aspects of the teacher’s identity may be classified as ‘discourse identity’, ‘situated identity’, or ‘transportable identity’ (Zimmerman, 1998). In relation to their contribution to the sequence of the discourse, the teacher might display aspects of identity for example as speaker, listener, or questioner. In relation to their context, a formal early years school setting, the adult might be likely to adopt the identity of teacher. This situated identity carries with it many contextual influences including accountability for progress in children’s learning and perhaps for ‘delivery’ of the curriculum. Again borrowing from work in modern language classrooms a later stage in the current project was informed by the possibility of using Zimmerman’s concept of transportable identity to help to understand the video clip interactions (1998). A study applying an identities approach to analysis of interactions in English as a second language classrooms raised some of the implementation issues and related them to ‘authenticity’. For a teacher to deliberately adopt a transportable identity in the early years classroom, for example to switch from teacher to playmate, family member or to someone with a special interest, appears to involve considerable emotional, relational and moral considerations (Richards, 2006). Also, such a teacher strategy might possibly undermine authentic dialogue and require the teacher to draw careful boundaries, for example they may hold beliefs as a parent that clash with accepted professional values or practice within their school (Zimmerman, 1998; Richards, 2006). The use of less formal ‘continuous provision’ in the early years, that is children learning through play in planned environments, may provide particular opportunities for teachers to consider adopting transportable identities to promote dialogue during interactions.
Methodology A collaborative practitioner research approach was adopted because it appeared to align with the purposes of this research and development project (Hopkins, 2008). The immediate research team included seven teachers, a head teacher, a school governor with a background as an educational adviser and two academics from the University. The level of collaboration developed as the project unfolded and to some extent it was always expected that the University research team would need to take forward some aspects of the research work in between the face to face workshop sessions with teachers at the two schools which took place at intervals of 6 to 8 weeks. Teachers contributed to the project through data collection and especially through collaborative analysis of data in face to face workshops. One teacher and the school governor coach also visited the University to spend a full day on initial analysis of the first transcribed video script. Teachers responded to the developing collective analysis and findings. The project unfolded in a series of small-scale action research cycles and the research design, including the analytical framework, developed in an iterative way as the initial data was collected and analysis began.
The project used an initial framework for teacher strategies and for assessment of children's progress in speech and language. The teacher strategies element of the framework was constructed through interpretation of the research and professional guidance literature (Siraj-Blatchford et al., 2003; DCSF, 2008b; DCSF, 2009) and the assessment of speech and language development was considered using early years curriculum guidance. This framework was introduced to the whole research team and discussed prior to any collection of data as a shared starting point for our investigations. This framework also formed the basis for our initial analysis of video scripts. However the application of multiple theoretical perspectives may be useful in attempts to understand classroom discussion (Drie & Dekker, 2013). Additional classroom interaction frameworks, for classroom analysis of discussion and for teacher identity within conversations, were added to the analytical framework.
Using video, rather than for example observation or audio recording, was considered to have the potential to strengthen the study in several ways. Most importantly, it enabled the teachers to be directly involved in the analysis. It allowed repeated viewing and development of analysis to establish shared understanding, development of an analytical framework and testing of inter-rater reliability. The use of video also enriched the data compared to audio recordings because it helped to capture children's actions, expressions and body language. Other research on adult-child interactions in early years settings has demonstrated the usefulness of video for capturing and analysing classroom practice (Fisher, 2012). The current study used small harness mounted water and shock proof cameras designed for use in adventure sports. The intention of using these small cameras was to allow teachers to get on with their work and allow children to become familiar with the presence of the camera, the teacher would then start filming to collect some more naturalistic video footage. Teachers were encouraged to collect a considerable amount of footage and then select a clip themselves for sharing and analysis as part of the project data.
A considerable amount of video footage was collected by teachers and in terms of ethics this came under existing agreements with parents on filming for educational and professional development purposes. However, once a clip had been selected for inclusion in the research then permission was sought from the parent and child for its use as data. The project gained clearance through the university ethics procedure and in addition to seeking parental consent this included careful control of video footage. The selected clips were transcribed in preparation for detailed analysis. The teachers were filmed whilst being interviewed about their video clip. During the filming the teachers viewed their original video clip on a laptop computer, pausing and rewinding the video at intervals to comment on the footage. This approach enabled the transcriber to insert teacher reflective comments into the original video clips in preparation for analysis. In addition the filmed teacher worked with the other members of the research team analysing the script and video clip in detail. This kind of collaborative analysis enabled the filmed teacher to explain contextual issues including their knowledge of the particular child or children involved and it allowed the research team to debate and reach some agreement on interpretation of the scripts and development of the analytical framework. Collaborative analysis was pursued to some extent on the first six video scripts in order to try and establish a shared understanding of the conversations and to develop the analytical framework before applying it to all of the data which in total consisted of twelve video clips with teacher interviews.
At this stage the scripts (including teacher interview comments) were uploaded into ATLASti and a qualitative analysis of the whole data set was undertaken applying the three elements of the analytical framework. The emerging analysis was shared with the research team using exported quotes for particular codes or emerging categories.
Findings This section sets out the outcomes of our analysis of the video clips under three closely linked analytical frameworks: teacher conversational strategies; interaction analysis and metaphors for learning; and teacher identities. Short quotes from the transcripts of video clips are used to illustrate our interpretation of the data.
Teacher conversational strategies
A set of teacher strategies were drawn from the research evidence base on developing sustained shared thinking and formed our initial analytical framework for understanding the video clips of conversations with children.
A strategy entitled ‘building on the child’s interests’ involves listening and building on the topic of conversation initiated by a child. Within the sample of conversations this was a frequently used code:
Transcript 9: Baby monitor
Child 27: I’m going to my baby cousins
Teacher 9: …that’s lovely isn’t it?
Child 27: An, an my little baby cousin and he’s, an he’s one
Teacher 9: …tell me more about your baby cousin who’s one
Child 27: An, an Alfie he is, an he… sometimes when I go he’s asleep an when he wakes up he’s mad
Teacher 9: He’s mad, Why is he mad?
Child 27: He jumps up in his cot
Teacher 9: Does he?
Child 27: Yea, he jumps up, he jumps up and he stands and we watch him on a little telly
However, in the complexity of early years environments, where learning through ‘play’ is being encouraged, the teacher is still a powerful figure.
A strategy entitled ‘power-reciprocity’ involves the teacher aiming to allow the child to take an equal part in the conversation. This code was used where the teacher allows the child to make decisions:
Transcript 2 – Water Play: I want a Froggy!
Teacher 2: What ave you got?
[Child waves a stick in the air] a stick
Teacher 2: And what are we going to do with the stick?
Child 7: [Child points to the water] Unblock that hole
Teacher 2: To unblock it, aren’t we? It’s blocked now. We’re going to unblock it. Come on then Harry
A strategy of ‘thinking time’ simply means that the teacher allows sufficient time for children to compose an answer. The teacher needs to resist the urge to fill the silence. This strategy was observed in the video clips and was closely related to power. Unless the teacher was willing to allow thinking time then it was difficult for them to build reciprocity in the conversation.
A teacher strategy of ‘extension’ involves the teacher extending the thinking of the child in some way. They may summarise the idea expressed by the child and then add a new idea to it. In the quote from transcript 2 above the teacher repeats the idea of unblocking as stated by the child but then decides to reinforce the idea that something may be blocked before it needs unblocking. In the early years context teachers are particularly concerned with developing speech and language and sometimes the extension is focused on introducing new vocabulary as much as it on new ideas:
Transcript 6: Santa’s Sleigh
Teacher 6: Can you look to see if there is anything else we can use to stick our sleigh together?
Child?: Glue
Child?: Sellotape
Teacher 6: Sellotape, masking tape. Shall we use some masking tape?
Child?: Yes
Teacher 6: Say masking tape
Child ?: (Shouts) Masking tape
Teacher 6: Masking tape, right, lets see…
It was important for the teachers to be involved in the analysis of video clips because they were able to explain their responses that were sometimes based on knowledge of the child. Where the extension strategy did mainly focus on introducing new vocabulary it often involved the teacher making a judgment about child’s familiarity with a particular word. This was also apparent in the decisions teachers made around correcting the language used by a particular child.
A teacher strategy of ‘connections’ was closely related to the extensions strategy and involves the teacher making links to previous teaching or events in school or from the home life of the child. Where the teacher referred to previous teaching this was coded as connections but it did tend to emphasise the teacher’s power over the curriculum, the school was deciding the agenda rather than the child.
In the strategy of ‘recasting’ the teacher makes a positive correction of the child’s language by including it in their response. Along with making extensions and connections the analysis of recasting tended to emphasise the importance of the teacher knowing the child well in order to decide on what strategy was most appropriate during conversations.
A teacher strategy of ‘asking questions’ involves the teacher using questions to stimulate thinking:
Transcript 2 – Water Play: I want a froggy!
Teacher 2: What have you got?
[Child waves a stick in the air] a stick
Teacher 2: And what are we going to do with the stick?
Child 7: [Child points to the water] Unblock that hole
Teacher 2: To unblock it, aren’t we? It’s blocked now. We’re going to unblock it.
In analysing the video clips we found that this approach of teacher questions needed to be used in moderation in order to maintain conversation.
The collaborative coding of the video clip transcripts using the teacher strategies drawn from the literature on sustained shared thinking helped to reveal the complexity and contested nature of teacher conversational strategies. During the coding we were evaluating the strategies as well as making judgments about the teacher behaviour captured by the video clips. Sometimes the teacher appeared to become more obviously ‘teacherly’ and took an opportunity to assess the child:
Hedgehog Hunt Video Clip
Teacher 1 Oh, B [child’s name] has had an idea. A hedgehog on there, on top or underneath? What do you think, on top or underneath? (signals under and over)
Child B: Underneath
Teacher 1: Underneath. You have a quiet look then…
This quote captures a situation where the teacher appears to let the child choose a likely spot (a park bench) to search during the hedgehog hunt of a nursery outdoor area (child’s interests / power-reciprocity). However, the teacher then introduces the idea of being over or under the bench and introduces the positional words (extension / questioning). Overall we agreed to code this as ‘assessment opportunity’ because that appears to capture the teacher’s strategy of ceasing the moment and being more ‘teacherly’ within the conversation.
Classroom interaction analysis
In order to pursue the analysis we considered the Initiation, Response, Follow-up (IRF) framework that has been developed in the past to understand formal classroom interactions. We only found one example in the video clip data of an IRF style exchange:
Transcript 4: Owl Story Book
Teacher: ‘B’ [child’s name]…how many words are in the title?
Child 13: (Pauses) Four.
Child 13 points to the words on the page: one, two three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine [Child 13 looks up to the teacher]
[The teacher points to the page]
Teacher 4: OK, Child ‘13’ has counted. What has she counted?
Child 15: Titles
Child 12: Letters
Teacher 4: [Teacher points to Child 12] She’s counted the letters, and I said how many words are there? How many words ‘B’ [child’s name]? Try again. [teacher points to words on page] There’s one word
Child 11: Two words
Child 13: Two words
Child 12: Two
Teacher 4: [Points to page] Two words, but nine letters…turn the page and lets see what’s happening next…
In this interaction the ‘teacherly’ nature of the adult is evident by their use of questions and setting of the agenda. Beyond this one example this kind of interaction, following the IRF framework, was not evident in the data. This was largely due to the context of the video clip conversations which were mainly made in less formal situations within early years learning environments. We sought frameworks for analysing interactions that were more able to cope with less formal settings that often involved more than one child. The Repeats, Edits, Authors, Leads (REAL) framework, developed from interaction research in modern language classrooms, was used to pursue the analysis.
When applying REAL in the analysis of the video clips ‘repeats’ means that the previous contribution is simply regurgitated with little or no further elaboration:
Transcript 9: Baby Monitor
Child 29: And I hide behind the a thingy where all the dirty clothes are.
Teacher 9: What is that? Where all the clothes are. What’s a thingy?
Child 29: A washing basket
Teacher 9: A washing basket
In this quote, following use of questioning, the teacher uses ‘repeats’.
In applying REAL to the data ‘edits’ is used to code contributions where some reconstruction of the form and content, offered by the previous speaker, is made.
Transcript 4: Owl Story Book
Teacher 4: Badgers live in ‘sets’ but what do owls live in?
Child 12: Um, trees…
Teacher 4: They live in trees but what do they live in, in the tree? [teacher cups her hand] What would we call that?
Child 12: A nest
Teacher 4: A nest
Child 12: [points to the page] That’s the big hole where they go out and in
Teacher 4: So they’re nice and safe, they’re in a hole, in the tree, in their nest.
Teacher 4: …so let’s have a look…
Both teacher and child demonstrate ‘edits’ within this quote. Within the REAL framework we sometimes found it difficult to distinguish between edits and the next level of ‘authors’. ‘Authors’ is taken to mean introduction of new content:
Transcript 2 – Water Play: I want a froggy!
Teacher 2: What’s happening down here? (pause) What’s happening down here Leon?
Child 5: [points to the ground]. It’s blocked again
Teacher 2: [Teacher kneeling beside one of the containers] What? Umm, why is it blocked?
Child 5: There’s a froggy inside
In this quote the child, in response to teacher questioning, introduces the issue of the drain of the pool being blocked. This same pattern is shown in a different example of authoring:
Transcript 7: House of Gold
Teacher 7: And then what would you do with all the gold?
Child 23: [Child stands up and points to the elephant] Well we’d give it away to sick people. We’d give it away to the sick people
Again, there is a tension around power of the teacher because these authoring contributions were mainly found to be responses to the teacher’s questions rather than more spontaneous new contributions. These interactions perhaps again capture the ‘teacherly’ approach of the adults and link to the final element of REAL which ‘leads’ in relation to the interaction. The use of metaphor seems helpful in understanding this issue and the linking of acquisition to repeats, participation to edits, contribution to authors and then finally framing to leads helps to link the analysis of interaction more firmly back to the learning that may be taking place. Framing is a useful metaphor to help understand the way the context of the early years setting helps to influence the conversations that take place within it. The ‘teacherly’ behaviour of the adults in the study is not surprising because they are teachers. Their workplace context has considerable influences on their day to day interactions with children.
Teacher identities
The final framework we used in the analysis related to this identity of teacher. The concept of ‘situated identity’ helps to explain the previous quotes where a ‘teacherly’ style was adopted by the adults. Even if the teacher has other identities, for example as a daughter or son, as a sibling or as a parent, within their workplace their professional identity is likely to be foregrounded. As a teacher the ‘delivery’ or ‘coverage’ of the formal curriculum is likely to be an important driver and assessment of children in line with policy guidance and quality assurance pressures is likely to be seen as important. However, we applied the concept of transportable identity to the data and found examples where teachers adopted alternative identities during their conversational interactions with children:
Transcript 3: Wiggly Worms
Teacher 3: You’re doing another one? Oh, can you teach me how to do a wiggly worm?
Child 9: Yes
[Child 9 moves over towards Teacher 3]
Teacher 3: What do you have to do?
Child 9: You have to rub it in, look, see
Teacher 3: Ah, there, so roll it with your fingers
Child 9: Yes, and then it makes a snake like this
[Child 9 holds up the wiggly worm]
Teacher 3: Oh, ‘M’ [child’s name] look I’m making one. I’m rolling, rolling, rolling. (pause) ‘M’ what do you think of mine?
In this quote the teacher appears to adopt the identity of a playmate when she asks ‘can you teach me how to do a wriggly worm?’ In other examples the teachers adopted the identity of a family member in order to moderate their power and encourage reciprocity in the conversation.
Discussion The collective approach to analysis initially identified that in these early years settings it is not easy for teachers to engage children in learning conversations that generate sustained shared thinking. Most one to one, adult to child, conversations are soon joined by other children. With hindsight, provided by repeated viewing of a video clip, it is possible to notice how teachers may have missed opportunities to implement conversational strategies recommended by the research evidence. This challenging finding, that it is not easy to achieve sustained shared thinking in formal school settings, is in line with the evidence base (Tizard & Hughes, 1984; Siraj-Blatchford, Sylva, Muttock, Gilden & Bell, 2003). The recommended strategies, such as ‘extension’ or making ‘connections’, were identifiable in the practice of the teachers in this study, often in slightly modified and personalised forms that reflected individual characteristics or style. In these early years settings the teachers felt they have a particular focus on speech and language development and to some extent that influenced their implementation of the conversational strategies. For example this emphasis means that the strategy of introducing or reinforcing ‘new vocabulary’ was perhaps more frequent than it may be in conversation with older children. The teachers found it useful to engage with the recommended teacher strategies during analysis of the video clips and in on-going development of practice. To a large extent it was felt to be useful to refresh their tacitly held conversational strategies that did already reflect to varying degrees on those proposed by the literature (Damhuis & De Blauw, 2008).
The project findings also suggest that such collective analysis might use multiple analytical frameworks to avoid a rational-linear approach and to tease out the meanings of situated practice. The teachers in this study found that their practice in building learning conversations with young children was shaped by their workplace context in very practical ways but also through more subtle influences on their responses during adult-child conversations. Video analysis using the REAL framework positioned the teacher as just one member of a small discussion group. This shifted the emphasis away from ‘ping-pong’ style adult-child interaction and towards consideration of a more ‘basketball’ type of discussion. This shift helped to critically engage the teacher researchers in the recommended strategy of ‘power / reciprocity’ and this was identified as a key issue. Generally this strategy means that the teacher tries to respond during conversations to the agenda of the child, encouraging them to develop their thinking based on their experiences.
Focusing on the strategy of ‘power / reciprocity’ emphasises the complexity of the teachers’ work and workplace setting. Their use and development of conversation strategies involves a balancing act between competing agendas including their identification of the child’s needs, priorities related to curriculum and assessment, requirements of the quality assurance review body (in the UK that is ‘Ofsted’), their engagement with professional guidance and research, and their identity as a teacher. Even within potentially rich learning scenarios it appears to be all too easy for teachers to miss opportunities to develop dialogic learning conversations because of these competing influences on their ‘in the moment’ decision-making. The teachers in the study often found it difficult to avoid being ‘teacherly’ during conversations. Rather than follow the child’s agenda it is tempting, as a teacher, to respond in ways that focus on elements of the curriculum such as referring to previous teaching or to speech and language development. Of course this is perfectly reasonable behaviour by teachers, but video analysis showed it to sometimes be in tension with the development, in the moment, of sustained shared thinking. The concept of ‘transportable identities’ (Zimmerman, 1998) was found to be of some practical use in understanding successful teacher conversational strategies captured in the video clips. By adopting the identity of a ‘playmate’ or of a ‘family member’ the teachers seemed to be able to resist the temptation to be ‘teacherly’, or at least to delay that moment and allow the conversation to develop further with a more equitable power balance.
Teacher learning
The research project supports previous work in showing that collective analysis of video clips of their own practice is a powerful approach in efforts to engage teachers with practice (Osipova et al., 2011: Derry, 2007). In this project however the teachers went beyond reflection on their practical wisdom and became critically engaged with a body of established research evidence. The teacher strategies gathered from the research evidence base were made much more meaningful by the process of analysing the video clips. The process enabled teachers to relate the recommended strategies to their particular situated workplace settings. The additional and more abstract analytical framework of REAL (Repeat – Edit - Author – Lead) proved to be useful in evaluating and refining the more concrete ‘good practice’ type guidelines provided by the research evidence-based teacher strategies or by one to one interaction frameworks such as IRF (Intervention – Response – Feedback) (Crichton, 2013).
The process of applying and critically evaluating the analytical frameworks provoked debate and negotiation to agree on our shared interpretation of the situated practice captured in the video clips. In evaluating the project the teachers overwhelmingly focused on the collaborative analysis as the key element in supporting their professional learning. It had provoked professional development coaching activity back in school and led to changes in practice. In addition, some of the teachers were involved in presenting the project at a conference and they felt that the pre-reading and preparation for this event helped to sharpen and embed their understanding of the literature and findings. However, the teachers did not all feel that they had learned sufficiently about how to undertake practitioner research independently in the future and this perhaps reflected the lack of much formal training on research methods within the project.
The project appears to include elements of ‘rational-linear’ but also of ‘interactive’ models of research-informed practice in education (Nutley et al., 2008). The sustained nature of the project, the collaborative sharing of practice by teachers, the presence of an intermediary in the form of the university research-mentor, the support of institutional leaders, the critical engagement with the research evidence-base, and above all the enquiry-based approach, all point to the alignment of the project with the recommendations, based on review of the relevant research evidence base, for effective continuing professional development for teachers (Cordingley, 2008). The metaphor for teachers’ professional learning as ‘interplay’ appears to be useful in conceptualising the current project because the teachers engaged with their own practical wisdom but also with the vertical knowledge domain in the shape of the research evidence-base used to build the analytical framework (Boyd & Bloxham, 2013). The case for classifying such projects as either rational-linear or interactive seems rather fragile (Nutley et al., 2008), not least because the style of facilitation by intermediaries and the level of engagement and ownership by teachers appear to be critical, but these seem likely to vary according to the local situation. Such projects might more usefully be positioned along a dimension between top-down and bottom-up sources of power. The head teachers commissioning the project would seem to be powerful top-down players, and the University research mentor is also in a potentially powerful position, especially in relation to the vertical knowledge domain. However, providing a little counterbalance, the teachers have their own level of classroom autonomy and expert practical wisdom that appears to provide them with some measure of bottom-up power. Overall the project supports the findings of larger scale study by Fisher and Wood in terms of the benefits of practitioner research on adult-child interaction in the early years (2012).
Learning Conversations: teacher researchers evaluating dialogic strategies in early years settings
Pete Boyd University of Cumbria, England
With teachers from Everton Nursery School and Family Centre and Our Lady Immaculate Catholic Primary School , Liverpool, England
Corresponding author: pete.boyd@cumbria.ac.uk
Dr Pete Boyd
Reader in Professional Learning
University of Cumbria, Fusehill Street, Carlisle, Cumbria, CA11 0UU
Keywords: adult-child interaction; dialogue; sustained shared thinking; speech and language development
Abstract
Learning conversations, dialogic interaction with adults, are important opportunities for children to develop their thinking as well as their speech and language skills. This area of teachers’ practice is informed by a well-established body of research evidence and professional guidance literature. The design and facilitation of this practitioner research project was framed by a metaphor for teachers’ professional learning as ‘interplay’ between the vertical domain of public, published, knowledge and the horizontal domain of the teachers’ practical wisdom. The teacher researchers used a framework based on the published literature to analyse video clips of their conversations with children in early years workplace settings. The study highlights the complexity of the teachers’ work and the power of video analysis as a prompt for professional learning. The use and development of conversation strategies by these teachers involves a balancing act between competing agendas within their workplace setting and their identity as a teacher. In addition to modifying the strategies in the general evidence base, to suit their own workplace settings and practice, the teacher researchers identified a useful strategy, based on transportable identity, of ‘stepping out’ of being a teacher, for example by positioning themselves as a playmate or family member.
Learning Conversations: teacher researchers evaluating dialogic strategies in early years settings
A practitioner research project This paper presents findings from a project completed within a collaborative practitioner research partnership between a nursery school and a Primary school with research mentoring and support from a university based educational researcher. The purpose of the project, commissioned by the schools, is to build practitioner research capacity within the early years teaching team (working with children from 4 to 7 years in age) in both schools through the completion of a collaborative research project. The development of teachers as practitioner researchers is seen by the school leaders as enabling them to more effectively act as change agents in evaluating and developing practice and to enhance their role as school-based teacher educators who support professional learning of new and experienced teachers. The two schools are located close together near the centre of an industrial city in Northern England and it is important to note that it is an inner city area with very high levels of disadvantage, child poverty levels are two and a half times the national average. The schools identified a focus for the research which was to investigate teacher strategies for developing dialogue in everyday interactions with young children, of 3 to 5 years in age, in order to develop speech and language skills and sustained shared thinking (Tizard & Hughes, 1984; Siraj-Blatchford, Sylva, Muttock, Gilden & Bell, 2003).
Conversations in nursery or early years school settings are not isolated interactions but form just one element of the complex learning experience of children and teachers in their daily work. Conversations with a teacher are just one feature of a child's development of thinking, multimodal literacies and learning across home and school (Wolfe & Flewitt, 2010). Conversations in nursery or early years school settings are not simply technical linguistic interactions, they are socially and culturally positioned (Street, 1984). The significance of home is particularly important because one to one conversations, which are more likely to promote sustained shared thinking, may be less frequent in more formal early years settings than in the home (Tizard & Hughes, 1984). Whilst acknowledging the significance of conversations at home and linked to their wider lives, this current study focuses on the conversational strategies of teachers whilst talking to children within more formal early years school settings. The study also provides a case study of professional learning with early years teachers as practitioner researchers engaging critically with a well-established body of existing research evidence and professional guidance literature (Fisher & Wood 2012). The project adopted a collaborative practitioner research approach with teachers using small unobtrusive cameras to capture video clips of their conversations with children. The teachers then collaborated in analysis of their own conversational practice and that of their colleagues.
Teacher learning A body of work summarised in systematic research reviews has provided an evidence base for designing continuing professional development for teachers (Cordingley, 2008). The characteristics of such effective development for teachers include sustained critical engagement with an issue or new approach, collaboration and good levels of trust with other teachers, external specialist input and challenge, and an element of classroom coaching to support change in classroom practice. Above all Cordingley argues that ‘research…needs to be actively interpreted by users for their own context’ (2008:49). This requires teachers to critically engage with the research evidence base and evaluate it in terms of its relevance to their workplace setting and implications for current local practice.
Cordingley refers to this active interpretation as ‘knowledge transformation’ to produce useful professional knowledge that leads to enhancement of teaching and learning. Alternative terms to describe this process include knowledge exchange, knowledge mobilization and research-informed practice (Levin, 2011; 2013; Nutley, Young & Walter, 2008). This perspective suggests that school leaders should be proactive in engaging teachers with research findings that are relevant to their needs and interests but generic policy interventions will only have an impact on classroom practice and children’s learning if skilled teacher interpretation and judgement is involved in their mediation and implementation (Blasé & Blasé, 2004).
Teachers’ professional learning may be usefully viewed as an ‘interplay’ between practical wisdom and public (published) knowledge (Boyd & Bloxham, 2013). Practical wisdom foregrounds ‘ways of working’ in particular classrooms and educational workplaces and the situated and social knowledge held by teams of teachers. Public knowledge is hierarchically organised through review and publication processes and foregrounds learning theory, research evidence, professional guidance and policy. The metaphor of ‘interplay’ helps to capture the power relations within the engagement of teachers with the vertical and horizontal dimensions of knowledge (Boyd & Bloxham, 2013). This issue of power is important because the research mentor in the current study was acting as an intermediary, broker or boundary spanner in the knowledge mobilization process (Cordingley, 2008; Levin, 2013).
Previous research and development projects have found video to be a powerful tool for teacher learning, especially where it is accompanied by coaching (Osipova et al., 2011; Fisher & Wood 2012). In addition to the individual teacher level of learning, analysis of video may also support collective learning of the team of teachers involved in analysis (Derry, 2007). Some features of the research design acknowledged the risks taken by teacher researchers in capturing video clips of their practice for analysis. Teachers were in control of making and selecting video clips, they were also involved in the analysis. In addition, support from a school-based professional coach was made available to the teachers so that they could develop their practice in learning conversations in practical ways as part of the project.
Analytical Framework The study used an analytical framework based on three elements which were each applied to the transcripts of video clips made by teachers. These three elements are concisely outlined in this section.
Learning conversations The importance of talking for children’s learning as well as for their development of speech and language is a well-established principle (Tizard & Hughes, 1984; DCSF, 2008a). However, there is evidence of ‘insufficient understanding of the centrality of speech, language and communication’ by policy makers and professionals (DCSF, 2008a:6). Perhaps due to their early years workplace settings, and their location in an area with high levels of children from disadvantaged backgrounds, the teacher researchers in the current project were particularly concerned about development and assessment of speech and language skills.
Closely inter-related with speech and language development there has been a considerable body of research and development work in the UK focused on ‘sustained shared thinking’ in adult-child conversations, meaning that they work together in an intellectual way to solve a problem with both participants contributing (Siraj-Blatchford et al., 2003). Professional guidance and support on talking for teachers focused has identified a range of teacher strategies to help develop dialogue in interactions with children (Alexander, 2004; DCSF, 2008b; DCSF, 2009). Teacher strategies identified in the research included building on the child’s interests, recasting, extending, questioning, allowing thinking time, making connections, introducing new vocabulary and aiming to achieve a balanced dialogue despite the teachers position of power.
Analysis of teacher-child dialogue is at the heart of this study. Dialogue is important for development of speech and language as well as for pursuing children’s’ conceptual understanding related to the topic under discussion (Mercer, 2000; 2003). Much of this dialogue takes place at home or with peers in school but dialogue with a teacher is important because of the opportunity it offers for learning challenge and formative assessment. Mercer argues for a sociocultural perspective with a focus on ‘language as a means for collective thinking’ and proposes the term ‘interthinking’ as an alternative or extension to ‘interaction’ (Mercer 2008).
Analytical frameworks for classroom interactions A traditional framework for analysing teacher-child conversation is ‘Initiation, Response, Follow-up / Evaluation’ (IRF/E) which can referred to as the 'IRF' framework (Sinclair & Couthard, 1975; McCarthy, 2002). This is unlikely to be helpful in analysing situations where the teacher is pursuing conversations that are less teacher dominated. More dynamic learning environments, where teachers are facilitating open ended learning activities and are encouraging learners to (re)construct the story in their own words (Skidmore, 2001; Bakhtin, 1981). This means that the IRF framework is not useful in analysing interactions within the less formal and more child-centred approach that is typical of early years continuous provision including the two case study school settings.
As an alternative to IRF new frameworks for analysis of teacher-child conversations have been developed through research in Modern Languages classrooms that are aiming for spontaneous talk in the target language (Crichton, 2013). These frameworks may particularly lend themselves to early years settings where speech and language development is also a high priority. Crichton argues convincingly for the potential of Goffman’s ‘production’ format (1981) and Wadensjo’s ‘reception’ format (1998) as frameworks to analyse classroom dialogue that is more conversational and that also engages and provides a resource for other learners.
Goffman’s production format (1981) focuses on three possible roles in relation to an utterance. The ‘animator’ is the speaker of the utterance, the ‘author’ is the originator of the content and form of the utterance, and the ‘principal’ is the person that bears the responsibility for the meaning being expressed. This final role is important although the boundary between author and principal appears to be rather fuzzy. The ‘reception format’ developed by Wadensjo identifies three types of ‘listener’ to a conversation: the ‘reporter’ simply repeats the utterance, the ‘recapitulator’ re-authors the utterance, and the ‘responder’ builds on the utterance with their own contribution to the conversation (1998). The integration of these frameworks proposed by Crichton seems useful because for practical purposes in analysing dynamic learning environments it is not usually easy to identify the starting utterance and to distinguish between roles as a listener rather than participant. Also the development of these frameworks in modern languages classrooms may be argued to align in some ways to the focus on speech and language development in early years settings
In integrating the Goffman and Wadjensco frameworks there appeared to be a lack of emphasis on learning and so we introduced the use of metaphors. Metaphors of ‘acquisition’ and ‘participation’ may be linked to behaviouralist / transmission and social constructivist perspectives (Sfard1998) and a third metaphor of ‘contribution’ may help to capture a situated learning theory perspective. These three metaphors importantly also help to capture a progression in learning as teachers’ use formative assessment and ‘in the moment’ strategies for guiding conversations. Merging the formats of Goffman and Wadensjo in combination with these three metaphors for learning produces a potential framework (Figure 1.) for conversational analysis by teachers in a fast moving, collaborative and play focused early years setting where teachers are pursuing sustained shared thinking but realistically will often have only limited one to one time with individual children.
Progress
Metaphor for learning
Speech role of the child or adult
Criteria
1
acquisition
repeats
repeats the utterance
2
participation
edits
reconstructs form and content
3
contribution
authors
introduces new content
4
framing
leads
Sets a new focus for discussion
Fig. 1. A framework for analysis of classroom discussion
The acronym for this proposed framework 'repeats, edits, authors, leads is also very helpful for teachers to bear in mind because 'REAL' helps to promote empathy with the child's agenda so that 'keeping it REAL' becomes a potentially powerful guide for reflection-in-action (Schon, 1987). The REAL framework analyses each contribution to an interaction, from adult or child, in the same way, rather than focusing on the teacher strategies. This is more useful when considering conversations with more than one child involved and where the teacher is seeking a ‘basketball’ group discussion rather than a ‘ping-pong’ style one to one conversation. This tentative analytical framework was applied and evaluated within the current study.
Teacher identities and dialogue The teacher strategies and even the REAL discourse analysis framework create an emphasis on technical aspects of learning conversations. This tends to contradict the practical wisdom of early years practitioners which emphasises the passion needed for working with children and the fascination that an effective early years practitioner will hold for listening to children. Even the general approach to professional learning adopted by the project, which has emphasised collaborative workplace learning, might be critiqued for not placing sufficient focus on the individual biography, values and dispositions of individual teachers (Rainbird et al., 2004). Teacher identities, meaning the multiple stories that individual teachers might hold and tell about themselves, do provide a way of considering learning conversations. These teacher-child conversation aspects of the teacher’s identity may be classified as ‘discourse identity’, ‘situated identity’, or ‘transportable identity’ (Zimmerman, 1998). In relation to their contribution to the sequence of the discourse, the teacher might display aspects of identity for example as speaker, listener, or questioner. In relation to their context, a formal early years school setting, the adult might be likely to adopt the identity of teacher. This situated identity carries with it many contextual influences including accountability for progress in children’s learning and perhaps for ‘delivery’ of the curriculum. Again borrowing from work in modern language classrooms a later stage in the current project was informed by the possibility of using Zimmerman’s concept of transportable identity to help to understand the video clip interactions (1998). A study applying an identities approach to analysis of interactions in English as a second language classrooms raised some of the implementation issues and related them to ‘authenticity’. For a teacher to deliberately adopt a transportable identity in the early years classroom, for example to switch from teacher to playmate, family member or to someone with a special interest, appears to involve considerable emotional, relational and moral considerations (Richards, 2006). Also, such a teacher strategy might possibly undermine authentic dialogue and require the teacher to draw careful boundaries, for example they may hold beliefs as a parent that clash with accepted professional values or practice within their school (Zimmerman, 1998; Richards, 2006). The use of less formal ‘continuous provision’ in the early years, that is children learning through play in planned environments, may provide particular opportunities for teachers to consider adopting transportable identities to promote dialogue during interactions.
Methodology A collaborative practitioner research approach was adopted because it appeared to align with the purposes of this research and development project (Hopkins, 2008). The immediate research team included seven teachers, a head teacher, a school governor with a background as an educational adviser and two academics from the University. The level of collaboration developed as the project unfolded and to some extent it was always expected that the University research team would need to take forward some aspects of the research work in between the face to face workshop sessions with teachers at the two schools which took place at intervals of 6 to 8 weeks. Teachers contributed to the project through data collection and especially through collaborative analysis of data in face to face workshops. One teacher and the school governor coach also visited the University to spend a full day on initial analysis of the first transcribed video script. Teachers responded to the developing collective analysis and findings. The project unfolded in a series of small-scale action research cycles and the research design, including the analytical framework, developed in an iterative way as the initial data was collected and analysis began.
The project used an initial framework for teacher strategies and for assessment of children's progress in speech and language. The teacher strategies element of the framework was constructed through interpretation of the research and professional guidance literature (Siraj-Blatchford et al., 2003; DCSF, 2008b; DCSF, 2009) and the assessment of speech and language development was considered using early years curriculum guidance. This framework was introduced to the whole research team and discussed prior to any collection of data as a shared starting point for our investigations. This framework also formed the basis for our initial analysis of video scripts. However the application of multiple theoretical perspectives may be useful in attempts to understand classroom discussion (Drie & Dekker, 2013). Additional classroom interaction frameworks, for classroom analysis of discussion and for teacher identity within conversations, were added to the analytical framework.
Using video, rather than for example observation or audio recording, was considered to have the potential to strengthen the study in several ways. Most importantly, it enabled the teachers to be directly involved in the analysis. It allowed repeated viewing and development of analysis to establish shared understanding, development of an analytical framework and testing of inter-rater reliability. The use of video also enriched the data compared to audio recordings because it helped to capture children's actions, expressions and body language. Other research on adult-child interactions in early years settings has demonstrated the usefulness of video for capturing and analysing classroom practice (Fisher, 2012). The current study used small harness mounted water and shock proof cameras designed for use in adventure sports. The intention of using these small cameras was to allow teachers to get on with their work and allow children to become familiar with the presence of the camera, the teacher would then start filming to collect some more naturalistic video footage. Teachers were encouraged to collect a considerable amount of footage and then select a clip themselves for sharing and analysis as part of the project data.
A considerable amount of video footage was collected by teachers and in terms of ethics this came under existing agreements with parents on filming for educational and professional development purposes. However, once a clip had been selected for inclusion in the research then permission was sought from the parent and child for its use as data. The project gained clearance through the university ethics procedure and in addition to seeking parental consent this included careful control of video footage. The selected clips were transcribed in preparation for detailed analysis. The teachers were filmed whilst being interviewed about their video clip. During the filming the teachers viewed their original video clip on a laptop computer, pausing and rewinding the video at intervals to comment on the footage. This approach enabled the transcriber to insert teacher reflective comments into the original video clips in preparation for analysis. In addition the filmed teacher worked with the other members of the research team analysing the script and video clip in detail. This kind of collaborative analysis enabled the filmed teacher to explain contextual issues including their knowledge of the particular child or children involved and it allowed the research team to debate and reach some agreement on interpretation of the scripts and development of the analytical framework. Collaborative analysis was pursued to some extent on the first six video scripts in order to try and establish a shared understanding of the conversations and to develop the analytical framework before applying it to all of the data which in total consisted of twelve video clips with teacher interviews.
At this stage the scripts (including teacher interview comments) were uploaded into ATLASti and a qualitative analysis of the whole data set was undertaken applying the three elements of the analytical framework. The emerging analysis was shared with the research team using exported quotes for particular codes or emerging categories.
Findings This section sets out the outcomes of our analysis of the video clips under three closely linked analytical frameworks: teacher conversational strategies; interaction analysis and metaphors for learning; and teacher identities. Short quotes from the transcripts of video clips are used to illustrate our interpretation of the data.
Teacher conversational strategies
A set of teacher strategies were drawn from the research evidence base on developing sustained shared thinking and formed our initial analytical framework for understanding the video clips of conversations with children.
A strategy entitled ‘building on the child’s interests’ involves listening and building on the topic of conversation initiated by a child. Within the sample of conversations this was a frequently used code:
Transcript 9: Baby monitor
Child 27: I’m going to my baby cousins
Teacher 9: …that’s lovely isn’t it?
Child 27: An, an my little baby cousin and he’s, an he’s one
Teacher 9: …tell me more about your baby cousin who’s one
Child 27: An, an Alfie he is, an he… sometimes when I go he’s asleep an when he wakes up he’s mad
Teacher 9: He’s mad, Why is he mad?
Child 27: He jumps up in his cot
Teacher 9: Does he?
Child 27: Yea, he jumps up, he jumps up and he stands and we watch him on a little telly
However, in the complexity of early years environments, where learning through ‘play’ is being encouraged, the teacher is still a powerful figure.
A strategy entitled ‘power-reciprocity’ involves the teacher aiming to allow the child to take an equal part in the conversation. This code was used where the teacher allows the child to make decisions:
Transcript 2 – Water Play: I want a Froggy!
Teacher 2: What ave you got?
[Child waves a stick in the air] a stick
Teacher 2: And what are we going to do with the stick?
Child 7: [Child points to the water] Unblock that hole
Teacher 2: To unblock it, aren’t we? It’s blocked now. We’re going to unblock it. Come on then Harry
A strategy of ‘thinking time’ simply means that the teacher allows sufficient time for children to compose an answer. The teacher needs to resist the urge to fill the silence. This strategy was observed in the video clips and was closely related to power. Unless the teacher was willing to allow thinking time then it was difficult for them to build reciprocity in the conversation.
A teacher strategy of ‘extension’ involves the teacher extending the thinking of the child in some way. They may summarise the idea expressed by the child and then add a new idea to it. In the quote from transcript 2 above the teacher repeats the idea of unblocking as stated by the child but then decides to reinforce the idea that something may be blocked before it needs unblocking. In the early years context teachers are particularly concerned with developing speech and language and sometimes the extension is focused on introducing new vocabulary as much as it on new ideas:
Transcript 6: Santa’s Sleigh
Teacher 6: Can you look to see if there is anything else we can use to stick our sleigh together?
Child?: Glue
Child?: Sellotape
Teacher 6: Sellotape, masking tape. Shall we use some masking tape?
Child?: Yes
Teacher 6: Say masking tape
Child ?: (Shouts) Masking tape
Teacher 6: Masking tape, right, lets see…
It was important for the teachers to be involved in the analysis of video clips because they were able to explain their responses that were sometimes based on knowledge of the child. Where the extension strategy did mainly focus on introducing new vocabulary it often involved the teacher making a judgment about child’s familiarity with a particular word. This was also apparent in the decisions teachers made around correcting the language used by a particular child.
A teacher strategy of ‘connections’ was closely related to the extensions strategy and involves the teacher making links to previous teaching or events in school or from the home life of the child. Where the teacher referred to previous teaching this was coded as connections but it did tend to emphasise the teacher’s power over the curriculum, the school was deciding the agenda rather than the child.
In the strategy of ‘recasting’ the teacher makes a positive correction of the child’s language by including it in their response. Along with making extensions and connections the analysis of recasting tended to emphasise the importance of the teacher knowing the child well in order to decide on what strategy was most appropriate during conversations.
A teacher strategy of ‘asking questions’ involves the teacher using questions to stimulate thinking:
Transcript 2 – Water Play: I want a froggy!
Teacher 2: What have you got?
[Child waves a stick in the air] a stick
Teacher 2: And what are we going to do with the stick?
Child 7: [Child points to the water] Unblock that hole
Teacher 2: To unblock it, aren’t we? It’s blocked now. We’re going to unblock it.
In analysing the video clips we found that this approach of teacher questions needed to be used in moderation in order to maintain conversation.
The collaborative coding of the video clip transcripts using the teacher strategies drawn from the literature on sustained shared thinking helped to reveal the complexity and contested nature of teacher conversational strategies. During the coding we were evaluating the strategies as well as making judgments about the teacher behaviour captured by the video clips. Sometimes the teacher appeared to become more obviously ‘teacherly’ and took an opportunity to assess the child:
Hedgehog Hunt Video Clip
Teacher 1 Oh, B [child’s name] has had an idea. A hedgehog on there, on top or underneath? What do you think, on top or underneath? (signals under and over)
Child B: Underneath
Teacher 1: Underneath. You have a quiet look then…
This quote captures a situation where the teacher appears to let the child choose a likely spot (a park bench) to search during the hedgehog hunt of a nursery outdoor area (child’s interests / power-reciprocity). However, the teacher then introduces the idea of being over or under the bench and introduces the positional words (extension / questioning). Overall we agreed to code this as ‘assessment opportunity’ because that appears to capture the teacher’s strategy of ceasing the moment and being more ‘teacherly’ within the conversation.
Classroom interaction analysis
In order to pursue the analysis we considered the Initiation, Response, Follow-up (IRF) framework that has been developed in the past to understand formal classroom interactions. We only found one example in the video clip data of an IRF style exchange:
Transcript 4: Owl Story Book
Teacher: ‘B’ [child’s name]…how many words are in the title?
Child 13: (Pauses) Four.
Child 13 points to the words on the page: one, two three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine [Child 13 looks up to the teacher]
[The teacher points to the page]
Teacher 4: OK, Child ‘13’ has counted. What has she counted?
Child 15: Titles
Child 12: Letters
Teacher 4: [Teacher points to Child 12] She’s counted the letters, and I said how many words are there? How many words ‘B’ [child’s name]? Try again. [teacher points to words on page] There’s one word
Child 11: Two words
Child 13: Two words
Child 12: Two
Teacher 4: [Points to page] Two words, but nine letters…turn the page and lets see what’s happening next…
In this interaction the ‘teacherly’ nature of the adult is evident by their use of questions and setting of the agenda. Beyond this one example this kind of interaction, following the IRF framework, was not evident in the data. This was largely due to the context of the video clip conversations which were mainly made in less formal situations within early years learning environments. We sought frameworks for analysing interactions that were more able to cope with less formal settings that often involved more than one child. The Repeats, Edits, Authors, Leads (REAL) framework, developed from interaction research in modern language classrooms, was used to pursue the analysis.
When applying REAL in the analysis of the video clips ‘repeats’ means that the previous contribution is simply regurgitated with little or no further elaboration:
Transcript 9: Baby Monitor
Child 29: And I hide behind the a thingy where all the dirty clothes are.
Teacher 9: What is that? Where all the clothes are. What’s a thingy?
Child 29: A washing basket
Teacher 9: A washing basket
In this quote, following use of questioning, the teacher uses ‘repeats’.
In applying REAL to the data ‘edits’ is used to code contributions where some reconstruction of the form and content, offered by the previous speaker, is made.
Transcript 4: Owl Story Book
Teacher 4: Badgers live in ‘sets’ but what do owls live in?
Child 12: Um, trees…
Teacher 4: They live in trees but what do they live in, in the tree? [teacher cups her hand] What would we call that?
Child 12: A nest
Teacher 4: A nest
Child 12: [points to the page] That’s the big hole where they go out and in
Teacher 4: So they’re nice and safe, they’re in a hole, in the tree, in their nest.
Teacher 4: …so let’s have a look…
Both teacher and child demonstrate ‘edits’ within this quote. Within the REAL framework we sometimes found it difficult to distinguish between edits and the next level of ‘authors’. ‘Authors’ is taken to mean introduction of new content:
Transcript 2 – Water Play: I want a froggy!
Teacher 2: What’s happening down here? (pause) What’s happening down here Leon?
Child 5: [points to the ground]. It’s blocked again
Teacher 2: [Teacher kneeling beside one of the containers] What? Umm, why is it blocked?
Child 5: There’s a froggy inside
In this quote the child, in response to teacher questioning, introduces the issue of the drain of the pool being blocked. This same pattern is shown in a different example of authoring:
Transcript 7: House of Gold
Teacher 7: And then what would you do with all the gold?
Child 23: [Child stands up and points to the elephant] Well we’d give it away to sick people. We’d give it away to the sick people
Again, there is a tension around power of the teacher because these authoring contributions were mainly found to be responses to the teacher’s questions rather than more spontaneous new contributions. These interactions perhaps again capture the ‘teacherly’ approach of the adults and link to the final element of REAL which ‘leads’ in relation to the interaction. The use of metaphor seems helpful in understanding this issue and the linking of acquisition to repeats, participation to edits, contribution to authors and then finally framing to leads helps to link the analysis of interaction more firmly back to the learning that may be taking place. Framing is a useful metaphor to help understand the way the context of the early years setting helps to influence the conversations that take place within it. The ‘teacherly’ behaviour of the adults in the study is not surprising because they are teachers. Their workplace context has considerable influences on their day to day interactions with children.
Teacher identities
The final framework we used in the analysis related to this identity of teacher. The concept of ‘situated identity’ helps to explain the previous quotes where a ‘teacherly’ style was adopted by the adults. Even if the teacher has other identities, for example as a daughter or son, as a sibling or as a parent, within their workplace their professional identity is likely to be foregrounded. As a teacher the ‘delivery’ or ‘coverage’ of the formal curriculum is likely to be an important driver and assessment of children in line with policy guidance and quality assurance pressures is likely to be seen as important. However, we applied the concept of transportable identity to the data and found examples where teachers adopted alternative identities during their conversational interactions with children:
Transcript 3: Wiggly Worms
Teacher 3: You’re doing another one? Oh, can you teach me how to do a wiggly worm?
Child 9: Yes
[Child 9 moves over towards Teacher 3]
Teacher 3: What do you have to do?
Child 9: You have to rub it in, look, see
Teacher 3: Ah, there, so roll it with your fingers
Child 9: Yes, and then it makes a snake like this
[Child 9 holds up the wiggly worm]
Teacher 3: Oh, ‘M’ [child’s name] look I’m making one. I’m rolling, rolling, rolling. (pause) ‘M’ what do you think of mine?
In this quote the teacher appears to adopt the identity of a playmate when she asks ‘can you teach me how to do a wriggly worm?’ In other examples the teachers adopted the identity of a family member in order to moderate their power and encourage reciprocity in the conversation.
Discussion The collective approach to analysis initially identified that in these early years settings it is not easy for teachers to engage children in learning conversations that generate sustained shared thinking. Most one to one, adult to child, conversations are soon joined by other children. With hindsight, provided by repeated viewing of a video clip, it is possible to notice how teachers may have missed opportunities to implement conversational strategies recommended by the research evidence. This challenging finding, that it is not easy to achieve sustained shared thinking in formal school settings, is in line with the evidence base (Tizard & Hughes, 1984; Siraj-Blatchford, Sylva, Muttock, Gilden & Bell, 2003). The recommended strategies, such as ‘extension’ or making ‘connections’, were identifiable in the practice of the teachers in this study, often in slightly modified and personalised forms that reflected individual characteristics or style. In these early years settings the teachers felt they have a particular focus on speech and language development and to some extent that influenced their implementation of the conversational strategies. For example this emphasis means that the strategy of introducing or reinforcing ‘new vocabulary’ was perhaps more frequent than it may be in conversation with older children. The teachers found it useful to engage with the recommended teacher strategies during analysis of the video clips and in on-going development of practice. To a large extent it was felt to be useful to refresh their tacitly held conversational strategies that did already reflect to varying degrees on those proposed by the literature (Damhuis & De Blauw, 2008).
The project findings also suggest that such collective analysis might use multiple analytical frameworks to avoid a rational-linear approach and to tease out the meanings of situated practice. The teachers in this study found that their practice in building learning conversations with young children was shaped by their workplace context in very practical ways but also through more subtle influences on their responses during adult-child conversations. Video analysis using the REAL framework positioned the teacher as just one member of a small discussion group. This shifted the emphasis away from ‘ping-pong’ style adult-child interaction and towards consideration of a more ‘basketball’ type of discussion. This shift helped to critically engage the teacher researchers in the recommended strategy of ‘power / reciprocity’ and this was identified as a key issue. Generally this strategy means that the teacher tries to respond during conversations to the agenda of the child, encouraging them to develop their thinking based on their experiences.
Focusing on the strategy of ‘power / reciprocity’ emphasises the complexity of the teachers’ work and workplace setting. Their use and development of conversation strategies involves a balancing act between competing agendas including their identification of the child’s needs, priorities related to curriculum and assessment, requirements of the quality assurance review body (in the UK that is ‘Ofsted’), their engagement with professional guidance and research, and their identity as a teacher. Even within potentially rich learning scenarios it appears to be all too easy for teachers to miss opportunities to develop dialogic learning conversations because of these competing influences on their ‘in the moment’ decision-making. The teachers in the study often found it difficult to avoid being ‘teacherly’ during conversations. Rather than follow the child’s agenda it is tempting, as a teacher, to respond in ways that focus on elements of the curriculum such as referring to previous teaching or to speech and language development. Of course this is perfectly reasonable behaviour by teachers, but video analysis showed it to sometimes be in tension with the development, in the moment, of sustained shared thinking. The concept of ‘transportable identities’ (Zimmerman, 1998) was found to be of some practical use in understanding successful teacher conversational strategies captured in the video clips. By adopting the identity of a ‘playmate’ or of a ‘family member’ the teachers seemed to be able to resist the temptation to be ‘teacherly’, or at least to delay that moment and allow the conversation to develop further with a more equitable power balance.
Teacher learning
The research project supports previous work in showing that collective analysis of video clips of their own practice is a powerful approach in efforts to engage teachers with practice (Osipova et al., 2011: Derry, 2007). In this project however the teachers went beyond reflection on their practical wisdom and became critically engaged with a body of established research evidence. The teacher strategies gathered from the research evidence base were made much more meaningful by the process of analysing the video clips. The process enabled teachers to relate the recommended strategies to their particular situated workplace settings. The additional and more abstract analytical framework of REAL (Repeat – Edit - Author – Lead) proved to be useful in evaluating and refining the more concrete ‘good practice’ type guidelines provided by the research evidence-based teacher strategies or by one to one interaction frameworks such as IRF (Intervention – Response – Feedback) (Crichton, 2013).
The process of applying and critically evaluating the analytical frameworks provoked debate and negotiation to agree on our shared interpretation of the situated practice captured in the video clips. In evaluating the project the teachers overwhelmingly focused on the collaborative analysis as the key element in supporting their professional learning. It had provoked professional development coaching activity back in school and led to changes in practice. In addition, some of the teachers were involved in presenting the project at a conference and they felt that the pre-reading and preparation for this event helped to sharpen and embed their understanding of the literature and findings. However, the teachers did not all feel that they had learned sufficiently about how to undertake practitioner research independently in the future and this perhaps reflected the lack of much formal training on research methods within the project.
The project appears to include elements of ‘rational-linear’ but also of ‘interactive’ models of research-informed practice in education (Nutley et al., 2008). The sustained nature of the project, the collaborative sharing of practice by teachers, the presence of an intermediary in the form of the university research-mentor, the support of institutional leaders, the critical engagement with the research evidence-base, and above all the enquiry-based approach, all point to the alignment of the project with the recommendations, based on review of the relevant research evidence base, for effective continuing professional development for teachers (Cordingley, 2008). The metaphor for teachers’ professional learning as ‘interplay’ appears to be useful in conceptualising the current project because the teachers engaged with their own practical wisdom but also with the vertical knowledge domain in the shape of the research evidence-base used to build the analytical framework (Boyd & Bloxham, 2013). The case for classifying such projects as either rational-linear or interactive seems rather fragile (Nutley et al., 2008), not least because the style of facilitation by intermediaries and the level of engagement and ownership by teachers appear to be critical, but these seem likely to vary according to the local situation. Such projects might more usefully be positioned along a dimension between top-down and bottom-up sources of power. The head teachers commissioning the project would seem to be powerful top-down players, and the University research mentor is also in a potentially powerful position, especially in relation to the vertical knowledge domain. However, providing a little counterbalance, the teachers have their own level of classroom autonomy and expert practical wisdom that appears to provide them with some measure of bottom-up power. Overall the project supports the findings of larger scale study by Fisher and Wood in terms of the benefits of practitioner research on adult-child interaction in the early years (2012).