Teachers' gestures and speech in mathematics lessons: Forging common ground by resolving trouble spots

被引:38
作者
Alibali M.W. [1 ]
Nathan M.J. [2 ]
Church R.B. [3 ]
Wolfgram M.S. [4 ]
Kim S. [5 ]
Knuth E.J. [6 ]
机构
[1] Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, 53706
[2] Department of Educational Psychology, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, 53706
[3] Department of Psychology, Northeastern Illinois University, Chicago, IL, 60625
[4] Department of Anthropology, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL, 35487
[5] Anyang University, Anyang
[6] Department of Curriculum and Instruction, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, 53706
来源
ZDM | 2013年 / 45卷 / 3期
关键词
Classroom communication; Common ground; Gesture;
D O I
10.1007/s11858-012-0476-0
中图分类号
学科分类号
摘要
This research focused on how teachers establish and maintain shared understanding with students during classroom mathematics instruction. We studied the micro-level interventions that teachers implement spontaneously as a lesson unfolds, which we call micro-interventions. In particular, we focused on teachers' micro-interventions around trouble spots, defined as points during the lesson when students display lack of understanding. We investigated how teachers use gestures along with speech in responding to such trouble spots in a corpus of six middle-school mathematics lessons. Trouble spots were a regular occurrence in the lessons (M = 10.2 per lesson). We hypothesized that, in the face of trouble spots, teachers might increase their use of gestures in an effort to re-establish shared understanding with students. Thus, we predicted that teachers would gesture more in turns immediately following trouble spots than in turns immediately preceding trouble spots. This hypothesis was supported with quantitative analyses of teachers' gesture frequency and gesture rates, and with qualitative analyses of representative cases. Thus, teachers use gestures adaptively in micro-interventions in order to foster common ground when instructional communication breaks down. © 2013 FIZ Karlsruhe.
引用
收藏
页码:425 / 440
页数:15
相关论文
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