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Factors influencing the use of dialogic teaching in two Secondary 2 mathematics classrooms in Singapore
Author
Martin, Andrew Jonathan
Supervisor
Yeo, Joseph B. W.
Abstract
Dialogic teaching is a classroom approach aimed at promoting classroom talk amongst the learners. Despite reports of the positive merits of such an approach, scholarly works have shown a distinct lack of dialogic interactions in various classrooms and yet little awareness on the reason for such a phenomenon. Furthermore, there remains little knowledge of dialogic teaching particularly within mathematics education. This research thus sets out to enquire how dialogic teaching is enacted in a mathematics classroom in Singapore and investigate the factors which may influence the use of such an approach. By doing so, mathematics teachers can be informed of how dialogic teaching could be advanced in their individual classrooms while simultaneously closing present gaps in the theory-practice nexus.
A mixed method approach guided the research methodology in which data was collected through the use of surveys, semi-structured interviews and audio recordings of mathematics lessons. The collection of data involved two mathematics teachers and their corresponding Secondary 2 classes from which lesson sequences on the topic of direct and inverse proportion were recorded and analysed. Data analysis was carried out through the use of the Cam-UNAM Scheme for Educational Dialogue Analysis (SEDA) (Hennessy et al., 2016) and the Monologic-dialogic continuum framework. A corroboration of findings from these schemes revealed that there was a dominance of monologic type of interaction during the various mathematics lessons. Four factors were identified to have influenced the type of interaction observed in the classrooms. These were: 1) willingness of students to engage in dialogue, 2) discrepancy in teacher’s own perception of dialogue, 3) teachers’ teaching habit of delivering a lesson in contrast to facilitating one and 4) the proportion of practice question enacted in the mathematics classroom in comparison to concept development tasks.
It was further discussed in this research that these factors were in turn fuelled implicitly by the expertise of the two participating teachers with regard to facilitating dialogue in their classrooms and making use of the resources found in the prescribed textbook to formulate dialogic spaces in their lessons. The discussion was focussed on how facets of constructivism were lacking in the teachers’ enactment. To ensure its contribution to practice, the following study deliberates upon methods to which typical classroom practices can be ‘tweaked’ so as to better assimilate dialogic teaching in the mathematics classroom.
A mixed method approach guided the research methodology in which data was collected through the use of surveys, semi-structured interviews and audio recordings of mathematics lessons. The collection of data involved two mathematics teachers and their corresponding Secondary 2 classes from which lesson sequences on the topic of direct and inverse proportion were recorded and analysed. Data analysis was carried out through the use of the Cam-UNAM Scheme for Educational Dialogue Analysis (SEDA) (Hennessy et al., 2016) and the Monologic-dialogic continuum framework. A corroboration of findings from these schemes revealed that there was a dominance of monologic type of interaction during the various mathematics lessons. Four factors were identified to have influenced the type of interaction observed in the classrooms. These were: 1) willingness of students to engage in dialogue, 2) discrepancy in teacher’s own perception of dialogue, 3) teachers’ teaching habit of delivering a lesson in contrast to facilitating one and 4) the proportion of practice question enacted in the mathematics classroom in comparison to concept development tasks.
It was further discussed in this research that these factors were in turn fuelled implicitly by the expertise of the two participating teachers with regard to facilitating dialogue in their classrooms and making use of the resources found in the prescribed textbook to formulate dialogic spaces in their lessons. The discussion was focussed on how facets of constructivism were lacking in the teachers’ enactment. To ensure its contribution to practice, the following study deliberates upon methods to which typical classroom practices can be ‘tweaked’ so as to better assimilate dialogic teaching in the mathematics classroom.
Date Issued
2023
Call Number
QA14.S55 Mar
Date Submitted
2023