Sami Lehesvuori

Introducing Dialogic Teaching to Science Student Teachers

It is commonly believed that science teachers rely on language that allows only minor flexibility when it comes to taking into account contrasting views and pupil thoughts. Too frequently science teachers either pose questions that target predefined answers or simply lecture through lessons, a major concern from a sociocultural perspective. This study reports the experiences of science student teachers when introduced to the Communicative Approach to science education drawing on dialogic teacher-talk in addition to authoritative teacher-talk. This approach was introduced to the students in an interventional teaching program running parallel to the student teachers’ field practice. The practical implications of this approach during initial teacher education are the central focus of this study. The data consisting of videos of lessons and interviews indicate that the student teacher awareness of teacher-talk and alternative communicative options did increase. Student teachers reported greater awareness of the different functions of teacher-talk as well as the challenges when trying to implement dialogic teaching.

Od teorie k praxi: od plánování dialogického vyučování k jeho reflexi

Tato studie zkouma, jak ucitel obeznamený s teorii dialogickeho vyucovani dokaže v praxi realizovat adekvatni komunikacni postupy, a to v kontextu výuky přirodovědných předmětů. Dialogicky pojate vyucovani neni dosud caste, ale řada studii již poskytuje peclivě volene přiklady jeho uplatněni. Cilem dialogickeho vyucovani je umožnit žakům vyjadřovani myslenek nad ramec shromažďovani a memorovani fakt. Některe výzkumy se zabývaji i zacleněnim dialogickeho vyucovani do pregradualni ucitelske připravy, avsak bez toho, že by bylo sledovano, jak absolventi ucitelskeho studia nasledně uplatňuji techniky a principy dialogickeho vyucovani ve vlastni praxi. Nas výzkum ma za cil prověřit, zda zacinajici ucitel, který je obeznamen s různými komunikativnimi přistupy vcetně dialogickeho, umi přenest teorii do praxe. Prostřednictvim analýz y planů výuky a jejich reflexe z jisťujeme, zda teoreticky vybavený ucitel zvladne dialogický přistup ve výuce realně praktikovat. Zaroveň dokladame možne překažky i přiznive podminky pro realizaci tohoto přistupu. Výsledky ukazuji, že planovani vychazejici z teorie bylo uspěsne ve smyslu zavedeni dialogu do výuky. Naplanovane situace byly z větsiny reflektovany a hodnoceny jako dialogicke. Diskutujeme take o důsledcich pro vzdělavani a profesni rozvoj ucitelů.

Inquiry-Based Approaches in Primary Science Teacher Education

This chapter introduces an interactional graphic tool together with a model for inquiry-based science teaching (abbreviated as IBST). The combination of the graphic tool and model offers an approach to support the planning, implementation, reflection and analysis of dialogic IBST. The potential use is illustrated here using a case study in which student teachers used IBST to develop their teaching. The interactional graphic and the model are fundamentally related to three established approaches to science teaching: inquiry-based science teaching, dialogic teaching and the communicative approach. Together, these approaches draw attention to learner participation in inquiry-based science teaching, the joint construction of understanding as a dialogic teaching process and the alternative types of talk teachers can use to guide learning in science through communicative approaches. Combining these three approaches provides a broader ‘three-pronged’ approach to teaching and learning in science. On this basis, we designed our primary teacher science course to include ideas from both inquiry teaching and classroom interaction. During the course, in addition to analysing the content structure of climate change, examining textbooks, pupil thinking and their preconceptions, the student teachers also explored the fundamental ideas of dialogic IBST in primary schools. The analysis of the executed teaching sequences was supported by the use of the interactional graphic tool which helps in mapping teachers’ communicative pattern and the extent to which the IBST approach is taking place. The potential use of the interactional graphic tool and IBST approach for the professional development of teachers is discussed in the end.

ASR in Classroom Today: Automatic Visualization of Conceptual Network in Science Classrooms

Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) field has improved substantially in the last years. We are in a point never saw before, where we can apply such algorithms in non-ideal conditions such as real classrooms. In these scenarios it is still not possible to reach perfect recognition rates, however we can already take advantage of these improvements. This paper shows preliminary results using ASR in Chilean and Finnish middle and high school to automatically provide teachers a visualization of the structure of concepts present in their discourse in science classrooms. These visualizations are conceptual networks that relate key concepts used by the teacher. This is an interesting tool that gives feedback to the teacher about his/her pedagogical practice in classes. The result of initial comparisons shows great similarity between conceptual networks generated in a manual way with those generated automatically.