Dialogic and authoritative discourse in Science teaching

Scott, P. H., Mortimer, E. F., & Aguiar, O. G. (2006). The tension between authoritative and dialogic discourse: A fundamental characteristic of meaning making interactions in high school science lessons. Science Education, 90(4), 605-631. doi: 10.1002/sce.20131

Background

The authors argued that there had been a growing interest in investigating how students learn in the social context of the classroom. As a result, a number of curriculum initiatives with an emphasis on ‘dialogic teaching’ have been implemented. It was observed, however, that dialogic interactions were largely absent from science classrooms around the world.

Aims

Using a framework for characterising classroom discourse, the authors wanted to explore the movement between authoritative and dialogic interactions in a science classroom in order to argue the point that such shifts are an inevitable part of teaching to support meaningful learning of scientific knowledge.

Sample

The sample consisted of four teaching and learning episodes taken from a classroom teaching sequence in a Brazilian school with students aged 14-15 years.

Method

The authors analysed the teaching sequence using their discourse framework which analysed discourse in terms of communicative approach, patterns of interaction, and teaching purposes. The science content was organised around the topic of the thermal regulation of living beings. The lessons involved a combination of work carried out in small groups followed by whole-class discussions led by the teacher. The teacher first introduced each experiment to contextualise the problem. In small groups, the students then performed the experiments and discuss their observations and findings. Subsequently, the teacher and students talked through the ideas and explanations that the students had proposed.

Findings

The authors suggested that there was a tension in the science classroom between the needs to present the school science point of view and to relate to the students’ everyday views of the world. As a result, the teacher in the episodes reviewed moved from a dialogic-interactive stage where she sought the students’ everyday views of ‘heat’ through to an authoritative-noninteractive stage in which she introduced the school science view of the concept. Later, she moved back to a more dialogic stage as she got the students to apply the principles they had just learnt to a new set of problems.

Implications

The authors asserted that the initial dialogic approach was a motivating way to offer opportunities for students to express their everyday views and then later make connections. They argued that science, however, is an authoritative discourse with canonical ways of reasoning, and thus required the teacher to introduce the science perspective authoritatively.

Original article retrieved from EBSCOHost.