Discourse

Moral Implications of Teacher-Student

Discourse

            There are two types of teacher-student discourse, in the classroom, which have moral implications on student leaning. The two types of discourse will generate different types of knowledge and set up the future learning patterns of the student. To be basic, these types of discourse will lead to how the student defines his or her relationship with the teacher and how the teacher guides them in attaining their educational goals. Furthermore, they will develop an understanding of themselves as learners and what their role is in attaining knowledge. Teachers control this by how they shape the questions they ask or how they respond during a discipline situation, to name a couple examples.

IREva (Initiation – Response – Evaluation):

·         The teacher initiates with a question – a child responds – the teacher follows with either an evaluative comment or moves on to another question.

·         Ultimately learners are to absorb knowledge, hold it, and recall it later.

·         Teacher controls the dialogue with known-answer questions.

·         Little or no opportunity to expand on the answer or their own ideas.

·         “Reciting by heart.” Allows no playing with the context, knowledge is totally affirmed or totally rejected.

·         Would be considered as a representation of the teacher’s voice.

·         Used to convey meanings adequately.

·         The sender of knowledge sends, and the receiver of knowledge receives. Questions are asked to gauge if the knowledge has been received.

IRExp (Initiation – Response – Expand):

·         The teacher initiates with a question – a child responds – the teacher responds in a way that will allow the learners to expand on their answer.

·         Ultimately the teacher engages the children in the process of finding out. Allowing the class to construct knowledge through expanded discussion.

·         Learners gain an orientation on the procedures of constructing knowledge, as a class.

·         Learners are seen as worthy of intense, sustained, meaningful, and deliberate inquiry. Allowing multiple voices gives opportunity for “dialogic inquiry.”

·          “Retelling in one’s own words.” Allows for the creation of new meanings or new understanding generated from the learner’s voices.

·         Multiple voices serve as a thinking device. Generates a hierarchy of new perspectives that can be formed into new meanings for each individual learner.

Moral Implications of Teacher-Student

Discourse (cont)

            How teacher-student discourse is used constitutes the nature of what will be learned during classroom activities, as well as set up how the student will learn in the future. The moral questions that follow address two educational concepts: Are we allowing students the means for inquiry and problem solving? Is our instruction resulting in a learner who has developed the ability to self-formulate and self-regulate healthy inquiry in an effort to generate new knowledge?

            Maher and Tetreault (1994) outlined four dimensions which aide in the examination of teacher-student discourse during learning activities. The four dimensions allow a school to analyze: How teachers engage children during learning activities, what children learn from these activities, the nature of the children’s participation in the activities, and how teachers and students relate to each other during those activities. (Cary A. Buzzelli, 1996)

Mastery:

·         What knowledge are children mastering as a result of their participation in classroom activities?

·         What does this knowledge mean for future learning and development?

Moral Question

·         Is it moral to engage children in the mastery of a collection of facts and content, rather than in mastering forms and/or strategies of inquiry?

Voice:

·         Are children’s voices present in the discourse?

·         Do we hear when children’s interests, questions, and concerns are being expressed?

·         Are children able to keep their own voice while appropriating the voice of the school?

Moral Questions

·         Is it moral to limit children’s opportunities from bringing their own ways of knowing and communicating knowledge? Is it moral to limit unique responses which reflect the student’s ways of learning and knowing?

Authority:

·         Who is seen as the authority on knowledge and ways of learning that knowledge?

·         What authority is given to children for their own knowledge?

Moral Questions

·         Is it moral to engage children in learning activities where the teacher assumes all authority over knowledge? Is it moral that children’s claim to knowledge be seen as challenges to that teacher’s authority?

Positionality:

·         What is the teacher’s position relative to children as learners and what is to be learned?

·         Does the teacher strive to enlist children as co-learners and co-teachers?

Moral Question

·         Is it moral that knowledge is understood to be transmitted exclusively from teacher to student, passing from one individual to another, rather than envisioned as co-constructed by all learners engaged in shared inquiry?