Promoting productive classroom dialogue in preschool Chiel van der Veen & Bert van Oers, VU University Amsterdam, dept. of Research & Theory in Education Sarah Michaels, Clark University, Worcester, MA, dept. of Education

OUTLINE Background: productive classroom dialogue ↓ Teachers’ use of productive talk moves Promoting children’s oral communicative competence (and more) Method: Professional Development Program (PDP) as formative intervention Interviews, video observations, reflection sessions, collaboration, pre- and posttests Results (preliminary): Children’s oral communicative development; changes in teachers knowledge, beliefs, practices Discussion 2 29/09/2014 PROMOTING PRODUCTIVE CLASSROOM TALK | ISCAR PhD Day 2

What is productive classroom dialogue? ↓ A mode of dialogue in which topics are addressed that are both culturally and personally meaningful It’s always focused on a topic (object) that has the group’s temporary focus of attention. This topic is analyzed and further develop (topic-predicate structures) (cf. Doblaev, 1984; Vygotsky, 1987) (3) It aims for children’s broad learning and development: academic content, reasoning, negotiating, social skills, oral ommunicative competence, etc. (4) In contains elements of a polylogue (through information books, artifacts, others; van Oers & Dobber, 2013) 3 29/09/2014 PROMOTING PRODUCTIVE CLASSROOM TALK | ISCAR PhD Day 3

Some example of productive talk moves TEACHER TALK MOVES Some example of productive talk moves ↓ Revoicing (O’Connor & Michaels, 1993; 1996) P: “Nothing. He just touched something like a wire.” T: “O, a wire? So you are saying, that there was electricity on that wire?” P: “Yes.” (2) Explaining someone else (Michaels & O’Connor, 2012) T: “Can you explain it?” P: “Well, that the wire is connected with a socket. And electrical power comes from the socket and if you touch it, than it causes convulsions” (3) Metacommunication (cf. Robinson, 1983; 1986 ; Lyster, 2004) T: “Something blue. Can you expand on that? Because I don’t understand you yet.” 4 29/09/2014 PROMOTING PRODUCTIVE CLASSROOM TALK | ISCAR PhD Day 4

PROMOTING PRODUCTIVE CLASSROOM TALK | ISCAR PhD Day METHODS Participants: 2 schools, 4 experienced teachers, 92 children (41 girls; mean age=5;08, SD=.67) ↓ Professional Development Program: co-developed with teachers, theory driven, recontextualizing tools for ones own teaching context Data: Pre-observations (video recordings), interviews (3), workshop (2), video recordings of 15 classroom conversations (over 2 cycles of 4 weeks), weekly reflection sessions, pre- and post tests of children’s oral communicative competence 5 29/09/2014 PROMOTING PRODUCTIVE CLASSROOM TALK | ISCAR PhD Day 5

SOME PRELIMINARY RESULTS Significant difference in children’s oral communicative competence (Wilcoxon signed-rank test: z =-6.46, p < .001; large effect size: r = .48) Changes in teachers’ knowledge on productive talk and children’s oral communicative development Changes in teachers’ classroom practices: decrease in teacher talk time, increase in child talk time, shift from monologic to dialogic, use of productive talk moves (increase, decrease), even some changes on school level 6 29/09/2014 PROMOTING PRODUCTIVE CLASSROOM TALK | ISCAR PhD Day 6

PROMOTING PRODUCTIVE CLASSROOM TALK | ISCAR PhD Day DISCUSSION Future research: intervention study starting in October 2014 (10 schools, 22 teachers, 400-500 children; quasi experimental) Question 1: what about teachers’ agency in relation to our methodology? Question 2: How to deal with potential conflicts of interest between researchers and practitioners? Question 3: How can we deal with a possible decrease of newly learned skills over time? 7 29/09/2014 PROMOTING PRODUCTIVE CLASSROOM TALK | ISCAR PhD Day 7

Thank you for your attention! Questions, comments or more information? chiel.vander.veen@vu.nl | www.chielvanderveen.com 8 29/09/2014 PROMOTING PRODUCTIVE CLASSROOM TALK | ISCAR PhD Day 8