How does an expert teacher create lessons so that children think subjectively and learn from each other? Students' sharing of the ground rules for classroom discussion

Abstract

The present study examined the process whereby a skilled teacher helps children foster ground rules for classroom discussions. Sixth graders (18 boys, 21 girls) in a Japanese language arts class were observed, and their teacher (a male in his forties with more than 20 years' teaching experience) was interviewed. Quantitative analysis of the classroom discussions, utilizing 3 types of coding categories, succeeded in organizing the rules and identifying the discourse process by which the rules were given. Qualitative analysis further illustrated salient features of the discourse process. The results were as follows : (1) Throughout the classroom discussions, the teacher acknowledged the students' perceptions of the discussion which thwarted their initiatives to learn from each other. Moreover, he generated unique rules that reframed the students' perceptions. (2) The teacher believed that since rules depend on context, a one-sided approach would not enable the students to understand the concrete meaning of the rules and share the importance of the rules. Based on this belief, he reformulated rules that emerged during the discussion. The refined rules were then presented clearly to the students.