A Teacher’s Use of Revoicing in Mathematical Discussions

Abstract

This study explores how a teacher’s use of revoicing promotes students ’ mathematical thinking and, more generally, mathematical learning opportunities. We analyzed four lessons where 12-year-old students solved geometry problems. We identified episodes that illustrate how the teacher’s actions supported students ’ explanations during mathematical discussions. In this chapter we show two examples, from one of the lessons, where the teacher’ s use of revoicing created spaces where students strengthened their understanding of the concept of distance between two points and its relation with the Pythagorean Theorem. Our theoretical approach to revoicing leads us to distinguish and examine three dimensions: linguistic, discursive and mathematical. The integrated view of such dimensions serves tofi nd emergent relationships among talk, classroom discourse, and learning opportunities.