Questioning as scaffolds in computer and face to face ...

Standard Global Journal of Educational Research Vol 1(2): 025- 32, February 2014 http://www.standardglobaljournals.com/journals/sgjer

Research Article

Form and Function of questions across computer and face to face based lessons: A sociocultural analysis Dr. Joanne Hardman Department of Educational Psychology, School of Education, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa Author E-mail: [email protected], Tel: 27216503920

Accepted 24 February, 2014 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Abstract

Educational under achievement in gateway subjects such as mathematics and science is a continuing challenge in South African schools. In a bid to develop technologically competent mathematicians and scientists while addressing the shortage of teacher capacity in the country, the government has turned to technology to support and strengthen teaching and learning in disadvantaged classrooms. The assumption underlying the use of computers in these schools is that computers will enable students to cover the curriculum more efficiently and effectively, leading to improved performance. However, the extent to which a computer can impact positively on students’ achievement depends on how a computer is used as a learning/teaching tool. The research reported in this paper draws theoretical insight from Vygotsky’s (1978) “general genetic law” which states that higher cognitive functions - thinking, reasoning and problem-solving - begin as real relations between people, interpsychologically, before being internalised intrapsychologically. That is, dialogical interaction is posited as a crucial mediating tool capable of effecting cognitive and pedagogical change. Understanding questions as cognitive tools, the study investigates the form and function of questioning in face to face and computer based mathematics lessons in four disadvantaged primary schools in the Western Cape Province of South Africa. Findings indicate that the form and function of questions differs across face to face and computer lessons, with teachers using questions as cognitive tools in the face to face lesson to a greater degree than in the computer based lessons. Given the potential developmental impact that questions can serve as mediational tools, the dearth of questioning in computer based lessons coupled with how questions are used in this context, calls into question the efficacy of pedagogy in computer based lessons in this sample. Keywords: Sociocultural theory; learning; questions; primary school INTRODUCTION The epistemology of questioning Findings from the Global Information Technology Report (2013) indicate that new technologies have a measurable impact on economic growth and job creation. South Africa, however, lags significantly behind other emerging economies, being placed 70th in this report. Add to this the fact that South Africa is ranked second last in the world in terms of mathematics and science attainment (Evans, 2013), and the challenges facing the education sector in South

Stand. Global J. Edu. Res

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Africa are brought into sharp relief. In a bid to harness novel technologies in order to address the educational challenges facing the country, the government of the Western Cape Province in South Africa implemented a technological intervention aimed at using computers as pedagogical tools to impact on students‟ developmental trajectories, particularly in mathematics. This paper, the second in a series investigating the impact computers have on semiotic mediation in a classroom, considers whether the introduction of the computer into mathematics lessons effects how teachers use questions as pedagogical tools. The assumption underlying the focus on questioning is based in the NeoVygotskian understanding that language is a primary tool for mediating students‟ access to higher order thinking. For Vygotsky, higher mental functions, those uniquely human modes of thinking and being, are necessarily mediated in sociocultural context. In order to acquire knowledge, the child must be guided by a culturally more competent other, who leads the child from a place of not knowing to a place of knowing (Vygotksy, 1978). The gap between what the child knows and what the child needs to know was theorised by Vygotsky (1978) as the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD): essentially, a social space, opened up in interaction, in which the child is assisted in problem solving. This zone indicates what the child‟s potential to learn is, as Vygotsky (1978) held that what a child could accomplish with assistance was more indicative of his/her potential than what could be achieved in isolation. While all language is potentially crucial in mediation, in this paper I will argue for the centrality of questioning as a mediating tool by illustrating how four (4) teachers use questions to teach across two contexts: the face to face and computer based mathematics lesson. Classroom discourse: I-R-E- to be or not to be? In the mid-1970s Mehan (1979) and Sinclair and Coulthard (1975) identified a fundamental questioning structure in classrooms which they called the Initiation-Response-Evaluation/Feedback (IRE) sequence. Subsequent research has shown that the IRE sequence can have both a positive and negative impact on learning (Wells, 1999; Hardman, 2000). One of the identified problems of the IRE sequence is that teachers tend to ask questions to which they know the answer. There is thus, little room for discussion or creative exploration in such a sequence, which serves as an assessment tool. Silliman and Wilkinson (1994) identify the IRE structure of classroom discourse as supporting what they call directive scaffolds, which focus on the transmission of knowledge, rather than the active construction of knowledge. Where directive scaffolds are used, evaluation and instruction are essentially separate: the teacher instructs and tests, without altering his/her pedagogy in response to the students‟ heterogeneous learning needs. Directive scaffolds, then, could be viewed as restricting learning by locating it within what Vygotksy would call the child‟s actual developmental level rather than promoting learning through opening up the child‟s Zone of Proximal development (1978)- that space in which the child‟s potential to learn lies. Conversely, Silliman and Wilkinson (1994) identify the use of supportive scaffolds as those types of scaffolds that can serve a developmental role by accessing and working within the child‟s ZPD (Palincsar and Brown, 1984). These scaffolds are seen as responsive in that the teacher alters his/her pedagogy in response to the students‟ answer. While this paper recognises the two different types of scaffolds, I would argue that both can be viewed in a Vygotskian framework, depending on the context of the questioning. Well‟s (1999) has argued, in fact, that the IRE sequence and its attendant directive scaffolded approach can in fact be useful for learning. Further, Hardman (2000) illustrates how questions can be used as directive scaffolds to open up students‟ ZPD. Further, there is evidence to suggest that the impact of an IRE structure is dependent on what kinds of initiation and evaluation moves the teacher makes (Nystrand et al., 1993). Where teachers ask authentic questions, without predetermined answers as opposed to test question (with only one answer) and where evaluation is high-level, the IRE sequence can be used as a learning tool- a supportive scaffold, if you will. Placed within a Neo-Vygotskian framework, we can appreciate why this might be so. Questions can be used as cognitive tools to mediate a student‟s access to new knowledge. Moreover, the teacher‟s posed question can also be intended to provoke cognitive conflict, what Piaget (1977) has called disequilibrium. These kinds of questions disrupt current understandings, forcing a rupture between what the learner knows and the new object of knowledge under construction. This process, where the teachers poses a question that causes a disjuncture between what the child knows and needs to know, can be linked to the Vygotskian notion of the ZPD. Essentially, cognitive conflict can be seen as a useful tool for opening up a student‟s ZPD. Teachers' questions, then, can lead to learning by provoking disequilibrium in learners. Moreover, it is not only the teacher‟s posed question that potentially has a cognitive impact; the student‟s posed question provides the perfect opportunity for teaching in that it shows the teacher what the child knows and what s/he needs to know in order to solve a particular problem. By highlighting the gap between what the student knows and what the s/he needs to know, questions provide unique access to the ZPD. Hence, student questions can direct teachers‟ interventions. For Vygotsky (1978), the child's speech, initially externally directed, turns inwards during development. Therefore, the external regulatory function that expressive questions serve, must also turn inwards, becoming internal or self-regulation. The student‟s question, then, is not only a useful pedagogical indicator of his/her knowledge base; it is also a cognitive tool, capable of regulating mental

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actions. Self-regulation requires an ability to question one's own actions, in order to ascertain effective strategies for doing certain things. A student's question provides the perfect opportunity for teaching by setting the student and teacher on the same path, towards learning. Clearly, questions are very useful pedagogical tools, both for learners and teachers. The study An exploratory case study design was employed in order to best investigate how teachers use questions in their face to face and computer lessons. The sample comprised four previously disadvantaged primary schools in the Western Cape region of South Africa. Four grade six classes (153 children) and four grade six mathematics teachers participated in the study. Table 1 provides demographic data on the teachers participating in this study. Table 1. Demographic data: The teacher Teacher and school

Gender

Age

Home Lang

Mr. Botha Merryvale

Male

37

Afrikaans

Mr. Abel Thandokhulu

Male

32

Afrikaans

Mrs De Wet Newtown Ms. Todd Siyazama

Female

46

Afrikaans

Female

34

Afrikaans

Highest level of formal education Matric+ 4/5 years teacher training 1 (e.g. FDE) Matric+ 4/5 years teacher training (e.g. FDE) Matric + 3 years teachers training Bachelor degree and teacher training (HDE)

Years teaching

Grade levels taught in the past 5 years

Home computer

13 years

Grade 6 and 7

Yes

3years

Grade 5, 6 & 7

No

15+ years

Grade 6 & 7

No

7 years

Grade 5, 6 & 7

No

The decision to focus the analytical lens on mathematics classrooms was driven both by the crisis faced in mathematics education in South Africa as well as by the more pragmatic concern with situating the study within a context where computers were used with some frequency (at least once a week for at least one hour). Two schools were located in urban areas and two were located in rural farming districts. All schools can best be described as previously disadvantaged schools that have benefited from a government initiative to bridge the digital divide by providing schools with a fully equipped computer laboratory (Hardman, 2004). Sixteen lessons differing in length from one hour to one hour and forty five minutes were video recorded and serve as the primary observational data set. The video data were examined for evidence of evaluative episodes, disruptions in the pedagogical script where the teacher makes visible the evaluative criteria required for students to produce a legitimate text. Deriving the categories Each lesson was videoed in its entirety and was subsequently transcribed by the researcher. Each transcription was analysed at three levels; first, the body of data was broken up into evaluative episodes. An evaluative episode is a coherent classroom activity where the teacher elaborates the evaluative criteria required to produce a legitimate script (Hardman, 2007). These episodes are marked out because they represent disruptions in the pedagogical script; that is, these episodes represent a break in the flow of the script where the teacher is called on to restate the content being covered in the lesson in response to student productions. Essentially, these are spaces in which the teacher realises that the students‟ have not yet acquired the requisite rules for the production of a legitimate text and, consequently, the teacher restates these rules; these are spaces, then, of clarification and illustration arising out of students‟ mis/lack of 2 understanding . The notion of evaluative episode draws on the body of knowledge that has developed out of Flanagan‟s (1954) definition of critical incidents as “a classroom episode or event which causes a teacher to stop short and think” (33) as well as Wragg‟s (2001) description of a critical incident as an event that appears to “help or impede children‟s understanding” (11) and Goodwin‟s (2001) understanding of these events as turning points in the lesson “where the teacher‟s utterances influence the shape and tone of the subsequent interaction” (11).

1

FDE= Further Diploma in Education; HDE is the Higher Diploma in Education, a postgraduate professional qualification. Note, however, that in severely dysfunctional classes, one may not be able to find evaluative episodes as these episodes indicate a level of teacher responsitivity that would be lacking in a context where the teacher’s main function was to manage behaviour and the students’ main function was to rote learn (for an example of dysfunctional classrooms, see Jacklin, 2005). 2

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Coding The data were analysed in three stages. In the first stage, evaluative episodes were identified. The second stage involved coding utterances in terms of whether they were questions or statements. Utterances which elicited a response were coded as questions; utterances that elicited no response, even if they had the form of a question (such as a rhetorical question) were coded as statements. Codes emerged in the process of analysis. Using the method of constant comparison, analysis of the evaluative episodes elicited the broad categories of question use outlined in table 2 (Glaser and Strauss, 1967). Table 2. The categorisation of the form of questions FORM Factual Probe

Procedural

DEFINITION Factual questions to which the teacher knows the answer: single response items Probes (teacher stays with same child asking further questions; invites child to articulate their understanding/explain their thinking) Procedural: questions related to the organisation and management of the lesson

EXAMPLE What is 3 x 1? Why did you do it like that? How did you work that out? Must I explain again? Can you all hear?

During the process of analysis it became clear that questions might have a specific form and yet serve a different function. So for example, a closed question that elicited a single known (to the teacher) answer might in fact function to open discussion and encourage interaction by enabling students to engage in the unfolding interaction (Hardman, 2000). Questions were categorised in terms of six functions: first, questions were used to elicit factual information in single, known answers that closed, rather than opened discussion (“five times five?”) this closed category was further broken into questions that served a management (“ok, everyone finished now?”) and a pacing function (here the teacher would ascertain levels of understanding in order to ensure students were all working on the same task); third, questions (even those that appeared closed) could be used to open discussion when they served as scaffolds to guide students‟ interactions (Hardman, 2000); closed questions could be classified as cueing questions when they were used to open or lead discussion or as referencing prior knowledge when they were used to probe students‟ prior learning, finally, questions were coded in terms of whether they functioned to develop students‟ reflective/metacognitive abilities by getting students to give reasons for their problem solving actions. Table 3. Function of questions FUNCTION Classroom management Factual elicitation

Pacing

Cueing questions

Prior understanding

DEFINITION Control behaviour in the classroom Recall of factual information

Questions querying whether students‟ understand the task/content. This is a pacing mechanism for making sure all children are on the same task before the teacher moves onto new work. Cloze procedure type questions that guide students‟ answers; questions that function to lead students‟ to a correct answer opening and sustaining interaction between teacher and student. Part of a ventriloquating sequence where the student is lead from the everyday use of a word to the subject matter concept (Davidoff,1981). Checking child‟s level of understanding by referencing the child‟s out of school knowledge everyday empirical knowledge. Differs from factual elicitation because it requires child uses empirical knowledge to solve a problem.

EXAMPLE Teacher: Can you all see? Teacher: 3x5? Students: 15 Teacher then moves onto another unrelated question. That is, this question is not part of a series of questions around a specific topic. Teacher: Do you all understand? Everyone on number 3?

Teacher: And if you look carefully, how many pieces? (holds up pieces) Students: four Teacher: four pieces. This piece, he is my? (holding up a piece) Students: quarter, Teacher: quarter Teacher:: …And I cut him exactly, exactly, in how many parts? How many parts are there? Students: two Teacher cuts an apple in a first step to discussing parts of a whole.

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Developing reflection

Getting children to think through their answers; getting children to think about their learning and about the strategies they are using to learn; probing students‟ understanding.

Kim: (4/9 x5/3) Ok, so I divided 9 by three and 3 by 3 Teacher: ok, must we stop Kim there? Hmm? Must we stop Kim there. Is Kim doing the correct thing? Students: uhuhm. Teacher: why not? What has she done?

Findings and Discussion Table 4. Categories of questions: form and function in computer and face to face lesson computer lessons factual computer face to face Probing Computer Face to face procedural computer face to face Percentage Computer Face to face

classroom management 1 4

factual elicitation 8 17

checking understanding 1 2

cueing

prior understanding

reflection

total

percentage

2 39

17

7

12 86

24 51

5 2

36

6 49

12 29

31 32

63 19

1

14 5

3

17 24

31 7

14 12

32 16

4 29

2 11

9 26

100

In table 4 we can see that teachers asked 49 questions across the episodes recorded in the computer laboratory. In terms of form of question, 63% of all questions were procedural and served a predominantly management function (31%), as illustrated in extract 1 below. Extract 1. Who is looking on the internet? Managing engagement

1. 2. 3.

Ms. T: Who is looking on the internet? all together Who is not clicking? Using the mouse to click

Only 12% of the questions in the computer laboratory were probing questions which functioned to develop reflection (9%) and to probe prior understanding (2%). As probing questions tend to open discussion, developing metacognitive engagement, this dearth of probing questions impacts on communicative interaction. In terms of function, 32% of questions posed in the computer based lessons served a pacing function, as illustrated in extract 2 below where the teacher uses questions to 1) move the lesson along and 2) ensure students are all working on the same piece of work at the same time. Extract 2. Everyone together? Questions functioning to pace a lesson

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15.

Mr A: Right, everyone together? Beryl? Everyone together? We all move together. Who is slow? Listen people! Raises his voice slightly Don‟t talk. We don‟t have time. Who is slow? Jerome: Sir? Mr A: What‟s it, Jerome? Jerome: the earphones are broken Mr A: right, everyone‟s earphones are broken. But why you using earphones? Everyone together

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While pacing potentially serves a useful management function, keeping children on task in a classroom, it is not necessarily an effective pedagogical strategy in that is assumes a heterogeneous student knowledge base. From a Vygotskian perspective, where the ZPD is a learning space opened up in a sociocultural activity in which an individual child changes in relation to the activity, the expectation that all children have the same knowledge base is problematic for learning, conceived of as developmental. Interestingly, questioning shifts in the face to face lessons, where teachers tended to ask more questions (167). While 51% of these questions are factual in form, they functioned in very different ways to the factual questions posed in the computer lessons. While factual questions potentially close interaction in single, known responses, in table 4 we can see that in the face to face lessons, teachers‟ factual questions predominantly serve a cueing function, which actually opens interaction rather than closing it. In extract 3 we can see how the teacher uses questions to cue students‟ engagement in order to facilitate their successful engagement with the task. The teacher uses questions to direct and control the students‟ participation in the unfolding dialogue. Used to cue and direct interaction, this type of questioning provides a method for leading students through a discussion when they do not possess the requisite skills to engage without assistance. That is, the questions serve as a scaffold or a bridge between what students know and what they need to know (Wood et al, 1976). This kind of directive scaffolding can be used to effectively clarify concepts and prevent breakdowns in the flow of the lesson. In a Vygotskian (1978) sense, we might characterise this kind of questioning as guided assistance within the students‟ zone of proximal development. Extract 3. Directive scaffolding using questions as cues

The teacher is teaching about fractions, using an apple which he cuts to illustrate parts of the whole. 1. Mr B: now, my denominator tells me how many parts I have divided my whole into. 2. In this case, it‟s two. Holds up parts of the apple 3. So my denominator in this case will be? 4. Students: two 5. Mr B: two. 6. And now I‟m going to cut him further Puts pieces of apple back together and begins to cut it again. Cutting apple 7. Walter: into a quarter 8. Mr B :(nods) …and I cut him up 9. In how many parts? Holds up pieces of apple 10. Students: Four 11. Mr B: And if you look carefully, how many pieces? Holds up pieces 12. Students: four 13. Mr B: four pieces. 14. This piece, he is my Holds up one piece. 15. Students: quarter 16. Mr B: quarter.

The relatively large number of questions asked in the face to face lessons is indicative of a traditional IRE discourse structure (Wells, 1999). In extract 3 above it is interesting to note how the teacher uses these questions to guide students‟ interaction and, indeed to open interaction in the classroom. The IRE discourse structure sets up norms or rules for interacting in the lesson: the teacher asks questions and the students respond when selected to do so by the teacher. The script thus constructed is what Dillon (1986; 1988) has called a recitation script, a form of question-answer directed by the teacher in which turn taking is strictly determined by the teacher. As the teacher asks questions, students tend to speak in answers. This level of rigidity has been argued by some (notably by Gallimore and Tharp, 1988) to limit discussion and hence, to close rather than open enquiry. This closure of enquiry is not ideal in a learning environment, which should, optimally, promote enquiry and discussion, cultivating creativity and independence (Dillon, 1988). However, the view that recitation closes enquiry fails to appreciate the scaffolding function that recitation can potentially serve, when used to teach (Hardman, 2000). In recitation the teacher externally regulates students' engagement with the mathematical problem, modelling how students should exercise metacognitive control over knowledge construction. Moreover, recitation keeps students in the conversation, holding their attention and offering explicit structured engagement with the unfolding interactions. In Extract 3 the teacher uses a recitation script to teach students about parts of a whole. He uses a concrete tool (apple and knife) to illustrate his point and uses questions that cue students‟ answers (lines 1 and 6). These questions serve to teach students because they lead students to the correct answers. By breaking up the complex problem into more easily manageable “bits” through the use of questions, the teacher cognitively structures the students‟ engagement with the task. However, while a recitation script can be used to teach by opening interaction it is limited in its use as a tool to develop students‟ metacognitive engagement with the topic because it does not encourage students‟ to reflect on their problem-solving actions. Probing questions that function to develop students‟ reflection, however, can be useful as metacognitive tools. One of the most obvious differences between questioning in the two contexts is in teachers‟ use of questions to

Hardman 031 develop students‟ reflection in relation to mathematics. In the face to face lesson, 26% of all questions function to promote reflection, developing metacognitive capacity, while in the laboratory only 9% of questions serve this function. In extract 4 below we can see how probing questions are used to develop reflective engagement. Extract 4. Probing questions develop metacognitive engagement: questions as supportive scaffolds

1. Ashwill Problem 2/3 x 9/1 so miss we got 2 x 9 = 18 over 3 He points at the piece of cardboard that has the sum worked out on it; this card is stuck to the blackboard so that the whole class can see it. 2. Times 1 equals 18/3 miss 3. That is 6 miss. 4. Mrs D: ok, Ashwill, 5. Just wait, Teacher turns towards the class: addresses them. 6. They first times two times 9 7. Why did you do that? Turns back to Ashwill. 8. Ashwill: Miss, you times numerators and then denominators, miss 9. Numerators with numerators and denominators with denominators. 10. Mrs D: Ok. Could they simplify before they multiplied the numerator and denominator? Poses this question to the class.

Palincsar and Brown (1984) have discussed the importance of supportive scaffolds in developing students‟ metacognitive capacity. One of the achievements of supportive scaffolding lies in the responsivity of the teacher. Using supportive scaffolds enables the teacher to alter his/her pedagogy depending on the students‟ level of understanding. That is, assessment here is dynamic, allowing for the opening of the ZPD. In this extract Mrs D asks Ashwill to give reasons for why (line 7) he has solved the problem in the way he has. That is, she poses a probing question to encourage him to reflect on his problem-solving actions. He draws on a conceptual tool („you times numerators and then denominators‟) indicating that he has internalised this as a tool with which to solve multiplication of fraction problems. The teacher does not leave it there, however. She probes further, calling on the class to assist in solving the problem in a more efficient way (line 10). In this way, the teacher uses questions to develop the students‟ metacognitive engagement with a mathematical problem. The relative dearth in the computer laboratory of questions that function to promote reflection could potentially impact on students‟ developing metacognitive skills. CONCLUSION The paper reports a study into the form and function of questions across face to face and computer based lessons. Drawing on a Vygotskian (1978) understanding of questions as cognitive tools, capable of mediating students‟ access to higher order thinking (in the case of this study, mathematical concepts), the paper provides an argument for distinguishing between the form questions take and the function they serve in a class. The argument arises from the critique of the IRE traditional discourse structure that characterises classroom interactions. While this structure can be seen as restrictive for developing dialogical interaction, it is, in fact, potentially a very useful pedagogical tool, depending on how the teacher uses a question. Findings indicate that the teachers 1) ask more questions in face to face lessons and 2) that these questions tend to serve a scaffolding function (through directive and supportive scaffolding). Conversely, there is a dearth of questioning in the computer based mathematics lesson. As questions can serve as cognitive tools, capable of developing students‟ cognitively, this dearth of questioning, especially in questions that function to develop reflection, calls into question the efficacy of pedagogy in computer based mathematics lessons in this study. Further research is required to ascertain 1) the extent to which questioning impacts on conceptual acquisition and 2) the pervasiveness of the findings regarding the variation in questioning techniques across contexts. References Daniels H(2001). Vygotsky and pedagogy. New York: Routledge. Dillon JT(1986). Student Questioning and Individual Learning, Educational Theory. 36(4): 333-341. Dillon JT(1988). Questioning and teaching: A Manual of Practice. London: Croom Helm. Flanagan JC(1954). The critical incident technique. Psychological bulletin, 5(14): 327-358. Gallimore R, Tharp R(1993). Teaching mind in society: Teaching, schooling and literate discourse. In L. Moll (Ed.), Vygotsky and education: Instructional implications and applications of sociohistorical psychology (Pp. 175-205). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Glaser BG, Strauss AL(1967). The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for Qualitative Research, Chicago, Aldine Publishing Company Global International Technology Report (2013). http://www.weforum.org/reports/global-information-technology-report-2013 Tharp RG, Gallimore R(1988). Rousing minds to life: Teaching, learning, and schooling in social context. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Goodwin, P. (Ed). 2001. The articulate classroom. London: David Fulton. Hardman J(2000). Tutorial questioning. Unpublished Masters thesis. Natal. University of Natal, Durban. Hardman J(2004). How do teachers use computers to teach mathematics? Khanya project report, 1-26.

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