Goals: What are the relationships between teacher responses and questions and student thinking? Do teacher responses and questioning lead to deeper student thinking?

Research Question: What happens when teachers respond to student contributions?

Disciplined Statement:
There is a connection between teacher silences and/or revoicing and the student process of engaging in more interpretive thinking. At times these revoicings are a tool to signal to students that they should continue an idea or have reached a more interpretive and significant thought.


Data:

T: “Don Segundo Sombra, what does it mean?”

After this question, that appears to seek interpretation, three students respond. After each response the professor either says, “yes” or nods his head. Each response is directly related to the question and appears as such:

T: Don Segundo Sombra, what does it mean?”
S1: The night is coming. (The professor nodded his head and said “yes”).
S2: It has arrived, or the time has come. (The professor repeated again “Yes, yes” while he continued to nod his head).
S3: It’s the end of the Gaucho.
T: Yes, the Gaucho that is going to continue, it is to say the spirit of the Gaucho.

P: What does Don Leandro represent as far as Argentina?
Many students contribute several answers. For every answer the professor responds similarly by saying yes and repeating the word that the student said. Some contributions included city, power, civilization and education. The professor then asked, “What political party do these characteristics coincide with?” Several students’ responded “unitarios”. The professor said yes and then right away asked how it reflected the country. The following dialogue appeared:
S1: The end of the Gauchos.
P: Yes
S5: The combination of the two ways of life.
P: Yes the union.
S3: The progression.
P: Yes the progression. As a country we should progress appears as the moral. It is the hour to educate us.





In a graduate classroom language learning activity, when teacher asked conceptual questions then repeated a student’s initial answers or were silent after a student’s initial answers, students offered additional simple answers (meaning answers that were limited or literal), as well as offering more analytical answers (where the answer was based on the text) and interpretive answers (where students created their own meaning based on their opinion about the meaning of the text). After students offered a more interpretive and contextually meaningful answer (though this was sometimes a short answer), teacher responded with positive feedback, summarizing or revoicing the student’s answer, and sometimes adding to the interpretive answer, then moving on to a new conceptual question.

Field note:
The professor took out the packet of the last chapters of the book Don Segundo Sombra and repeated the name and asked a question, “Don Segundo Sombra, what does it mean?” S1 said “The night is coming”. The professor nodded his head and said “yes”. He kept nodding his head in silence. S2 then said, “it has arrived, or the time has come”. The professor repeated again “Yes, yes” while he continued to nod his head. S3 then said it’s the end of the Gaucho. The professor said “yes” and then repeated “the Gaucho that is going to continue, it is to say the spirit of the Gaucho”. S4 then said it “is is like Fierro was the last Gaucho.” The professor said “yes” and nodded his head for a period of time. S4 then added “he is the last Gaucho, but more educated.” The professor said “yes” and repeated, “More educated”. Again he repeated “yes” and then started to provide the class information about the book. He spoke about literature that was coming out during the beginning of the 20th century. He spoke about the national novels that were written and how it represented a cultural movement. He asked the question, “What it is called?” Some students tried to answer by suggesting reality or magical realism. He said no and then provided the genre, the novel of the land. He presented examples from Colombia, Venezuela and Mexico explaining that they represented the identity of these different countries focusing on the lower class, the farmers and the different landscapes. He returned to Argentina and said this is a gaucho text and asked “What is the plot?”
S2: It is a story of introspection.
P: Yes
S4: That he is an orphan
S5: And he is living with his godfather.
P: Yes, who is his godfather?
S5: Don Segundo
P: Yes, yes.
S4: But he finds out that he has a father.
P: Yes he is going to live with his father who is. (He pauses to allow students to answer)
A few students say Don Leandro. Another student mentions that he meets Raucho and says that they are brothers. The professor says, “Yes brothers, or half brothers.”
P: What does Don Leandro represent as far as Argentina?
Many students contribute several answers. For every answer the professor responds similarly by saying yes and repeating the word that the student said. Some contributions included city, power, civilization and education. The professor then asked, “What political party do these characteristics coincide with?” Several students’ responded “unitarios”. The professor said yes and then right away asked how it reflected the country. The following dialogue appeared:
S1: The end of the Gauchos.
P: Yes
S5: The combination of the two ways of life.
P: Yes the union.
S3: The progression.
P: Yes the progression. As a country we should progress appears as the moral. It is the hour to educate us.