Six Teachers' Dialogue during Cognitive Process Instruction

Abstract

The instruction of six teachers in a private school for bright underachievers that is characterized by a strategic teaching initiative, strong instructional leadership, and collegiality was examined to characterize the nature of instructional dialogue. Lesson transcripts were coded for the presence and organization of eight instructional moves often found in good strategy instruction. Results demonstrated teachers' fidelity to a particular vision of instruction. Instructional moves designed to make strategic processing specific and explicit were found in all lessons, with the majority of the lessons containing at least seven of the eight strategy instruction moves. Instruction was found to be transactional and process-oriented. Interactive cycles of dialogue, during which teachers were responsive to students' strategic construction of knowledge, were prevalent. Student and teacher demographic variables were considered as they related to characteristics of instruction. The transactional strategy instruction found here is likened to instruction described by Duffy and Roehler (1987b) and is contrasted with a recitation model of instruction.Gaskins, Anderson, Pressley, Cunicelli, & Satlow SIX TEACHERS' DIALOGUE DURING COGNITIVE PROCESS INSTRUCTIONThe typical way to change education is to propose a new curriculum; instead, we propose looking at instruction. The instructional moves of teachers entail countless decisions about various classroom contingencies--decisions that no curriculum developer could be expected to envision. For this reason, a curriculum can only be an abstraction until it is realized in the instruction of a particular teacher in a particular classroom. Curriculum artifacts such as statements of purpose, scope and sequence charts, textbooks, teachers' manuals, and lesson guides are by themselves lifeless; they are brought to life when teachers collaborate with students.Teachers and students must, in fact, construct the curriculum. The use of construct that we intend parallels the use among reading educators when we say that readers construct the meaning of text. It is now generally agreed that meaning is not in texts but arises from transactions between readers and texts (Rosenblatt, 1978). Similarly, instruction arises from transactions of teachers and students with curriculum materials. The relationship between the teacher, students, and materials is a reciprocal one in which each influences the other and, in turn, the context influences the transactions--transactions that provide the opportunity for instruction that is dynamic and flexible.When implementing a curriculum, teachers must bring to bear subject-matter knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, and curricular knowledge (Shulman, 1986, p. 26). However, teachers vary not only in terms of their knowledge but also in their values, training, and personal and professional experience. If anything, students are even more variegated. Therefore, it follows that, as teachers and students collaboratively construct the curriculum, the curriculum act...

Metacognitively competent reading comprehension is constructively responsive reading: how can such reading be developed in students?

“…Such small group meetings are filled with predictions, student questions and discussion of potential answers, student reports of diverse images that come to mind as they read, efforts to understand parts of text that are confusing, and interpretive and integrative reports about what is in the text (Gaskins, Anderson, Pressley, Cunicelli, & Satlow, 1993). These can be great, reflective discussions about the content of text, consistent with classroom conversations that produce substantial student learning (Applebee, Langer, Nystrand, & Gamoran, 2003).…”

Michael Pressley's Educational Legacy and Directions He Identified for Future Research in Reading Instruction

“…Researchers shared the successes they were having, compared the complexities inherent in teaching reading, discussed the significant effects in their studies, and analyzed the challenges they faced in taking their data to larger scale trials. The results of this colloquium became the basis for articles selected for the themed issue of transactional strategy instruction in the Elementary School Journal, which was published in 1993 (e.g., Gaskins, Anderson, Pressley, Cuncelli, & Satlow, 1993).…”

“…The ninth research methodology that Mike employed in 1989 was to create and analyze taped transcripts of instructional dialogues that six teachers held as they engaged in individualized and small-group comprehension instruction (Gaskins et al, 1993). These data enabled Mike to document the exact actions teachers took to help children use comprehension strategies.…”

“…These data enabled Mike to document the exact actions teachers took to help children use comprehension strategies. The most important measures that these educators took were to (a) tell students what, why, when, and where to implement strategies; (b) model a strategy's use through a think aloud of how to implement an entire strategic thinking process; (c) share their own personal experience of what they gained by using a strategy; and (d) give clues to guide students' practice of a strategy independently as they read (Gaskins et al, 1993).…”

Developing Strategic Readers in Elementary School

“…For example, more experienced teachers are better able to adapt instruction to circumstances and to find a balance between modeling, direct instruction, and other types of teaching related to reading, such as work on decoding (Duffy, 1993;El-Dinary, Pressley, & Schuder, 1992;Gaskins et al, 1993).…”