Teacher Talk: "I wonder..." Request Designs

Abstract

High quality early education programs are underpinned by teacher-child interactions that seek to support children's engagement with knowledge. A key pedagogical strategy, in such programs, is the use of questioning. This study used ethnomethodology and conversation analysis to undertake a fine-grained investigation of 170 hours of video recorded classroom data from 9 preschools to investigate teacher-child interaction. Findings explicate how teachers use various request designs in their interactions with children. One of the designs identified was the 'I wonder…' formulation, which was shown to be an interactional device that teachers used to engage with factual knowledge and create opportunities for children to enact their agency. Findings of the thesis are presented through three papers written for publication. Collectively, the study identified how teachers design their requests in their interactions with children. One strategy, the 'I wonder…' formulation was shown to create opportunities for children's enactment of their agency and to foster children's contributions of their knowledge in discussion with teachers. Knowledge about pedagogical interactions, such as 'I wonder…' formulations enable teachers to make intentional decisions about the interactional resources they select. Building and using a repertoire of pedagogic strategies to encourage children's contributions to discussions and agency is demonstrable evidence of high quality teacher-child interactions. Findings have implications for the broader quality agenda in early childhood education.

Children and Mental Health Talk

“…(led by Susan Danby and Stuart Ekberg) brought together researchers and professionals to share and reflect upon the research undertaken within a range of health and educational settings. The researchers discussed how their collaborations with the practitioners enriched the research practices, and the professionals considered what this might mean for their professional practices (e.g., see Houen, 2017). This approach optimises the usefulness of bringing together researchers and professionals to share their thinking in ways that produce more explanatory power than a single approach alone can do (McWilliam, 2012).…”