New Perspectives in Science Education

This is a qualitative case study which sought to determine the nature of classroom discourse in five pre-service Life Sciences teachers’ lessons. There has been increased discussion on the need for dialogic teaching with researchers indicating its potential in learner cognitive development and yet increasing demands on teacher input. Unlike a normal conversation, dialogic teaching involves the teacher initiating dialogue and making a follow up on learners’ responses.  As such there is a coherent process of enquiry occurring in the science classroom, rather than disconnected communication between teacher and learners. In fact in dialogic teaching, there is support and reciprocity in terms of interaction and the teacher’s role also includes initiating learner sharing of divergent ideas in terms of science and their everyday views. Sociocultural theorists explain how individuals acquire knowledge when they interact with others, and also how interactions amongst individuals create collective understanding. Cognisant of this social constructivists acknowledge that knowledge construction involves socialisation of individuals into the practices of the communities in which they are embedded, hence the importance of interactions in science teaching and learning.  Previous research has revealed that it is quite challenging for science teachers to ensure their teaching becomes more dialogical (Scott, Mortimer & Aguiar, 2006). It is against this background that five pre-service Life Sciences teachers were observed each teaching one lesson and then interviewed once after the analysis of the videos of the lessons. The interviews solicited teachers’ intentions when they asked questions, and engaged learners in class activities. Analysis of the videos and interviews showed that classroom discourse in these five lessons alternated between being dialogic and authoritative. The findings showed that in as much as the pre-service teachers plan for dialogic teaching, sometimes they abort their plan due to various issues which include failure to initiate a dialogue, inability to probe learners’ ideas further, lack of knowledge of some of the ideas learners bring in the discussion and also lack of poor classroom management skills. These findings inform teacher professional development programmes and teacher educators on the pertinent skills that science teachers require for effective science teaching and learning.

Keywords: Classroom discourse, pre-service teachers, Life Sciences;