CLASSROOM DISCOURSE TYPES AND STUDENTS LEARNING OF AN INTERACTION DIAGRAM AND NEWTON S THIRD LAW

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1 CLASSROOM DISCOURSE TYPES AND STUDENTS LEARNING OF AN INTERACTION DIAGRAM AND NEWTON S THIRD LAW Niina Nurkka 1,2, Asko Mäkynen 1, Jouni Viiri 1, Antti Savinainen 1 and Pasi Nieminen 1 1 Department of Teacher Education, University of Jyväskylä, Finland 2 Saimaa University of Applied Sciences, Faculty of Health Care and Social Services, Finland Abstract: The purpose of this case study was to describe what kinds of classroom discourse types transfer teachers used and any variations in discourse types when teaching an interaction diagram and N3 law. A further aim of this study was to ascertain whether there was any relation between the variation in classroom discourse types and student learning outcomes for the interaction diagram and N3 law. The teaching sequence in the context of force and Newton s third law was designed and implemented by three transfer teachers (teachers who had not participated in designing the teaching sequence) in three Finnish upper secondary schools. The lessons were video-taped and the most important episodes of the lessons were transcribed. Student learning was monitored with a pre-test and three post-tests. The discourse types, duration of discourse types, and the content and purpose of topics in the selected episodes were analysed with a visual tool specifically developed for this purpose. Our main findings suggest that the familiarity of the teachers with the content may influence the variation of discourse types. The results also provide some evidence that variation of classroom discourse types may also support students learning. The findings of this study have implications for teacher education and education research with the introduction of a visual tool developed for analysing classroom discourse. Keywords: Classroom discourse, interaction diagram, Newton s third law, learning, transfer teacher INTRODUCTION Many studies, especially over the last decade, have furthered understanding in the role of discourse in science teaching and the different characterizations of classroom discourse (e.g. Furtak & Shavelson, 2009; Mortimer & Scott, 2003; Scott, Mortimer & Aguiar, 2006; Viiri & Saari, 2006). As different classroom discourse types serve different purposes, any teaching sequence should include a variety of discourse types (Mortimer & Scott, 2003; Scott et al., 2006). According to Mortimer and Machado (2000), the variation of the discourse type between authoritative and dialogic discussion is dependent upon the teaching purpose and aims, with different types of discussion being used accordingly. The study of Furtak and Shavelson (2009) gives some empirical support that the variation of discourse types builds students conceptual change: teachers of students with higher learning gains were more likely to vary the kind of guidance (aut horitative or dialogic) they provide for students than the teachers of students with lower learning gains. According to Scott (2008), the appropriate discourse types developed by the teacher have the potential to motivate students and to draw them into the science contents. This brings about a need for a pedagogy which is based on purposeful shifts in discourse types as well as a need to develop methods to study these shifts.

2 In this case study we are interested in the types and the variation of types of classroom discourse in the teaching of an interaction diagram (ID) and Newton s third law (N3 law). This study is part of a wider study that is investigating the use of an ID and how it supports the learning of concept of force in the case of transfer teachers; by this we mean teachers who implement the teaching sequence but are not involved in designing the sequence or lesson materials. The use of transfer teachers offers an opportunity to study classroom discourse in normal school settings; there are not many studies involving transfer teachers (Leach & Scott, 2002). Interaction diagram is a symbolic representation of interactions where the components of contact and distance interactions are visually identified (Fig 1). The common view among students is that forces are understood as properties of objects. The ID provides a tool to identify and represent interactions between objects, and thus helps students to perceive forces as the property of an interaction instead of a property of an object. There are evidence from studies conducted by Savinainen, Scott & Viiri (2005) and Hinrichs ( 2005) that the use of an ID enhances student understanding of the force concept. In this study we use the ID presented by Hatakka, Saari, Sirviö, Viiri & Yrjänäinen (2004) as it includes writing down the interactions in terms of pushing and pulling, and is also used in the physics textbook used in the teaching intervention of this study. Hand C Block pushes hand Hand pushes block Block Table pushes block Block pushes table C Table Earth pulls block Surface pushes block D C Block pushes surface Block pulls earth Surface Earth of table Figure 1. An example of an interaction diagram in the case of a hand pushing a block on the surface of a table. C = contact interaction and D = distance interaction. PURPOSE OF THE STUDY The purpose of this study is to 1) describe what kinds of classroom discourse types transfer teachers used and whether there was any variation in the discourse types in teaching the ID and N3 law, and 2) to find out if there is any relation between the variation of classroom discourse types and learning outcomes for the ID and N3 law. Here the classroom discourse in physics teaching is examined by taking account of the purpose and context of teaching and students learning of the content. In this study the research methods are developed in a way that the relationship between time, variation of classroom discourse types, purpose of teaching and students learning can be expressed.

3 METHODS This study is part of a wider study where an instructional teaching sequence in the context of force and Newton s laws was designed and evaluated. The teaching sequence (designed for 5 lessons of 45 minutes) was implemented by three transfer teachers in three Finnish upper secondary schools and was included in the introductory physics course that is compulsory for all upper secondary school students. In the introductory course the concept of force is taught for the first time in upper secondary school. The schools participating in the study were named T1 (25 students), T2 (27 students) and T3 (23 students). The lesson material designed for the teachers included teaching contents, timetable, examples, exercises, demonstrations and homework. All three teachers also followed the contents of the same physics textbook (Hatakka et al, 2004). The lesson material and the textbook supported each other by introducing forces as interactions and by using IDs. A more detailed description of the lessons is available in Savinainen, Mäkynen, Nieminen & Viiri (2011). For the classroom discourse analysis, the primary data source was video-recorded lessons. Some important episodes were also transcribed in order to make the purpose of teaching more evident. The video material was analysed by using the Atlas.ti and Excel softwares. The episodes chosen for detailed analysis included the teaching of the ID and N3 law for the first time. These contents were also dealt with in other parts of the lessons, but teaching was mostly dealing with written tasks (the same tasks in all three schools), and the variation of discourse types in dealing with these tasks was about the same in all schools. To make the purpose and variation of classroom discourse more evident, the discourse types, duration of discourse types, and the content and purpose of topics in the selected teaching episodes were analysed using a visual tool developed for this purpose (see Fig 3 later in this paper). The classification of the classroom discourse types followed the method of Viiri and Saari (2006), expanded by the sixth category called student s initiative (Nurkka, 2006). In the classification method the classroom discourse types are divided into six categories: teacher presentation (TP), teacher -guided authoritative discussion (AD), teacher -guided dialogic discussion (DD), peer discussion (PD), student initiative (SI) and other (O). Students learning were monitored by using a pre-test (FCI, Halloun, Hake, Mosca & Hestenes, 1995) with four multiple choice questions addressing Newton s third law and by three post-tests. The post-tests were given 1) after teaching the ID and N3 law, 2) at the end of the teaching sequence, and 3) two weeks after the teaching sequence. The post-tests included constructing IDs in various physical situations (altogether eight diagrams in three tests) and four questions on N3 law (two multiple choice questions and one question of force pairs in interactions in test 2 and one multiple choice question framed in a vectorial representation with a written justification in test 3). All the questions were derived from research-based materials. The interaction diagrams constructed by students were categorized according to three quality categories (Table 1).

4 Table 1. The classification of the quality of IDs constructed by students. Excellent Good Poor All interacting objects identified. All interacting objects identified. Interaction line or arrow presented. Type of interaction (contact or distance) identified or a verbal explanation of interactions presented. RESULTS Interaction line or arrow presented. Neither type of interaction nor verbal expression of the interaction in presented. At least one interaction is missing or an extra interaction is included. or Instead of interactions, forces are identified or Diagram lacks essential features of interaction diagram. The classroom discourse types the teachers used in episodes of teaching the ID and N3 law varied between the schools and also in teaching content (Fig 2). In each school the classroom discourse type used to teach the ID was predominantly teacher presentation. In school T1 there was more variation in classroom discourse types during this episode than in schools T2 and T3. In the N3 law teaching episodes, schools T1 and T3 used more variation in discourse types than in the ID teaching episode with more dialogic discourse employed. Figure 2. The percentage of classroom discourse types (counted from the duration of episode) during the first teaching episode of ID and N3 law in schools T1, T2 and T3. The total duration of the teaching episode is presented in parentheses. *) The video-recording was not successful. In school T1 there were more shifts between different discourse types than in the other schools where periods of certain classroom discourse types were longer. As an example of the variation of discourse types, an analysis of the rhythm of the classroom discourse and the

5 purpose of teaching in the school T1 during the episode of teaching of ID is presented (Fig 3). This kind of analysis reveals how the teacher uses different variation of classroom discourse types for different purposes. Developing the idea of ID in the example of The book on the table by discussing about distant interactions affecting the book Developing the idea of ID by discussing about contact interactions affecting the book on the table Introducing the connection between interaction and force and summarizing how to use ID in identifying forces SI DD AD TP Introducing the interaction diagram (ID) Reviewing and focusing the symmetry of interactions. Extending the idea of ID to another example Exploring student ideas about the number of interactions in two examples Figure 3. Types of classroom discourse, duration of discourse types, and the content and purpose of topics (1 6) in school T1 during the first teaching episode of interaction diagram. TP = teacher presentation, AD = teacher-guided authoritative discussion, DD = teacherguided dialogic discussion, SI = student s initiation. The interaction diagrams the students constructed were categorized according to three quality categories (Table 2). In school T1 there were more IDs in category Excellent than in schools T2 and T3. Differences between schools T1, T2 and T3 in students learning of ID were statistically significant as measured by the relative frequencies of different quality categories of IDs (χ 2 = 230.3, df = 4, p < 0.001). Table 2. The distribution of interaction diagrams according to different quality categories (Table 1) in schools T1, T2 and T3. N indicates the total number of IDs included in the percentages below (altogether 8 diagrams in three tests). Students absent from the test or nonanswers for the task were not counted. Excellent Good Poor Non-answers (Number of IDs) T1( N = 192) 85% 1% 14% 8 T2 (N = 210) 18% 59% 23% 6 T3 (N = 167) 71% 17% 13% 17

6 Students learning results for the N3 law are presented in Table 3. Maximum score for N3 law questions altogether in three post-tests was 4. In counting the learning results only the students who were present in all tests (pre -test and three post-tests) were included. If the student did not answer the question, the answer was interpreted as wrong. There were no significant differences in pre-test results, but in post-tests, the best learning results were in school T1. For the post-test questions the differences were statistically significant between schools T1 and T2 (Mann-Whitney U-test: z=2.59, p =.010) and between schools T2 and T3 (z=2.08, p=.038) Table 3. Learning results of Newton s third law (counted as average percentages of maximum score 4). Standard errors of mean are presented in parentheses. School Four pre-fci Four post-test N3 questions (%) N3 questions (%) T1 (N = 23) 28 (5.7) 83 (3.4) T2 (N = 25) 26 (6.2) 64 (5.6) T3 (N = 20) 28 (5.7) 80 (4.7) CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS In teaching N3 law, teachers used classroom discourse types more diversely and they also used more teacher-guided dialogic discussion than teaching interaction diagrams. In teaching IDs teachers mostly used teacher presentation. Interaction diagrams were not very familiar to the transfer teachers before the teaching intervention, whereas N3 law was very familiar to all the teachers. Hence, our results suggest that teacher familiarity with the teaching content may influence the variation of discourse types. The more familiar the teaching content is to the teacher, the more diversely the teacher is able to use different classroom discourse types. The variation of different discourse types was different in schools T1, T2 and T3. In school T1 the teacher varied the classroom discourse types more often than in other schools and used different discourse types for different purposes, for example, teacher-guided dialogic discussion to explore students ideas, teacher-guided authoritative discussion to develop the idea of the content, and teacher presentation to introduce the new idea or summarise or focus the key points. In schools T2 and T3 even if the teacher used different types of classroom discourse in teaching N3 law, the periods of certain classroom discourse types were longer and the teachers did not vary the types of classroom discourse clearly according to the purpose of teaching. Even if parts of the video-recording done in school T2 were not successful, other video-data from school T2 indicates that the teacher did not greatly vary classroom discourse types, and in fact used mostly teacher presentation. Our results provide some evidence that variation of classroom discourse types may support students learning as reported by Furtak and Shavelson (2009). The best results in the learning of interaction diagram and N3 law were in school T1. In school T1 there was also more variation in classroom discourse types than in the other schools. In this study we developed a visual tool for the time-based analysis of the classroom discourse. The tool was developed especially to express the relationship between time, variation of classroom discourse types, and purpose of teaching. The visual tool gives the possibility to analyse, reflect upon and modify classroom discourse by taking account of the content and purpose of teaching. Thus we consider the visual tool to be beneficial for teacher

7 education, education researchers, and teachers. In further studies the tool might be developed to be more useful in exploring how the variation of classroom discourse types supports students conceptual understanding. REFERENCES Furtak, E.M. & Shavelson, R.J. (2009). Guidance, Conceptual Understanding, and Student Learning: An Investigation of Inquiry-Based Teaching in the US. In Janik, T. & Seidel, T. (Eds.) The Power of Video Studies in Investigating Teaching and Learning in the Classroom, Műnster: Waxmann Publishing Co. Halloun, I., Hake, R., Mosca, E. & Hestenes, D. (1995). Force Concept Inventory (Revised 1995). Password protected at < Accessed on Hatakka, J., Saari, H., Sirviö, J., Viiri, J. & Yrjänäinen, S. (2004). Physica 1. WSOY, Porvoo. Hinrichs, B. (2005). Using the system schema representational tool to p romote student understanding of Newton s third law. In Marx, J., Heron, P., & Franklin, S. (Eds.) AIP Conference Proceedings Physics Education Research Conference, 790 (pp ). New York: Melville. Leach, J. & Scott, P. (2002). Designing and ev aluating science teaching sequences: An approach drawing upon the concept of learning demand and a social constructivist perspective on learning. Studies in Science Education 38, Mortimer, E. F. & Machado, A. H. (2000). Anomalies and conflicts i n classroom discourse. Science Education, 84, Mortimer, E. F. & Scott, P. (2003). Meaning making in secondary science classrooms. Maidenhead: Open University Press. Nurkka, N. (2006). Developing and evaluating a research -based teaching-learning sequence on the moment of force. Doctoral thesis (in Finnish). University of Jyväskylä. Department of Physics. Research report No.10/2006. Jyväskylä. Savinainen, A, Scott, P. & Viiri, J. (2005) Using a Bridging Representation and Social Interactions to Foster Conceptual Change: Designing and Evaluating an Instructional Sequence for Newton s Third Law. Science Education, 89, Savinainen, A., Mäkynen, A., Nieminen, P., & Viiri, J. (2011). An intervention using an Interaction Diagram for teaching Newton s third law in upper secondary school. GIREP-EPEC 2011 Conference Proceedings (accepted for publication). Scott, P. (2008). Talking a way to understanding in science classrooms. In Mercer, N. & Hodgkinson, S. (Eds.). Exploring talk in school, London: SAGE. Scott, P., Mortimer, E. F. & Aguiar, O. G. (2006). The tension between authoritative and dialogic discourse: A fundamental characteristic of meaning making interactions in high school science lesson. Science Education, 90, Viiri, J. & Saari, H. (2006). Teacher talk patterns in science lessons. Use in teacher education. Journal of Science Teacher Education, 17,