It's good to talk especially in lectures!final2

Anna K. Wood
It's Good to Talk - Especially in
Lectures!

●
Lectures
Traditional:
‘Passive’,
Monologic,
Didactic, Teacher
Centred
Purpose: content
delivery.
Image from teddy-rised on Flickr

● Lectures
Reformed:
‘Active’,
Engagement,
Student Centred
Purpose:
Subject mastery.

Active Learning ≡ Interactive Engagement
……….heads-on (always) and hands-on (usually) activities
which yield immediate feedback through discussion with
peers and/or instructors...
Socio-cultural perspective
R. Hake, Am. J. Phys. 66(1), 1998

Talk in Lectures - 3 Perspectives:
1. Quantitative analysis of talk: (Framework for
Interactive Learning in Lectures).
1. Lecturer-Student interactions.
1. Peer-discussions.

●
Acknowledgements
Judy Hardy, Ross Galloway
(Edinburgh Physics Education Research Group (EdPER))
Christine Sinclair
(Moray House)

●
Context
● 1st year Physics Lectures
● 200-300 students (80:20 Male:Female)
● ‘Flipped’ Approach
• Pre-readings and Quiz
● Active Learning Approach (Peer Instruction)

Part 1: Quantitative analysis of talk
Research Questions:
1. What types of interactions take place?
2. To what extent is each used in a lecture?
Part 1: Quantitative Analysis

●Method
Data Collection:
Lecture Capture Videos.
16 lectures, 8 from each course (1A and 1B).
Coding
Constructivist grounded theory approach.
Activities coded on a continuous (per second) basis.

Type of Activity
Lecturer talking, students listening
Lecturer question, student answer
Student question, lecturer answer
Student silent thinking
Student-student discussion
Feedback on PI voting, students
listening
Inter-rater Reliability = 91%
Cohen’s kappa = 0.74
Framework for Interactive Learning in Lectures
(FILL)

Physics 1A Physics 1B
Average Time on Lecturer Talking = 55%

● Quantitative Conclusions
●
● FILL framework useful for characterising
interactions in lectures.
● 55% of time is spent on non-interactive
(passive) activities.

Part 2: Lecturer-Student interactions
Part 2: Lecturer-Student
Interactions
Research Questions
1) What are the purposes of lecturer-student
dialogue?
1) What is the nature of the dialogue?
(e.g. dialogic vs authoritative)

●
Example 1
Lecturer:
Ok, so what did you say, so here’s what we said
(shows graph), that’s an 80% win for option B and
roughly equal for A and C as well there. So option
B, 7 Joules , 7 Joules work done during that
expansion.
Interactions

●
Triadic Dialogue (IRF):
Initiation (I) Teacher
Response (R) Student
Feedback (F) Teacher
Interactions
Sinclair, J. & Coulthard, M. (1975)

●
Triadic Dialogue (IRF):
Initiation (I) Teacher
Pose Clicker Q
Response (R) Student
Student’s Vote
Feedback (F) Teacher
Lecturer shows graph
Interactions

Type of Activity Interactivity Type
Lecturer talking, students listening Non-Interactive
Lecturer question, student answer Vicarious Interactive
Student question, lecturer answer Vicarious Interactive
Student silent thinking Interactive
Student-student discussion Interactive
Feedback on PI voting, students listening Interactive

●
Dialogic or Authoritative?
Dialogic Interaction:
More than one voice is heard and there is an
exploration or ‘interanimation’ (Bahktin 1935) of
ideas.
Mortimer, E., & Scott, P. (2003). Meaning Making
In Secondary Science Classrooms.
Interactions

Example 1 (continued)
Lecturer: Why is it 7 Joules, how did you
calculate that?
Student: area under the graph …..
Lecturer: yep,
Interactions

● Example 2
Lecturer:
Why might someone say option C? What led
you to think there is no heat transferred in this
situation?
Interactions

● Example 2
Lecturer:
Why might someone say option C? What led you to think
there is no heat transferred in this situation?
Lecturer:
Anyone disagree with that, anyone agree with
it? ….What do you think?
Interactions

●
Dialogic or Authoritative?
‘Ideologically Dialogic’
Equal social relationships, intellectual openness and
opportunities for creative thought. But can be
discursively monologic.
E.g. Re-voicing, Higher order follow-up questions
O’Connor, C., & Michaels, S. (2007). When Is Dialogue “Dialogic”? Human
Development, 50(5), 275–285.
Interactions

●
Types of Lecturer-Student Interaction
1. Feedback
1. Involving Students in Sense Making (Peer-
Instruction)
1. Guided Expert Thinking/Problem Solving
1. Wonderment Questions
Interactions

●
Lecturer-Student Conclusions
 4 purposes of dialogue in large lectures
classes identified
 Dialogue can be technology mediated
 Interactions predominantly ‘authoritative’ …..
 ….but overall these are ‘ideologically dialogic’
Interactions

Part 3: Peer-discussions.
Part 3: Peer-Discussions

●
Smart Pens Electronic Voting System
Data Collection

Resources Model
Hammer, D. 1996a. The Journal of the Learning Sciences,
5(2), 97–127.
Redish, E. F. 2004. Research on Physics Education, vol.156.

Resource Activation

Student 1: The work done on the gas, that means
the work done by the gas is negative
Student 2: I think you’re probably right, oh, yeah,
I’m a fool.Yep
Resource Activation

Activation through knowledge elements
Activation through linkages between resources
Activation through control structures (epistemic
games)
Types of Activation

Student 1: The work done on the gas, that means
the work done by the gas is negative
Student 2: I think you’re probably right, oh, yeah,
I’m a fool.Yep
Activation through knowledge
elements

Activation through links
The Big Bang Theory, Season 1 Episode 2 The Big Bran
Hypothesis.

Activation through links
Student 1:
Sin 30 is a half, I remember that from the Big Bang
Theory when they were trying to push it up the stairs
Student 2:
oh yeah it was about half the work because it was
30 degrees

●
‘An activation of a pattern of resources that
can be associated with a collection of
resources’
From: J. Tuminaro and E. F. Redish, Elements of a
cognitive model of physics problem solving: Epistemic
games, Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 3, 020101 (2007).
Epistemic Games

● Epistemic Games
(Recursive Plug and Chug)

●
Epistemic Games

●
Student 1: yep it is A!
Student 2: It is A!
Student 3: yep yep yep yep yep got it!
Epistemic Games (2)
(Pictorial Analysis)

Course Design
Peer-Discussion Conclusions
● Peer discussions help students to:
• Activate knowledge connections
• Make links to other ideas
• Try different approaches to problem solving
● Student-student discussions are more than just
‘one student teaches another’

Course Design
Final Thoughts
Studying the way talk is used in active
learning lectures:
 Highlights the importance of lecturer talk used in
combination with student-centred activities
 Shows the variation in lecturer-student
interactions (and the challenges of generating
productive talk)
 Gives insights into the thinking processes during
peer-discussion

● For more details:
●
E-mail: annakwood@physics.org
Twitter: @annakwood
References:
1. Wood et al. ‘Characterizing interactive engagement activities in a flipped
introductory physics class’ Phys. Rev. Phys.Educ. Res. 12, 010140 (2016)
1. Wood et al. ‘Analyzing learning during Peer Instruction dialogues: A resource
activation framework’ Physical Review Special Topics-Physics Education
Research 10.2 (2014): 020107.
1. Wood et al. ‘Teacher-Student Discourse in Active Learning Lectures: A Case
Study from Undergraduate Physics’ Submitted

●
Theoretical Approach
R. Hake, Am. J. Phys. 66(1), 1998

It's good to talk especially in lectures!final2

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

What's hot

What's hot (20)

Viewers also liked

Viewers also liked (20)

Similar to It's good to talk especially in lectures!final2

Similar to It's good to talk especially in lectures!final2 (20)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

It's good to talk especially in lectures!final2