Teacher Talk Supporting Student Progressive Discourse in Science

Abstract Student participation in science discourse requires multiple levels of support through tools such as curricular materials, as well as teacher talk. The actions of the teacher can provide opportunities for students to engage in disciplinary science talk. The norms associated with this talk can be used to define what students sound like when engaged in authentic science talk. However, often talk moves are employed in service of in-the-moment tasks rather than development of disciplinary talk norms. For this study, we focused on the Ambitious Science Teaching–based teacher talk engaged in by two middle school science teachers to support student sensemaking regarding a phenomenon-based science unit with embedded data visualization and simulation software over the course of a 2-week teaching unit. This descriptive case study identifies how differences in the purpose of questioning impacts the patterns of teacher talk regarding establishing norms in support of the norms of progressive discourse. These cases demonstrate two teachers with aligned philosophies, basic skills, and education in Ambitious teacher talk. However, one uses these talk moves to drive activity level sensemaking while the other utilizes talk moves to develop classroom talk norms that reflect the characteristics of progressive discourse. Being responsive to student talk, and being purposeful in organizing patterns of moves, requires being thoughtful of the purposes of specific talk moves, as well as the overall goal of the conversation. Results indicate that teachers should be supported in developing an understanding of the larger patterns of teacher talk to support progressive discourse norm building.