Soliciting and pursuing suggestions: Practices for contemporaneously managing student-centred and curriculum-focused activities

• Published in: Linguistics and education 2017-12, Vol.42, p.65-73
• Main Authors: Ekberg, Stuart, Danby, Susan, Houen, Sandra, Davidson, Christina, Thorpe, Karen J.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Classroom communication; Classroom interaction; Conversation analysis; Conversation Analysis (CA); Curricula; Digital technology; Discourse analysis; Educational activities; Interactional projects; Preschool; Preschool children; Preschool education; Suggestion solicitations; Teaching methods
• ISSN: 0898-5898; 1873-1864
• DOI: 10.1016/j.linged.2017.07.007

•Integrating student-centred and curriculum-focused activities is a complex task.•Teachers solicit suggestions from students to navigate this complexity.•Following these initial solicitations, teachers sometimes pursue suggestions.•These pursuits increase the likelihood of particular suggestions.•This enhances the possibility that suggestions will correspond with the curriculum. Teachers attempting to implement student-centred pedagogies can routinely encounter challenges for also ensuring that classroom activities align with the relevant curriculum. In this study, we explore how teachers address this complexity. We applied Conversation Analysis (CA) methods to examine approximately 170h of video recorded interaction across nine Australian preschools. We identify how teachers solicit suggestions to implement a student-centred pedagogy. Following initial solicitations, pursuits of suggestions progressively increase the possibility that students will make a suggestion that corresponds to curriculum agendas. We argue that, through these solicitations and pursuits, teachers implement particular interactional projects that become increasingly apparent to others and yet never entirely clear. This opaqueness aligns with contemporaneous management of student-centred and curriculum-focused classroom activities. Although students are given opportunities to shape these activities, teachers sustain discussion until they elect to accept one or more student suggestions. By soliciting and pursuing students’ suggestions, teachers can enhance the possibility that students’ contributions align with diverse curriculum imperatives.