Teachers employ both dialogic and authoritative discourse in their classrooms, but often are not aware of their intentions in choosing these communicative patterns. Students also contribute to communicative patterns by exerting their epistemic agency. Examining classroom practices of outstanding chemistry teachers can provide insight to bring together the protagonism of students and the tension between univocal (the science story) vs. polyphonic (also students’ ideas) discourse in classroom communicative patterns that are under the teacher’s control. We present a case study of an outstanding middle school chemistry teacher, following his lessons as they cumulatively built students modeling of energy changes during chemical reactions. We sought to learn: (1) What were the combinations of teachers’ actions and students’ epistemic agency across a series of lessons, and how do these relate to the communicative approach of the teacher? (2) How does an effective teacher navigate the tension between authoritative and dialogic discourse in ways that allow students to work with scientific ideas without losing their epistemic agency? Employing an emic perspective (trying to bring the point of view of the participants) rather than an etic perspective (imposing a system of value), we found that the teacher fostered a classroom culture through deliberate use of dialogic and authoritative discourse that welcomed students’ perspectives at strategic points. This enabled us to recognize a variety of modes between authoritative and dialogic that depend on the teacher’s intentions within the lesson sequence and logic, the constraints of timing, and individual students’ ways of participating in class.

Chemistry teachers’ intentions and students’ epistemic agency in communicative patterns in the classroom

256th National Meeting (2018)

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