Missed opportunities, misunderstandings, and misgivings: A case study analysis of three beginning English teachers’ attempts at authentic discussion with adolescents in a synchronous CMC environment
Abstract
Despite the abundance of research reporting authentic, student-centered classroom discussion helps to increase engagement with literary texts and deepen students’ understanding of texts, little authentic, student-centered discussion actually occurs in secondary US English classrooms. Reasons for this vary, but some classroom language researchers suggest teachers find it difficult to implement non-recitation frames for discussion, even when they desire to do so. Replacing a traditional classroom discourse pattern with a less familiar model is a complex task. Teachers may need opportunities to practice less familiar social and communicative behaviors. The Web Pen Pals project described in this paper provided an opportunity for beginning English teachers to practice authentic discussion about literature in a synchronous CMC environment with adolescents. The researcher employed case study analysis of three beginning teachers to answer the following question: How do preservice English teachers discuss literature online with middle school students? Of particular interest was topic management; researchers suggest characteristics of the synchronous chat medium support topic negotiation rather than control by any one user. Findings revealed that beginning teachers may bring traditional discourse expectations about teacher-student roles in discussion to CMC tasks, which may work against the development of authentic discussion in a CMC environment.
Reference
Groenke, S. (2010). Missed opportunities, misunderstandings, and misgivings: A case study analysis of three beginning English teachers’ attempts at authentic discussion with adolescents in a synchronous CMC environment. Journal of Technology and Teacher Education, 18(3), 387-414.
Journal
Journal of Technology and Teacher Education
Analysis
Is this article part of a larger project or series of studies?
no
Does this study draw on a large, preexisting data set?
no
Research Approach
Geographic Setting
Institutional Context
Certification Level
Programatic Focus
- Literacy Education
- technology
Research Location Context
Preservice Participants
Preservice Sample Size
3
Duration of Data Collection
Data Sources
- Interviews
- Reflective journals
- retrospective notes
- Transcriptions
Data Analysis Tools
- Case study analysis
- cross-case analysis
- Discourse analysis (conversational analysis)
- Qualitative Analysis
Researcher Positionality
- inside (staying their own students)
Research Questions
How do preservice English teachers discuss literature online with middle school students?
Is this research question explicit from the manuscript? Yes