An Exploration of Teacher Scaffolding Behaviors During Math Instruction
Using Grounded Theory and Contextual Inquiry
The relationship between language, cognition and learning is a robust research topic whose explorations influence the development of pedagogical science. Instructional language is an obvious part of the classroom teaching and learning dynamic, but relatively little research has been done to explicitly investigate how teachers linguistically engage students in learning mathematics. While many studies highlight the use of instructional language related to learning in subjects more readily associated with the language arts (Eeds, et al, 1989; Darling-Hammond, 2000; McGhee, 2009), fewer studies have examined how language impacts teaching and learning in math content areas. The present study is concerned with linguistic aspects of interactive[1] (Jackson, 1968) math instruction, specifically verbal scaffolding. The purpose is to use grounded theory and contextual inquiry to explore the nature of discursive communication employed by teachers as they scaffold student learning during the instruction of math concepts at the middle school level. Using the Teacher Language Log (TLL), an assessment protocol designed for this study to observe and characterize a teacher’s verbal scaffolding, a language “snapshot” will be captured of each participant’s instructional language behavior. A multi-tiered analysis of the snapshot will help depict and describe each teacher’s instructional scaffolding characteristics in use, and how participants compared in the use of scaffolding tools supported in the research on best practices in math pedagogy.
[1] Interactive instruction (Jackson, 1968) describes the portion of a lesson during which a teacher is interacting with students in a classroom, and in the case of this study, actively engaged in teaching mathematical content.
To learn more about this study, please email me at losborne2@gsu.edu.
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