The Activity Structure of Lesson Segments

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this article is to suggest one way to consider classroom instruction. Drawing extensively from the work of the ecological psychologists, classroom lessons are viewed as a sequence of lesson segments, a segment being a block of time with a particular focus or intention. Each segment is conceptualized as consisting of three components—purpose, activity format, and topic or assignment—which help characterize the instructional environment. The instructional environment shapes teacher and student roles, which, in turn, influence the behavior of teachers and students and determine the nature of their classroom interaction. Taken together, the segment components, the teacher and student roles, and the behavioral interaction define the “activity structure of the lesson segment.” We argue that this relatively molar unit of analysis provides a useful means of conceptualizing the instructional environment. The article concludes by discussing the segment “script” as one way of viewing how lesson segments are enacted by teachers. Scripts are expectations about event sequences and can be used to describe how teachers organize knowledge about sequences of lesson segments.