How teachers make talk rules relevant as collective scaffolds in the context of digital technology – support for and from microblogging

ABSTRACT

Collaboratively established talk rules, combined with teacher scaffolding, can help students talk together in ways that support learning. Most classrooms today utilise digital technology, and talk rules have proven beneficial for learning in this context. However, research on the strategies teachers use to make talk rules relevant in activities that include digital technology is rare. The authors analyse teachers’ strategies in 57 lessons, part of a teacher professional development initiative featuring explicit focus on talk rules and teachers’ use of the microblogging tool Talkwall. Their results contribute to understanding (1) how teachers can use digital technology to make talk rules relevant in activities and (2) how digital technology, when used with a dialogic approach, can promote student talk for learning. Lastly, they consider next steps in creating productive resources for teacher professional development focused on digital technology.

KEYWORDS:

• Teacher professional development
• co-located microblogging
• teaching talk for learning
• talk rules

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to the teachers and students who participated in this study as well as the anonymous reviewers who provided helpful comments on an earlier draft.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Ethical approval statement

This work was supported by the Research Council of Norway [FINNUT/Project No: 254761]. The funding source had no involvement in the study design, the collection, analysis, or interpretation of data, the writing of the report, or the decision to submit the article for publication.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/13664530.2024.2365720.

Notes

1. http://talkwall.uio.no.

2. The research team recorded videos of four teachers during two lessons each, while one teacher was recorded during four lessons. The authors calculations were not affected, as we measured the total recorded hours rather than the number of lessons.

3. Overview and description of data corpus.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Anja Amundrud

Anja Amundrud is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Department of Education, University of Oslo. She has a background as a primary school teacher, and her research focuses on teaching and learning with new technologies. Amundrud is also interested in the design and development of digital resources.

Ingvill Rasmussen

Ingvill Rasmussen is a professor at the Department of Education, University of Oslo. Her background is educational psychology, and her research focus is on talk and collaboration and how digital technologies transform learning practices. Rasmussen designs digital tools in collaboration with teachers and technology developers to support learning in formal schooling.

Paul Warwick

Paul Warwick is an associate professor at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge. His research and teaching activities focus on oracy and dialogue in teaching and learning, primary science education, technology in teaching and learning and the professional development of beginning teachers.