Understanding how learning environments productively mobilize children's ideas as resources for participation in joint activity is an ongoing focus of research on classroom instruction. We investigated whole-class mathematics conversations in which multiple students participated in ways previous research suggests are consequential for learning. We…

Background/Context: Much science education reform has been directed at middle and high school students; however, earlier experiences in elementary school may well have an important impact on young people's future science literacy and preparation for possible STEM careers. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study: This study explores the…

Compelling research evidence shows benefits for student learning from explaining one's ideas and engaging with the ideas of others. However, whether certain patterns of group interaction may engender this productive student participation is unknown. Using data from two third grade mathematics classrooms, and over the course of six days during a…

Educators, researchers, and policy makers recognize that student participation in classroom mathematics conversations, especially explaining one's own thinking and engaging with others' ideas, can promote students' mathematics learning. However, precisely "how" participating in these ways supports learning has not often been examined in…

Educators, researchers, and policy makers increasingly recognize that participation in classroom mathematics discussions, especially engaging with others' ideas, can promote students' mathematics understanding. How teachers can promote students' high-level engagement with others' ideas, and the challenges teachers face when trying to do so, have…

Cognitively Guided Instruction (CGI) researchers have found that while teachers readily ask initial questions to elicit students' mathematical thinking, they struggle with how to follow up on student ideas. This study examines the classrooms of three teachers who had engaged in algebraic reasoning CGI professional development. We detail teachers'…

Within the context of a mathematics reform effort to implement algebra in elementary schools, there is a pressure to provide results in the form of student achievement scores. However, widely-used measures of student achievement may be unrelated to the ideas and instructional practices encouraged by the reform effort. The inappropriate use of…

The importance of student talk in mathematics classrooms figures prominently in curriculum and teaching standards. Student talk is a vehicle for increasing student learning and for helping teachers monitor student understanding and inform student instructional practices. Although researchers have begun to study the moves teachers may make to…