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'Explain to your partner': teachers' instructional practices and students' dialogue in small groups
Noreen M. Webb a; Megan L. Franke a; Tondra De a; Angela G. Chan a; Deanna Freund a; Pat Shein a; Doris K. Melkonian a a University of California, Los Angeles, USA Online Publication Date: 01 March 2009

To cite this Article Webb, Noreen M., Franke, Megan L., De, Tondra, Chan, Angela G., Freund, Deanna, Shein, Pat and Melkonian,

Doris K.(2009)''Explain to your partner': teachers' instructional practices and students' dialogue in small groups',Cambridge Journal of Education,39:1,49 70
To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/03057640802701986 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03057640802701986

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Cambridge Journal of Education Vol. 39, No. 1, March 2009, 4970

Explain to your partner: teachers instructional practices and students dialogue in small groups
Noreen M. Webb*, Megan L. Franke, Tondra De, Angela G. Chan, Deanna Freund, Pat Shein and Doris K. Melkonian
University of California, Los Angeles, USA (Received 12 June 2008; final version received 26 August 2008) Collaborative group work has great potential to promote student learning, and increasing evidence exists about the kinds of interaction among students that are necessary to achieve this potential. Less often studied is the role of the teacher in promoting effective group collaboration. This article investigates the extent to which teachers instructional practices were related to small-group dialogue in four urban elementary mathematics classrooms in the US. Using videotaped and audiotaped recordings of whole-class and small-group discussions, we examined the extent to which teachers pressed students to explain their thinking during their interventions with small groups and during whole-class discussions, and we explored the relationship between teachers practices and the nature and extent of students explaining during collaborative group work. While teachers used a variety of instructional practices to structure and orchestrate students dialogue in small groups, only probing students explanations to uncover details of their thinking and problem-solving strategies exhibited a strong relationship with student explaining. Implications for future research, professional development, and teacher education are discussed. Keywords: classrooms; grouping; cooperative group learning

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Introduction There is little doubt about the potential of collaborative group work to promote student learning, and increasing evidence exists about the kinds of interaction among students that are necessary to achieve group works potential (ODonnell, 2006; Webb & Palincsar, 1996). Less often studied is the role of the teacher in promoting effective group collaboration. This article investigates the extent to which teachers instructional practices are related to the students dialogue when working in small groups. Specifically, we focus on teachers interventions with small groups and how their engagement with students during whole-class instruction relates to student explaining during collaborative group work. Empirical findings from group-work studies demonstrate the critical relationship between explaining and achievement (see Fuchs et al., 1997; Howe et al., 2007; Howe & Tolmie, 2003; King, 1992; Nattiv, 1994; Slavin, 1987; Veenman, Denessen, van den Akker, & van der Rijt, 2005; Webb, 1991). Moreover, complex explanations (e.g., giving reasons elaborated with further evidence) have been shown to be more strongly related with learning than less complex explanations (providing simple reasons: Chinn, ODonnell, & Jinks, 2000). Explaining to others can promote
*Corresponding author. Email: webb@UCLA.edu
ISSN 0305-764X print/ISSN 1469-3577 online # 2009 University of Cambridge, Faculty of Education DOI: 10.1080/03057640802701986 http://www.informaworld.com

50 N.M. Webb et al. learning as the explainer has the opportunity to reorganize and clarify material, to recognize misconceptions, to fill in gaps in her own understanding, to internalize and acquire new strategies and knowledge, and to develop new perspectives and understanding (Bargh & Schul, 1980; King, 1992; Peterson, Janicki, & Swing, 1981; Rogoff, 1991; Saxe, Gearhart, Note, & Paduano, 1993; Valsiner, 1987). When explaining their problem-solving processes, students think about the salient features of the problem, which develops their problem-solving strategies as well as their metacognitive awareness of what they do and do not understand (Cooper, 1999). Given the relationship between explaining and student outcomes, what can teachers do to promote student explaining in collaborative groups? Research has found that providing instruction and practice in explanation-related behaviours has beneficial effects on group discussion. Effective training programs include instructing students in explaining their problem-solving strategies (instead of just giving the answer, Gillies, 2003, 2004; Swing & Peterson, 1982; Webb & Farivar, 1994), giving conceptual rather than algorithmic explanations (Fuchs et al., 1997), justifying their own ideas and their challenges of each others ideas, and negotiating alternative ideas (exploratory talk, Mercer, 1996; Mercer, Dawes, Wegerif, & Sams, 2004; Mercer, Wegerif, & Dawes, 1999; Rojas-Drummond & Mercer, 2003; RojasDrummond, Perez, Velez, Gomez , & Mendoza, 2003; Wegerif , Linares, Rojas Drummond, Mercer, & Velez, 2005), and engaging in argumentation (providing reasons and evidence for and against positions, challenging others with counterarguments, weighing reasons and evidence, Chinn, Anderson, & Waggoner, 2001; Reznitskaya, Anderson, & Kuo, 2007). A number of effective programs combine many of these elements (see Baines, Blatchford, & Chowne, 2007; Baines, Blatchford, & Kutnick, 2008; Blatchford, Baines, Rubie-Davies, Bassett, & Chowne, 2006). Teachers can also require group members to assume particular roles or engage in specific practices during their group interaction, such as asking each other specific high-level questions about the material (Fantuzzo, Riggio, Connelly, & Dimeff, 1989; King, 1999), asking questions to monitor each others comprehension (Mevarech & Kramarski, 1997), engaging in specific summarizing and listening activities (Hythecker, Dansereau, & Rocklin, 1988; ODonnell, 1999; Yager, Johnson, & Johnson, 1985), responding to specific prompts to explain why they believe their answers are correct or incorrect (Coleman, 1998; Palincsar, Anderson, & David, 1993), and generating questions and making predictions about text (Palincsar & Brown, 1989). Yet, training teachers to teach their students how to engage in group work, while it can be done in ways that help students participate, does not address the role of the teacher in intervening in this group work and supporting students as they engage together with the content. Many cooperative learning researchers and theorists advise teachers to monitor small group progress and to intervene when groups fail to progress or seem to be functioning ineffectively, when no group member can answer the question, when students exhibit problems communicating with each other, and when students dominate group work without allowing true dialogue (see Cohen, 1994; Ding, Li, Piccolo, & Kulm, 2007; Johnson & Johnson, 2008). Research by Tolmie et al. (2005) also suggests that teacher guidance may help counteract students tendencies to disagree in unproductive ways and enable children to explore ideas more effectively. How teachers should intervene with groups to facilitate productive small-group discussion is

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less clear. Cohen (1994) cautioned teachers to intervene minimally with small groups, arguing that students will be more likely to initiate ideas and take responsibility for their discussions if teachers provide little explicit content help. She recommended that teachers carefully listen to group discussions to make hypotheses about the groups difficulties before deciding on questions to ask or suggestions to make. The results of some studies examining the relationship between teachers interventions with small groups and the quality of group discussion support Cohens (1994) caution against direct teacher supervision. Chiu (2004) found that higher levels of teacher help (e.g., explaining a concept, or giving a solution tactic) reduced groups subsequent time-on-task and depth of their discussions (whether students provided new ideas and explanations) compared to lower levels of teacher help (e.g., drawing attention to an aspect of the problem through asking questions instead of providing a solution strategy or telling groups how to proceed). Gillies (2004) and Dekker and Elshout-Mohr (2004) also confirmed the detrimental effect of giving groups direct help about the task content. In Gillies study, students in classrooms with teachers who engaged in communication behaviours such as asking open and tentative questions to probe, clarify, and focus student thinking provided more detailed explanations than did students in classrooms in which teachers provided direct instruction and explicit content help. In Dekker and Elshout-Mohrs study, students in classrooms in which teachers were instructed to provide only process help to groups (e.g., encouraging students to explain and justify their work) engaged in more extensive discussions and exhibited more equal participation among group members than students in classrooms in which teachers were instructed to provide only content help (e.g., hints about the mathematical content and strategies). Somewhat in contrast to the findings just described, Meloth and Deering (1999) reported that high-content help (e.g., providing direct instruction about content) was not necessarily detrimental to productive group discussions. An important qualification of these results may serve as a unifying thread throughout these studies, helping to resolve the apparently inconsistent results. Meloth and Deering found that high-content help facilitated productive group discussion when the teacher listened to the groups ideas (for example, finding out whether groups were focusing on irrelevant information) before providing specific instruction. Chiu (2004) also suggested that what was effective about the indirect help that teachers provided in his study was that teachers asked questions of students to elicit their suggestions about how to proceed. Similarly, Gillies (2004) examples of teachers who had received communications skills training showed teachers ascertaining students ideas and strategies before offering suggestions or focusing the groups attention on aspects of the task. An intriguing possibility, then, is that what matters in terms of teacher interventions with small groups is not whether teachers provide help that focuses on the subject matter content of group work versus guidance about what collaborative processes groups should carry out, or whether teachers should provide more-explicit versus less-explicit content help. Rather, what may be important is whether teachers try to ascertain student thinking and base their interaction with the group on what they learn about students thinking on the task. The importance of teachers doing this finds much support in wider literatures on effective teaching practices (see Fennema et al., 1996; Franke, Carpenter, Levi, & Fennema, 2000; Franke, Kazemi, & Battey, 2007; Lampert, 1990; Mercer, 2000).

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52 N.M. Webb et al. Kazemi and Stipek (2001) contrasted elementary school mathematics classrooms in which teachers pressed students to explain and justify their problem-solving strategies mathematically (they termed these practices highpress) with classrooms in which teachers asked students to describe steps they used to solve problems but did not ask students to link their strategies to mathematical reasons or to explain why they chose particular procedures (lowpress). When working collaboratively, students in high-press classrooms used mathematical arguments to explain why and how their solutions worked and to arrive at mutual understanding, whereas students in low-press classrooms summarized, but did not explain, their steps for solving a problem and did not debate the mathematics involved in the problem. Webb et al. (in press) also found similar results in that the extent to which teachers asked students to elaborate on their explanations about how to solve mathematical problem showed a strong relationship with the nature and extent of students explaining to each other during collaborative conversations. Webb, Nemer, and Ing (2006) found that low-press teacher practices were a possible reason for the infrequent student explaining that occurred during cooperative group work. Teachers in that study did not ask students about their thinking but instead assumed most of the responsibility for setting up the steps in the problem (typically with little or no rationale given for the mathematics underlying the steps) and asked students simply to provide the results of specific calculations that the teachers themselves had posed. Extending previous research, this study examines how teachers practices both with small groups and with students in the larger classroom context may relate to student explaining in collaborative groups. Specifically, we examine how the extent to which teachers press students to explain their thinking during specific interventions with small groups, as well as during whole-class discussions, relates to the accuracy and completeness of students explanations during collaborative group work. It should be noted that the analyses reported here address associations between teacher and student variables, not causal relationships; this issue is discussed at greater length in a later section of this paper. The specific research questions addressed in this paper, then: (1) What are the relationships between specific teacher interventions with small groups and the extent of student explaining in those groups? (2) What are the correspondences between teacher-to-teacher differences in their practices and classroom-to-classroom differences in student explaining during collaborative group work?

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Method Sample Four elementary-school classrooms (Grades 2 and 3) in three schools in a large urban school district in Southern California are the focus of this study.1 These schools are large (more than 1100 students), serve predominantly Latino (with some African-American) students, have a high percentage of students receiving free or reduced lunch, have a substantial proportion of English language learners, and have low standardized achievement test scores.

Cambridge Journal of Education Teacher professional development

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The four teachers were part of a large-scale study focused on supporting teachers efforts to engage their students in algebraic thinking (see Carpenter, Franke, & Levi, 2003; Jacobs, Franke, Carpenter, Levi, & Battey, 2007) and had participated in at least one year of on-site professional development that explored the development of students algebraic reasoning and, in particular, how that reasoning could support students understanding of arithmetic. The professional development content, drawn from Thinking mathematically: Integrating arithmetic and algebra in the elementary school (Carpenter et al., 2003), highlighted relational thinking, including: (a) understanding the equal sign as an indicator of a relation; (b) using number relations to simplify calculations; and, (c) generating, representing, and justifying conjectures about the fundamental properties of numerical operations. Teachers received guidance in how to engage their students in conversations in order to help them explain their thinking and debate their reasoning and how to encourage students to solve problems in their own ways. A primary focus was on teachers eliciting student explanations and supporting students to describe the details of their thinking (Franke, Kazemi, & Battey, 2007). Approximately 12 months after the conclusion of the professional development, we selected seven teachers for intensive observation who had shown a range of student achievement in the prior year. The four teachers analyzed here used smallgroup collaborative work as described below. Observation procedures In most cases, students worked in pairs, with the exception of a few larger groups ranging in size from three to five. Teachers assigned students seated adjacently into pairs (or groups). Because students seating proximity was not based on student characteristics (e.g., achievement level, gender), group composition can be considered random. Analysis of group composition showed a variety of groupings in each class (e.g., some same-gender pairs, some mixed-gender pairs), with no particular pattern predominating. The groups remained intact for the two occasions of observations analyzed here; otherwise, group membership was fluid and teachers changed group composition frequently. Each class was videotaped and audiotaped on two occasions within a one-week period. We recorded all teacher-student interaction during whole-class instruction, and recorded a sample of groups, selected at random, from each classroom. The number of students recorded in each class ranged from 11 to 15 out of the 20 students enrolled in each class. Comparison of the recorded students with the nonrecorded students revealed no significant differences in gender, ethnicity, or performance on the achievement tests administered in this study. Observers recorded classroom activity as teachers taught problems of their choice related to the topics of equality and relational thinking. Teachers posed such problems as (a) 50+50525+%+50, and (b) 11+255+8 (true or false?). Consistent with their accustomed practice, teachers incorporated group-work time into the class during which students worked together to solve and discuss problems assigned by the teacher. Teachers introduced a problem, asked groups to work together to solve the problem and share their thinking, and then brought the whole class together for selected students to share their answers and strategies with the whole class, usually at the board.

54 N.M. Webb et al. We made comprehensive transcripts of each class session consisting of verbatim records of teacher and student talk, annotated to include the details of their nonverbal participation. These transcripts included whole-class discussion as well as group-work discussion for recorded students. We also collected student written work, took field notes during class sessions, and administered student-achievement measures. Measures of student achievement We used two measures of student achievement in this study. The written assessment was designed to measure relational thinking. Some items were designed to assess students understanding of the equal sign, and whether students held a relational view of the equal sign (Jacobs et al., 2007). For example, to answer the problem 3+45%+5, students needed to know that the numbers to the left of the equal sign summed to the same result as the numbers to the right of the equal sign, rather than treating the equal sign as an operation such as the answer comes next. Other items were designed to assess students abilities to identify and use number relations to simplify calculations. For example, in 889+11821185%, students could simplify this problem by recognizing that 118211850. We also individually interviewed the students from each class who were audio or videotaped on the observation days. We asked students what number they would put in the box to make certain number sentences true, for example, 13+185%+19, and asked them to describe their problem-solving strategies. For this paper, we analyzed the accuracy of their answers. Internal consistency alpha coefficients for the written assessment and interview were .88 and .74, respectively. Coding of student and teacher participation Using transcripts of all classroom talk we coded teacher and student participation during whole-class and group-work discussions. To analyze whole-class discussions, we separated the interaction into segments, each of which consisted of one bounded interaction between the teacher and a particular student. A segment consisted of a minimum of two conversational turns each for the teacher and the student. When analyzing group interaction, we coded each group conversation on a problem as a single unit. The group conversation started when the group began discussing the assigned problem and ended when the teacher called the class together again. We coded teacher practices across the entire lesson (all whole-class segments and all group conversations). The four teacher practices coded were: (a) probes students explanations to uncover details or further thinking about their problem-solving strategies (asks specific questions about details in a students explanation); (b) engages with students around their work on the problem (either an answer or an initial explanation) but does not probe the details of student thinking about their problem-solving strategies (typically, repeats or revoices the students work without asking further questions); (c) interacts with the group only around norms for behaviour (typically, directing students to talk to, or share with, each other); and (d) makes other brief comment or suggestion (e.g., acknowledges work on a problem, repeats the problem assigned, makes a brief suggestion, or makes a comment concerning classroom management).

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We coded student participation along two dimensions. First was the highest level of student participation on a problem: (a) gives correct and complete explanation; (b) gives ambiguous, incomplete, or incorrect explanation; (c) gives answer only; and (d) gives neither an answer nor an explanation (see Table 1). An explanation was considered complete if the coder could unambiguously discern how the student solved the problem. This included evidence from both verbal and non-verbal communication (such as gesturing to different parts of the number sentence). A correct and complete explanation was any explanation that described in detail a strategy that would consistently work for the problem, and involved an unambiguous and appropriate solution to the problem. Any explanation not considered complete was coded as incomplete, which included both incomplete and ambiguous explanations. An incorrect explanation was an explanation that was mathematically inconsistent with the problem posed. The second student participation dimension reflected the extent of the group explaining during or after a teachers intervention compared to the group explaining prior to the teachers intervention, and was coded only for groups that had not given a correct/complete explanation prior to the teachers intervention. The three codes were: (a) the group gives more explanation than before the teachers intervention, and the explanation is correct and complete; (b) the group gives more explanation than before the teachers intervention, but it is not correct and complete; and (c) the group gives no further explanation. Seven members of the research team coded student and teacher participation. We developed and set standards for the application of the coding through an iterative process that occurred over many regular weekly meetings. Each research-team
Table 1. Examples of student explanations. Explanation category Correct and complete Example Problem: 10+1021055+ Five? Its cause look. We could do this, oh no. Hold up. Cause ten plus ten equals twenty, huh? And then it says minus ten equals five plus blank. So it gotta be equal ten, so five plus five equals ten. And thats how I got it. Get it? Problem: 8+257+3 (True or false?) [True] because theres a two and a three and a seven and an eight. Theyre like an order. [While the answer is correct, this explanation does not make it clear (a) whether the student is considering the difference in quantity between 2 and 3 and between 7 and 8, (b) what the student means by order, and (c) how the student is using order to justify that the number sentence is true.] Problem: 4+9556322 (True or false?) I thought it was false because four plus nine is thirteen, and five times three is fifteen. Those two do not match. Problem: 3755 + (3* 10) Let me see. 345?

Ambiguous or incomplete

Incorrect

Answer but no explanation

56 N.M. Webb et al. member was involved in the development of the codes and had primary responsibility for coding particular problems and particular groups of students from each classroom. We resolved questions about coding through discussion, and these questions often led to further refinement of the teacher and student codes. After we refined the codes, research-team members systematically reviewed their own and others coding to ensure that the codes reflected the final coding scheme and to uncover inconsistencies in coding. All inconsistencies were brought to the entire team and were resolved through discussion and consensus. Results In the following sections, we provide results about teachers instructions for student behaviour during group work (to produce a picture of these classrooms climates for student participation), the relationship between student participation and achievement, teacher interventions with small groups and the links between those interventions and student participation during group work, teacher practices in the whole class, and classroom differences in students explanations and student achievement. Teachers instructions about student collaboration All of the teachers in this study gave frequent reminders to students about how to collaborate during group work. First, in the majority (70%) of the 40 problems assigned for group work across the four classrooms observed here, teachers gave preliminary reminders to the whole class about student participation in their groups. The most common reminders were for students to share with their neighbour and talk with your table partners. Some teacher instructions were more specific, such as the need to share why you think so or why you dont think so, What kind of thinking went on? How did you solve it? and Instead of just saying true or false, tell [your partners] why you think its true or why you think its false. Second, during about half (54%) of the teacher interventions with small groups, the teacher gave specific reminders for students to work together, to talk about the problem with each other, to discuss with their group how they were solving the problem, and to explain to each other. These results show that teachers frequently communicated expectations for students to share their work and, often, for students to explain their thinking behind their answers or to describe the procedures they used to solve the problem. Consistent with the expectations communicated about student behaviour during group work, groups showed a high incidence of explaining. Of the 208 group work conversations observed across the four classrooms, groups gave explanations in 129 (62%) of them. Thus, these classrooms had climates that seemed to be conducive to explaining during collaborative group work. Relationship between student participation during group work and student achievement We next examined the relationship between student participation during group work and their achievement to confirm that the previously established relationship between explaining and achievement held up in these classrooms. Consistent with previous research, Table 2 shows that explaining was significantly correlated with achievement.2 In particular, giving correct and complete explanations was positively

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Table 2. Correlations between student participation during group work and achievement scores. Highest level of student participation on a problema Gives explanation Correct and complete Ambiguous, incomplete or incorrect Gives no explanation Answer only No answer or explanation Written assessment scoreb .46*** .61*** 2.18 2.46*** .08 2.41** Individual interview scoreb .27 .46*** 2.30* 2.27* .20 2.35*

Notes: (a) Percent of group conversations in which a student displayed this behaviour. (b) Percent of problems correct. *p,.05 **p,.01 ***p,.001.

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related to achievement scores. That is, the greater the percentage of group conversations during which students gave a correct and complete explanation, the higher were their achievement scores. Other kinds of student participation (giving ambiguous, incomplete, or incorrect explanations; giving only answers; giving neither answers nor explanations) were not related or were negatively related to achievement. The remaining sections, then, pay particular attention to the relationship between teacher practices and students giving correct and complete explanations. Nature of teacher interventions with small groups Across the 208 group-work conversations, teachers intervened in 81 of them (39%).3 Of the 81 conversations with a teacher intervention, in 27% of them, groups had already produced a correct/complete explanation at the time the teacher intervened; in 16%, groups had engaged in some explaining but it was not correct or complete; and in 57%, groups had not produced any explanation. Of the 127 episodes of collaborative work without any teacher intervention, in 38%, groups produced a correct/complete explanation; in 19%, groups produced some explanation but it was not correct or complete; and in 43%, groups did not produce any explanation. The difference in explanation patterns for group episodes with a teacher intervention and those without a teacher intervention was not statistically significant (x2(2; N5208)53.74, p5.15), which suggests that teachers did not target groups for intervention based on students explaining behaviour. When they engaged with groups, teachers used a variety of practices, as shown in Table 3. In about half of the interventions (53%), teachers interacted with groups around explanations or other work (e.g., answers) on the mathematics problems. In many of these interventions, teachers probed students explanations to uncover additional details about their problem-solving strategies or further thinking underlying their strategies. In about half of the teacher interventions (47%), teachers interacted with groups only around norms for behaviour or management issues. The distributions of teacher practices were similar for groups that had already provided a correct/complete explanation when the teacher intervened (22 interventions) and groups that had not given a correct/complete explanation (59 interventions;

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Table 3. Teacher practices with small groups. Teacher practice Groups gave correct/complete explanation All teacher prior to the teachers intervention interventions (81 group Yes (22 group No (59 group conversations) conversations) conversations) 26a 23 27

Teacher probed students explanations to uncover details or further thinking about their problem-solving strategies Teacher engaged with students around their work on the problem but did not probe the details of student thinking about their problem-solving strategies Teacher interacted with the group only around norms for behaviour Teacher made other brief comment or suggestion

27

32

25

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33

41

31

14

17

Note: (a) Percent of group conversations in which the teacher exhibited this practice.

x2(3; N581)52.70, p5.44). Importantly, teachers were just as likely to probe students explanations in groups that had already given correct/complete explanations as in groups that had not. Teacher interventions and subsequent student explanations Table 4 shows, for each teacher practice with small groups, the explanations that were given after the teachers arrival, specifically whether groups gave more explanation while interacting with the teacher or afterwards than they had before the teacher intervened, and whether their group conversation led to a complete/correct explanation. These results focus on the 59 instances of teacher interventions with groups that had not already given a correct/complete explanation by the start of the teacher intervention.4 As shown in Table 4, when teachers probed students explanations, groups nearly always gave additional explanation and many of them produced a correct/complete explanation of how to solve the problem by the end of the groups discussion of that problem. The other teacher practices, in contrast, were less likely to be associated with additional explaining or to produce correct/complete explanations. The differences in effectiveness of teacher practices for group behaviour were statistically significant (Fishers exact test, p5.001).5 Although probing students explanations was more likely than other teacher practices to be associated with groups producing correct/complete explanations, not

Cambridge Journal of Education

Table 4. Teacher interventions with student explaining during group worka. Group explaining during or after teachers intervention Group gave more explanation than before the teachers intervention

59

Group did not give more explanation than before the teachers intervention

Teacher practiceb

Additional Additional explanation was explanation was not correct/complete correct/complete 63c 31 6

Teacher probed students explanations to uncover details or further thinking about their problem-solving strategies
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Teacher engaged with students around their work on the problem but did not probe the details of student thinking about their problem-solving strategies Teacher interacted with the group only around norms for behaviour Teacher made other brief comment or suggestion

20

20

60

33

11

56

20

80

Notes: (a) Includes only teacher interventions in which groups did not give a correct/complete explanation by the time the teacher intervened (59 interventions). (b) Number of group conversations in each teacher practice category are 16, 15, 18, 10, respectively. (c) Percent of interventions in which teacher used this practice and in which group exhibited this category of explaining.

all instances of teacher probing showed the same results. The following examples contrast more-effective and less-effective instances of teacher probing. In the first example, the teacher responds to a students ambiguous explanation by asking a sequence of questions specific to what the student said. The questions direct the student to say more about particular aspects of her strategy. The teacher asks questions about the students strategy until the student has described an explicit connection between the two sides of the number sentence: 7+1 and the 1022. During this interchange, the student engages in additional explaining (lines 3, 5, 11, 13) beyond the initial explanation (line 1) and arrives at a correct/complete explanation (line 13).
Problem: 7+15102% 1. Student 1: Eight take away two is ten. Ten take away eight so you have to regroup. Ten take away eight is two. So you take the one to the zero and it would be zero but it would be a two. And this one is because seven plus one is eight. Ten take away two is eight.

60 N.M. Webb et al.

2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. Teacher: Student 1: Teacher: Student 1: Teacher: Student 1: Teacher: Student 1: Teacher: Student 1: Teacher: Student 1: Teacher: What were you doing here? Regrouping. Eight take away two No, this is eight plus two. Eight plus two is ten. You have to regroup. Ten take away eight is two. And cross this out so it would be zero so the answer would be two. What made you write eight plus two? Huh? Where did you get the two from? Its cause Were you doing this one here? I did this one first and then I did this one. Where did you get the eight and the two from? Eight is cause seven plus one is eight and ten take away two it would be eight. OK.

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In the second example, the teacher responds to a students ambiguous explanation (line 1) with a follow-up question (line 2) that seeks clarification of what the student said. The teacher makes a claim in the follow-up question that extends what the student said and then asks the student if that is what he was thinking. The student responds by adding clarification to the teachers claim (line 3). In doing so, the student exhibits further thinking, but this interchange does not yield a correct/complete explanation, nor does this student or group ever produce a correct/complete explanation for this problem.
Problem: a5b+b. True or false? 1. 2. 3. Student 2: Teacher: Student 2: I think not true because an A needs to have a partner and a B too. So you think that it has to be two As and two Bs? And the B should be on the A side and the A should be on the B side.

These examples highlight how probing student thinking can play out differently for students. In both instances students had not yet verbalized a correct/complete explanation before interacting with the teacher and the interactions elicited more student explaining. However, in the first example, the teacher used details of the students strategy given in the students initial explanation to drive her probing questions. Her specific questions allowed the student to clarify the specifics of the initial explanation and provide a correct/complete explanation. While the second example also showed teacher probing, the teacher interjected her own interpretation of student thinking into her probing questions, and seemed satisfied with students engaging in additional explaining, even if the explanations were not correct or complete. When teachers engaged with students around their work on the problem but did not probe the details of student thinking about their problem-solving strategies (Table 4), groups often gave no additional explanation. Teacher behaviour often consisted of repeating or revoicing something the students had said, although teachers sometimes evaluated students answers or strategies or, when groups were having difficulty, led them through the steps in the solution. Sometimes, teachers revoicing of students explanations left the mistaken impression that the groups work was correct. In the following example, the teacher asked groups to fill in the box to make the number sentence true, but the group misinterpreted the problem.

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The teacher repeated the students answer (line 4) and implied that their answer was correct. The group did not talk about the problem after line 5.
Problem: 1000+A51000+50. A5% 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Student 3: Student 4: Student 3: Teacher: Student 4: I think its A because the other A dont have no partner. I think its A because A equals A is A because it didnt have a partner at first. I think A isnt, the A dont have no partner. So we should choose the other You think A equals A? OK. You had it.

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In some group conversations, the teacher intervened only to remind students to talk to each other, to share, or to explain (interaction around norms for behaviour). Some of these groups went on to give a correct/complete explanation. In the following example, the students had given the correct answer (lines 1, 2) but did not give an explanation until the teacher reminded students to talk to each other (line 3). The students responded that they had been talking about it (lines 48), but they did provide explanations (lines 10, 11).
Problem: 8+257+3. True or false? 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. Student 5: Student 6: Teacher: Student 6: Student 5: Student 6: Student 5: Student 6: Student 5: Student 6: Student 5: Its true. Oh, I didnt see the three before. Eight, nine, ten. True. Talk to your neighbour about it. I told her. We did it. I said it was true. I know. Its true. Because Because that equals ten and that equals ten. Yeah. Eight plus two equals ten. Seven plus three equals three I mean, ten.

Most groups receiving a norm-related statement from the teacher, however, did not provide additional explanation. In the following example, as in the example above, the group had provided an answer but no explanation (line 2) before the teacher intervened to remind students about the norms for behaviour (line 4). Despite their acknowledging the teachers statement (line 5), they did not do more than repeat the answer (line 8). Neither student gave any explanation.
Problem: 10+10510+10. True or false? 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. Student 7: Student 8: Student 7: Teacher: Student 8: Teacher: Student 7: Student 8: I think its what do you think? What do you think? Youre the person who writes. I think its false. I mean true. You guys need to do a better job today with communicating. Yes. Thank you. You think its true or false? True.

Comparison of the groups that gave more explanation after the teachers reminder about norms for behaviour and groups that gave no further explanation did not provide any clues about the reasons for differences in groups behaviour. The

62 N.M. Webb et al. two sets of group episodes were similar in terms of the nature of student participation prior to the teachers intervention (e.g., the accuracy of their answers, the nature of any explanations they gave), their group work behaviour on previous problems, and the wording of teachers reminders about the norms for behaviour. To account for the effectiveness of these teacher reminders about group work behaviour, it may be necessary to consider other factors such as general norms for behaviour in a particular classroom, the nature of the problem, and the particular students who were working together (and their previous history of collaboration). Finally, as shown in Table 4, when teachers made brief comments or suggestions, groups seldom gave more explanation after the teachers intervention. Teachers brief comments or suggestions included acknowledging or evaluating student work (very creative, it looks good), repeating the problem assigned (Can you find your own numbers to fill in instead of letters?), suggesting a strategy (Can we use the box strategy?), or commenting on behaviour (quiet down, let him borrow your pencil). Typically, groups did little work after these teacher interjections.
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Differences between classrooms in teacher practices We next turned to investigating teacher practices at the classroom level to examine how teacher practices in general both during whole-class instruction and when intervening with small groups may have played a role in students explaining in small groups. Table 5 shows the percentage of whole-class problems and teacher interventions with small groups in which teachers probed student thinking and the percentage in which they did not (teacher interaction around norms and classroom

Table 5. Teacher practices in whole-class and small-group comments. Teacher practice 1 Teacher probed students explanations to uncover details or further thinking about their problem-solving strategies Whole-class instruction Small-group interventions Teacher engaged with students around their work on the problem but did not probe the details of student thinking about their problem-solving strategies Whole-class instruction Small-group instruction Teachera 2 3 4

23b 36c

25 25

92 77

71 50

77 64

75 75

8 23

29 50

Note: (a) Number of problems with teacherstudent engagement in whole-class instruction for each teacher are 30, 8, 12, 7, respectively. Number of small-group interviews for each teacher are 14, 8, 13, 8, respectively. (b) Percent of teacher engagements with students in whole-class instruction in which the teacher exhibited this practice. (c) Percent of teacher interventions with small groups in which the teacher exhibited this practice (includes only teacher interventions around the math content; excludes teacher interventions around only norms for behaviour or classroom management because those teacher practices did not occur during whole-class instruction.

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management issues are excluded from this table because they did not occur during engagements with students in the whole-class context). Not only did teachers differ from one another in terms of their practices (differences between teachers in the whole class in the proportion of segments in which they probed students explanations to uncover details or further thinking about their problemsolving strategies, Fishers exact test, p,.001; differences between teachers in small groups in the proportion of conversations in which they probed students explanations to uncover details or further thinking about their problem-solving strategies, Fishers exact test, p5.001), but their practices in the whole-class setting were strikingly similar to their practices when engaging with small groups. Teacher 3 showed a strong tendency to probe students explanations, whether in the whole class or in small groups. Teacher 4 probed student thinking a substantial proportion of the time. Teachers 1 and 2, in contrast, most often engaged with students around their mathematics work without probing student thinking beyond about the details of their strategies, both in the whole class and with small groups.
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Classroom differences in student explanations and student achievement Teacher differences in their practices when engaging with students were reflected in corresponding classroom differences in student explanations during group work and in student achievement. Table 6 gives the distribution of student explanations and achievement across classrooms. Significant differences appeared between classrooms on all variables (level of student explaining during group work, p,.001; written assessment, F(3, 74)55.28, p,.01; individual interview, F(3, 74)5 2.82, p,.05). In Classrooms 3 and 4, the majority of small groups produced correct/complete explanations; in Classrooms 1 and 2, only a minority of small groups did so, with the percentage in Classroom 1 being quite low. Differences between classrooms in student achievement showed the same pattern, with achievement in Classrooms 3 and 4 being highest and achievement in Classrooms 1 and 2 being lowest.

Table 6. Student explaining during group work and achievement across classrooms. Classroom 1 Student explaining in small groups Group gave correct/complete explanation Group did not give correct/complete explanation Student achievement Written assessment score Individual interview score 17b 13b 30 24 47 37 45 44 16a 84 33 67 72 28 56 44 2 3 4

Note: (a) Percent of group conservations in which group exhibited this behaviour; (b) Percent of problems correct.

64 N.M. Webb et al. Discussion This study examined the relationship between teacher practices and student explaining when they worked in collaborative small groups. We examined teacher practices in two ways: (1) the relationship between specific teacher interventions with small groups and the extent of student explaining in those groups; and (2) correspondences between teacher-to-teacher differences in their practices and classroom-to-classroom differences in student explaining during collaborative group work. We discuss the results for each of these in turn. When intervening with small groups, the teacher practice that had the strongest relationship with student explaining was probing students explanations to uncover details or further thinking about their problem-solving strategies. More than any other teacher practice, probing students explanations when intervening with small groups corresponded to students giving more details about their problem-solving strategies, especially their producing correct/complete explanations of how to solve the problem. Other ways of engaging with groups engaging around their mathematics work (e.g., acknowledging an answer or explanation) without probing the details of student thinking, referring to norms for behaviour, making other brief comments or suggestions were rarely linked to groups providing additional explanations or giving correct/complete explanations. Not all instances of probing students explanations seemed to function in the same way, however. Probing of students explanations was most likely to be associated with additional student explaining (especially correct/complete explanations) when teachers used details of students strategies given in initial explanations to drive the probing questions, when teachers persisted in asking questions to push students to clarify ambiguous aspects of their explanations, and when teachers did not interject their own thinking (or their own assumptions about what students were thinking) into their probing questions. The kind of teacher probing of students thinking just described strongly resembles the practices of teachers in the high-press classrooms that Kazemi and Stipek (2001) found to correspond with a high level of student explaining. It also resembles the teacher practices that Hogan, Nastasi, and Pressley (2000) found to encourage a high level of scientific reasoning during group discussions: teachers asked students to describe their initial thinking, asked students to elaborate on specific points they made in their initial explanation, and asked students to clarify language they used and to expand and extend their explanations. The finding in this study that issuing reminders or giving directives concerning norms for behaviour was not often followed by additional explaining by groups is fairly consistent with Meloth and Deerings (1999) finding that non-specific teacher monitoring statements did not change the nature of group discussions, although it is inconsistent with Dekker and Elshout- Mohrs (2004) observations that reminders about behaviour seemed to stimulate groups to share ideas. Further research is needed to determine whether such norm-related reminders function differently depending on the general classroom norms for behaviour, the particular composition of the group (as well as the groups history), the specific task or problem that a group is working on (and challenges that the group may be facing in completing the task), and the nature of the groups communication prior to the teachers reminder. In this study, teacher-to-teacher differences in their practices also corresponded to classroom-to-classroom differences in student explaining. The key variable

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distinguishing teachers was the extent to which they probed student thinking both when interacting with students during whole-class instruction, and when intervening with small groups. Not only did some teachers probe student thinking much more frequently than did other teachers, the tendency of teachers to probe (or not probe) student thinking was remarkably consistent between their interactions with students during whole-class interactions and when intervening with small groups. In the classrooms in which teachers often probed student thinking, groups showed the highest incidence of giving correct/complete explanations. In the classrooms in which teachers did not often probe student thinking, groups showed lower incidences of giving correct/complete explanations. This paper, then, uncovered positive associations between teacher probing of student thinking (during whole-class instruction and when interacting with small groups) and the nature and extent of explaining in small groups, especially whether groups gave correct/complete explanations. How might we interpret these relationships? One interpretation is that teacher probing is an effective intervention strategy for promoting explaining in small groups, especially for giving correct/complete explanations. Teachers questions may help students clarify ambiguous explanations, make explicit steps in their problem-solving procedures, justify their problem-solving strategies, and correct their misconceptions or incorrect strategies. Another interpretation is that frequent teacher probing of student thinking communicates the expectation that students should engage in extended explaining, especially continuing until they are able to give correct/complete explanations. This expectation then becomes a feature of the classroom climate that influences student participation. Wood, Cobb, and Yackel (1991) observed this process in action. By asking students to explain their methods for solving problems and refraining from evaluating students answers, teachers helped create expectations and obligations for students to publicly display their thinking underlying how they solved mathematical problems. We must be cautious, however, about interpreting the direction of effects between teacher practice and student participation. While one interpretation of the positive association between teacher probing and group explaining is that teacher probing helped groups to explain further and give correct/complete explanations, it is also possible that (a) these groups would have given correct/complete explanations even in the absence of the teachers probing questions (the teachers practice was unrelated to group behaviour); (b) teachers chose certain groups for apply probing behaviour with the expectation (perhaps based on previous experience or observations) that they would be able or likely to provide more complete or correct explanations (previous group behaviour influenced the teachers practice); (c) highlevel student explaining (possibly due to higher student mathematical ability) elicited teacher probing (when students revealed details about their strategies and thinking, teachers had more information on which to base probing questions); or (d) teacher practices and student participation influenced each other in reciprocal fashion (teacher probing promoted student explaining, and student explaining enabled teacher probing). Similar caveats apply to the relationship observed here between teacher-toteacher differences in teacher practices and classroom-to-classroom differences in group behaviour. For example, students in some classrooms may be more capable of

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66 N.M. Webb et al. giving explanations than students in other classrooms, independent of their teachers practices (perhaps as a result of classroom experiences in previous years; or as a result of greater mathematical understanding to start with). To test these alternative interpretations, it would be important to observe small-group processes at the beginning of the school year before teacher practices have a chance to influence student behaviour and before norms are developed, and, optimally, examine changes in both teacher practices and student behaviour over time. A further qualification of the findings concerns the task and subject matter. The mathematical group-work tasks used here (often open-ended questions about mathematics conjectures) were conducive to student explaining and teacher probing of student thinking. Whether the details of teacher practices and student participation found to be important in this study will emerge with other kinds of group-work tasks and in other content domains remains to be investigated. The results of this study show the importance of paying attention to the details of teacher practices and student participation during group work. In this study, more significant than asking students to give explanations was teachers probing of the particulars in student thinking; and more significant than whether students gave explanations was the accuracy and completeness of students explanations. Our approach and findings have important methodological implications for future research on teachers instructional practices and students learning in small groups. Close attention to what students say and do in relation to what a teacher says helps us understand the details of practice that matter for student learning. It is imperative not only to analyze the dialogue among students, but also to examine student participation in relation to teacher participation and the context of the classroom. This type of analysis is difficult as one cannot strip what teachers say from the context in which it happens or from how students engage with each other and with the teacher. Yet, this type of analysis, in conjunction with a variety of student outcomes, can help us understand the ways in which teachers can support students understanding through dialogue that supports students in explaining their thinking. The findings also have important implications for teaching and professional development of teachers in connection with small-group work. Teachers questions shape what happens for students. More than simply asking students to explain their thinking, it is important that teachers focus on what students say in relation to critical ideas (here, in mathematics) and help students make the details of their thinking explicit. There is a great deal of knowledge and skill embedded in these practices, including making sense of what students are saying, drawing out the subject-matter ideas, and supporting students in detailing that thinking. These principles can and should be embedded in professional development for teachers to help them develop their intervention practices with small groups. The findings of this study provide good exemplars to include in such professional development. Acknowledgements
This work was supported in part by the Spencer Foundation; the National Science Foundation (MDR-8550236, MDR-8955346); the Academic Senate on Research, Los Angeles Division, University of California; and the Diversity in Mathematics Education Center for Learning and Teaching (DIME). Funding to DIME was provided by grant number ESI-0119732 from the National Science Foundation.

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We would like to thank Marsha Ing for her helpful comments on an earlier version of this article.

Notes
1. Analyses of teacher practices and student participation in three of these classrooms were reported in Webb et al. (in press). The current study is larger and more comprehensive than the previous one: it uses a larger sample of classrooms, considers all instances of collaborative group work in all classrooms, uses more in-depth (and finer grained) coding of teacher practices and student activity, and analyzes links between teacher practices and student activity during the same group episodes. 2. For some classes prior achievement scores (standardized test scores from the previous spring) were not available. Consequently, we could not compute partial correlations to control for prior achievement. 3. All recorded students except one (n550) experienced a teacher intervention. 4. All recorded students except one (n550) were members of groups that had not already given a correct/complete explanation by the start of the teacher intervention. 5. For contingency tables with small expected cell counts, we used a Fishers exact test (Fisher, 1935). 6. Unless otherwise indicated, all significance levels are the results of Fishers exact tests of contingency tables.

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Notes on contributors
Noreen M. Webb is a Professor in the Department of Education, Graduate School of Education & Information Studies, University of California, Los Angeles. Her research spans domains in learning and instruction, especially the study of teaching and learning processes and performance of individuals and groups in mathematics and science classrooms, and educational and psychological measurement. Megan L. Franke is a Professor in the Department of Education, Graduate School of Education & Information Studies, University of California, Los Angeles. Her work focuses on understanding and supporting teacher learning through professional development, particularly within elementary mathematics. Tondra De is a doctoral student in the Department of Education, Graduate School of Education & Information Studies, University of California, Los Angeles. Angela G. Chan is a doctoral student in the Department of Education, Graduate School of Education & Information Studies, University of California, Los Angeles. Her research interests include issues of equity in the development of elementary mathematics teachers, with a particular focus on classroom practice and teacher identity. Deanna Freund is a doctoral student in the Department of Education, Graduate School of Education & Information Studies, University of California, Los Angeles. Pat Shein is a doctoral student in the Department of Education, Graduate School of Education & Information Studies, University of California, Los Angeles. Her interests include exploring ways to support English Learner students in mathematics learning. Doris K. Melkonian is a doctoral student in the Department of Education, Graduate School of Education & Information Studies, University of California, Los Angeles. Her interests include collaborative learning, and gender related issues in mathematics and science education.

68 N.M. Webb et al. References

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