What Preservice Teachers Can Learn From a Content Area Expert

Abstract

In this chapter, the author presents the negotiation between students and teachers to combat disengagement in a virtual classroom. To address this concern, the chapter presents a model that increases authentic engagement in a mathematics classroom for a group of sophomores, juniors, and seniors using an academic dialogue strategy that prepares students to think critically about what they are learning in the classroom and how these abstract learnings connect to real-world experiences. The dialogues that occur between the author and the students provide an approach that is widely used in literacy settings but may not always happen in content area instruction.