Teacher’s Dialogic Prompts That Scaffold Students’ Participation in Classroom Argumentation: A Case of a Biology Teacher

Abstract

In this qualitative case study, a male biology teacher teaching Bioethics in Senior High School was purposively selected for the documentation and examination of the types and functions of dialogic prompts he used to scaffold his students’ participation in classroom argumentation. Using various data such as classroom transcripts from audio- and video-records, interviews and field notes, these were subjected to microlevel analyses using the constant comparison method. Using an analysis framework with codes from literature that were subsequently merged with data driven codes, thematic analysis yielded three types of dialogic prompts: conceptual, analytical, and reflective with several functions such as providing background information, giving extended ‘think-time’, guiding students to formulate counterarguments, eliciting examples that either support or refute a claim, and asking issue-based questions which were sometimes backed up by stating personal arguments and reiterating students’ responses. Excerpts from video transcripts revealed that these dialogic prompts elicited students’ ideas which resulted to argumentative and collaborative inquiry. Findings of the study suggest that students’ participation to classroom argumentation should be understood together with teachers’ provision of dialogic scaffolding. More than conceptual and factual knowledge, teachers’ dialogic scaffolding for argumentation is a promising method for the gradual enhancement of students’ communication skills and honing of their reasoning skills. Since the results are only conclusive to the case teacher, the study informs the potentials of dialogic scaffolding to support classroom argumentation. It is therefore recommended that for future professional development efforts, both in-service and pre-service teachers should be influenced towards intentionality of harnessing talk inside the classroom as a tool to enhance the implementation of classroom argumentation.