Pre-Service Teachers' Discourse Moves During Whole Class Mathematical Discussions: An Analysis and Proposed Framework

Abstract

Learning to facilitate whole-class mathematical discussions is a complex task. Teachers must become adept at using discourse moves to elicit and extend student thinking and move discussions towards a mathematical point. Practice-based mathematics methods courses give pre-service teachers opportunities to rehearse these moves in a controlled setting. Providing opportunities for practice, often called rehearsals or approximations of practice, have been shown to be effective at developing pre-service teachers' abilities to use discourse moves, but we still do not have a clear understanding of the types of discourse moves pre-service teachers use during discussions or how these moves change over the course of a discussion. In this article, we analyze. whole-class discussions facilitated by pre-service teachers to determine the types of discourse moves used as the discussion progresses. Based on this data and relevant literature, we propose a framework for the structure of whole-class mathematical discussions.

Keywords

• discourse moves
• whole-class discussion
• pedagogies of practice
• teacher education
• mathematics education