Premium
“They’re the Ones Who Hold the Answers”: Exploring Educators’ and Students’ Conceptions of Academic Conversation
Author(s) -
Meston Heather M.,
Phillips Galloway Emily,
McClain Janna Brown
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
journal of adolescent and adult literacy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.73
H-Index - 49
eISSN - 1936-2706
pISSN - 1081-3004
DOI - 10.1002/jaal.1127
Subject(s) - conversation , negotiation , pedagogy , meaning (existential) , psychology , relevance (law) , divergence (linguistics) , mathematics education , sociology , linguistics , communication , social science , philosophy , political science , law , psychotherapist
Purposeful academic conversation engages students as active agents in the process of making meaning from text, negotiating perspectives, and achieving mutual understanding. However, educators often report difficulties in engaging students in talk‐based pedagogies. This concern can be partially addressed by ensuring that students and teachers have similar understandings regarding the purposes of academic conversation. Here, we examine the conceptions of academic conversation held by middle‐school students and their teachers, revealing areas of convergence and divergence in the perspectives held by youth and their educators regarding the purposes of academic conversation and students’ roles in these discussions. With direct relevance to instructional practice, we provide suggestions for making these understandings visible and reconciling divergent views.