What kind of things does research tell us about teaching?
If learning is the central purpose of education, then teaching is the means by which that aim is achieved. Whereas learning often needs to be studied through indirect measures, some aspects of teaching are more readily investigated. Many aspects of what teachers do in the classroom, and how they plan for lessons and organize their classes, have been studied.
What kinds of classroom discourse do teachers encourage?
Many aspects of classroom practice have been subject to substantive levels of ‘guidance’ with official approval (see chapter 1), and may act as the source of criteria used to evaluate teaching. Understandably, many aspects of official policy and guidance (especially where those pronouncements do not seem to be supported by a strong evidence base) are subject to close research attention. Hardman, Smith and wall (2005) report a study in the journal Educational Review that investigated the nature classroom interaction and discourse in primary school during a daily ‘literacy hour’ that was required as part of a National Literacy Strategy (NLS)-with a special focus on students with special educational needs (SEN). They reported that although the NLS was encouraging teachers to involve pupils with SEN in the literacy hour, the classroom discourse was dominated by teacher explanations and sequences of questions and answers that did not provide sufficient opportunities for all pupils to offer and develop their own ideas.
Questioning is a major technique used by teachers, and types and purposes of teacher questions have been widely studied (e.g., Edwards & Mercer, 1987). It has been argued that teachers should use a high proportion of ‘open’ questions that give students scope for a potentially wide of responses. Research also suggests this not what teachers actually do. In a paper in the journal Educational Studies, Harrop and Swinson (2003) reported that teachers in teachers in infant, junior and secondary school used about five time as many closed questions (where only one answer would be considered correct) as open questions (that invite more creative thinking and have several or many potentially acceptable answers).