1.3 Do teachers take advantage of the ‘‘helping hand’’ offered by gestures?
The literature contains several detailed analyses of teachers’ gestures in instructional settings (e.g., Nu´n˜ez 2005). However, it is not yet known whether teachers use gestures adaptively, in an effort to foster students’ comprehension, at moments when intervention is most needed. Flevares and Perry (2001) and Alibali and Nathan (2007) provided some suggestive evidence on this point; however, a more focused investigation of this question is clearly warranted. Past research has also shown that teachers can alter their gestures if they receive instruction about the importance of gesture in instruction (Hostetter et al. 2006; Alibali et al. 2012). For example, Hostetter et al. (2006) asked teachers to give a mathematics lesson twice. After the first lesson, teachers were given a brief tutorial about how to link ideas using gestures. They were then asked to give the lesson a second time, incorporating as many gestures as possible into their lessons. Teachers produced more gestures in the second lesson (after explicit instruction about gestures) than in the first lesson (without any specific instructions about gestures). However, despite this evidence that teachers can alter their gestures, to our knowledge, no studies have specifically encouraged teachers to use gesture as a micro-intervention at trouble spots in classroom discourse. The fact that teachers can alter their gestures strategically suggests that such an approach would be feasible. In this paper, we investigate teachers’ use of gestures to address trouble spots (see Seedhouse 2004) in instructional discourse. We define trouble spots as points in the classroom discourse where students reveal a lack of understanding of the instructional material, e.g., by offering an incorrect response to a teacher’s question, or by offering a response characterized by uncertainty or dysfluency. Trouble spots are a regular occurrence in classroom settings; therefore, micro-interventions around trouble spots may contribute to students’ learning. However, to date, there has been little systematic analysis of how teachers respond to trouble spots, and no studies have systematically investigated how teachers use gestures to address trouble spots. Thus, trouble spots are a potentially fruitful context in which to examine how teachers adapt their instructional communication when needed.
1.4 Research questions and hypotheses
In this study we investigate the nature of teachers’ spontaneous micro-interventions at moments when students reveal lack of understanding of instructional material. We address this question in middle school mathematics instruction. Middle school mathematics includes many new concepts and new symbolic representations; thus, it is an instructional context in which there is likely to be a large number of trouble spots. It is also a context in which gesture may be a particularly effective means of communicating relationships among representations. In this research, we ask whether teachers alter their use of gestures in response to trouble spots in the classroom discourse. Trouble spots are an indicator that common ground has either not been established, or has been lost. As such, trouble spots are an invitation for a teacher to try other means to establish common ground. Thus, we hypothesized that teachers would produce more gestures in the turns that immediately follow trouble spots, than in the turns that immediately precede trouble spots. In the analyses that follow, we present both quantitative and qualitative evidence in support of this hypothesis.