Re: review of Opening Dialogue

Mike Cole (mcole who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu)
Wed, 7 Jan 1998 05:38:17 -0800 (PST)

Jay-- You note on Nystrand work vis a vis science ed raises again the
question I was asking about practices someone considers "good" if not
"best" and associatged issues. It also raises a question that probably
goes to Gordon:
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I note some similarities in Marty's findings in English classes to work
from a recent Berkeley dissertation by Peter Kindfield on science classes.

......
The focus of his interest is akin to Marty's emphasis on the 'genre
context' of teacher questions: he looks at longer sequences to see to what
extent teachers follow-up on student answers and contributions in ways that
make the dialogue more truly reciprocal and not simply alternating. That
is, students would have a greater degree of thematic control of the
discussion than is typical in normal IRF known-answer triadic patterns.
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Gordon: What is the implications of using the phrase IRF versus
IRE (Initiation-Response-Feedback) vs (Initiation-Response-
Evaluation) that comes from Mehan et al work?

Jay: In light of all the difficulties identified with arguing
that any practice is good in any non-local sense, who cares
if greater thematic control occurs? Any warrants for claims that
a practice is good beyond local cultural norms (where means
a given community I guess, although use of the term community
is frought, afterall, what is a community? Right?

(What I am asking for here is clarifaction of what is at issue
in talking about values attached to educational forms and functions)
mike