Re: Best practices (and Classroom community)

Ellice A Forman (ellice+ who-is-at pitt.edu)
Thu, 1 Jan 1998 21:45:28 -0500 (EST)

Charles and David,
I heard Marty Nystrand report the results of this study at a small
conference on classroom discourse last year held at the University of
Wisconsin, Madison. I recall that open-ended (or authentic) questions were
coded if teachers asked nonliteral questions about the text (Why do you
think Hamlet was angry at his Uncle?) or about anything else (What did you
do on your Xmas vacation?) That is, any question that wasn't a known
answer question was coded similarly. Then they found that in high income
communities open-ended questions were positively correlated with
achievement gains and in low income communities they were negatively
correlated. That finding lead them to examine what was coded as open-ended
in both communities and found that the questions about the text were asked
in high income communities and the questions about one's vacation were
asked in low income communities. This set of findings made me wonder why
they had originally coded the two types of questions similarly. I still
wonder.

In contrast to the finding of this study--which are pretty depressing I
must admit, I prefer research done by Carol Lee on high level questioning
by teachers and students in low income communities (as well as careful
text analysis) and research by Beth Warren and Ann Roseberry on high level
qeustioning by teachers and students in low income communities (as well as
careful scientific experimentation). This work doesn't involve large
numbers of teachers or students but it demonstrates the effectiveness of
good practice in literature and/or science in some low income communities.

Ellice Forman
University of Pittsburgh

On Wed, 31 Dec 1997, Charles Bazerman wrote:

> David, could you expand on the paragraph I append? Does this mean that
> open-ended questions were not effective in subject areas other than
> literature? Or that open-ended questions off the academic topic equated
> with time off academic task? Or something else?
> Chuck Bazerman
>
> p.s. And best for the new year to you and all XMCA.
>
> On Wed, 31 Dec 1997, David R. Russell wrote:
>
> >
> > His central finding is that what he terms dialogic instruction-based on
> > open-ended discussion about literature rather than recitation-had a strong
> > correlation with learning. This is especially telling since the average
> > class engaged in less than one minute of it a day. Open-ended discussion
> > unrelated to literature had a negative effect on learning (which may
> > suggest why there were similar rates of open-ended questioning in all
> > tracks, but greater learning in high track classes, where authentic
> > questions were focused on literature). In general, extended writing
> > enhanced recall and understanding, short answer writing degraded recall and
> > understanding.
> >
>