Reframing What it Means to Pay Attention: Leveraging Discourse to Improve Student Practice

Abstract

Florence Middle School (FMS) is a public, community-based school located in Florence, Alabama. It serves approximately 683 seventh- and eighth-graders from diverse backgrounds. Evidence of FMS administrators' and teachers' commitment to providing students with learning experiences (academic and social) that prepare them to thrive in high school can be observed in the school’s culture and in students' overall yearly improvement on the state assessment. However, historically, its students have struggled to meet the state assessment’s math proficiency benchmarks. Therefore, the FMS administrators and I decided to focus on adjustments that math teachers can make to their facilitation of discourse during lessons to support students in improving their math proficiency. The purpose of the project was to identify discourse facilitation strategies that engage students in knowledge acquisition, critical thinking, and practice that align with Alabama state standards for math. I implemented a single-case study design to analyze the discourse facilitation practices of three seventh-grade math teachers. Throughout the project, I examined lesson plans, teacher-submitted videos, and student work to gain insight into their instructional practices for facilitating discourse during lessons. My analysis these data sources revealed the following findings: Student engagement in metacognition (thinking) co-occurred with instances in which teachers emphasized metacognitive discourse during guided practice, students application of thinking strategies coincided with moments when teachers modeled metacognitive skills during guided practice, and when teachers explicitly communicate the goals for learning and practice, students show interest and eagerness to demonstrate their understanding of math concepts.