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Language and Communication in Mathematics Education pp 51–63Cite as

Making Student Explanations Relevant in Whole Class Discussion

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Part of the book series: ICME-13 Monographs ((ICME13Mo))

Abstract

Students explaining their mathematics is vital to the teaching and learning of mathematics, yet we know little about how to enable and support students to explain in whole class discussions beyond teachers asking particular questions. In this chapter we use a conversation analytic approach to explore the interactional structures that make student explanations relevant. Through a detailed examination of interactions where a student explanation occurs, three distinct structures are identified where a student explanation is perceived to be relevant. Our focus in the analysis is the social actions students themselves do in their explanations to display their interpretation of the interaction as requiring an explanation and constraining the type of explanation. However, these structures also offer ways that teachers can use the structure of interaction to encourage students to offer explanations in their responses.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    In the UK there is a well known television advert for milk where a young boy says that Ian Rush (famous footballer) said that if he didn’t drink lots of milk he would only be good enough to play for Accrington Stanley to which the response was ‘who are they’, ‘exactly’.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Education, University of Oxford, 15 Norham Gardens, Oxford, OX2 6PY, UK

    Jenni Ingram, Nick Andrews & Andrea Pitt

Authors
  1. Jenni Ingram
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  2. Nick Andrews
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  3. Andrea Pitt
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jenni Ingram .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Education Department, University of California, Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, California, USA

    Judit N. Moschkovich

  2. Faculty of Education, University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada

    David Wagner

  3. Centre for Education Innovation and Action, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Bombay, India

    Arindam Bose

  4. Faculty of Education, State University of Campinas, Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil

    Jackeline Rodrigues Mendes

  5. Institut für Erziehungswissenschaft, Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden, Germany

    Marcus Schütte

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Ingram, J., Andrews, N., Pitt, A. (2018). Making Student Explanations Relevant in Whole Class Discussion. In: Moschkovich, J., Wagner, D., Bose, A., Rodrigues Mendes, J., Schütte, M. (eds) Language and Communication in Mathematics Education. ICME-13 Monographs. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75055-2_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75055-2_5

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-75054-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-75055-2

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