Describing and facilitating productive teaching talk in a faculty online learning community

This paper presents our preliminary work towards being able to describe productive conversations in the context of faculty talking about teaching in a Faculty Online Learning Community (FOLC) as well as facilitator moves that lead to productive conversations. We present an analysis of a short video clip from a particularly productive FOLC meeting in which a rich discussion of pedagogical issues occurs. In order to understand why this conversation was productive, we describe the types of talk present and the function each type of talk served. Drawing from the literature on teacher workgroup conversations and using an emergent coding scheme, we identify four types of teaching talk: Reflection, Replay, Philosophy, and Rehearsal as well as three facilitation moves: Agency, Withholding, and Elaboration present in the conversation. We consider how teaching talk and facilitation moves are connected and offer guidance for those engaging in facilitation of either online or in-person faculty learning communities.