The Relationship Between Teacher Behaviours and Student Talk in Promoting Quality Learning in Science Classrooms

This paper distils 24 years of classroom research into promoting quality learning in science classrooms to develop an overall framework for better understanding and describing both the learning and the teaching approaches that stimulate and support it. For me, quality learning is characterised by adjectives such as informed, purposeful, reflective, intellectually active, metacognitive and independent. Central to quality learning is the role of talk, and central to promoting talk which promotes quality learning are certain teacher behaviours. I first focus on the ways that teachers behave in the classroom in order to promote, react to and use student talk. These behaviours are summed up in a list of twelve principles for quality teaching. Each of these principles requires, as well as appropriate teacher behaviours, the use of effective teaching procedures. I then focus on four kinds of student talk that exemplify informed, purposeful, reflective and intellectually active thinking. These variously involve students’ existing ideas and explanations; increasing student ownership of practical activities; constructive challenges to the teacher (or text’s) idea, and lateral, reflective ‘thinking’ questions.