Teachers’ use of examples in the natural setting
Creators: name: Pilling, Jody Rae
Publisher: name: University of British Columbia
Year: 2010

description: This study was conducted to investigate how teachers present concepts and use examples in the natural setting of the classroom. A conceptual framework which afforded bases for the generation of questions as well as general rationale was found within the concept acquisition research literature (Bourne &amp; Guy, 1968; Carnine, 1980; Houtz, Moore &amp; Davis, 1973; Hovland &amp; Weiss, 1953; Klausmeier &amp; Feldman, 1975; Tennyson &amp; Park, 1980; Tennyson &amp; Rothen, 1977; Tennyson, Steve, &amp; Boutwell, 1975; Williams &amp; Carnine, 1981). Within the developing research tradition, diverse instructional strategies had evolved within a context of highly specific, carefully controlled experimental laboratory investigations. Prescriptions based on the results of these research initiatives were being directed toward classroom practitioners (Engelmann &amp; Carnine, 1982). The extent to which instructional design strategies emerging from the empirical activity could be transplanted from the artificial context of the laboratory to the unpredictable and complex environment of the classroom was a question which guided this inquiry. The focus of this descriptive study became an exploration of the verbal behavior of teachers in the classroom during the act of teaching, examining how concepts and supporting examples were being presented. A naturalistic, descriptive mode of inquiry was adopted during the study. The observational technique was utilized, and a "sign system" was constructed to isolate and quantify the behaviors of interest. Based on the literature, as well as trends discerned during two pilot studies, a number of questions relating to concept teaching in the natural setting were generated and explored in data from sixty different teaching lessons (N=8). These lessons reflected varying subject matters and students of varying chronological ages. The questions were formulated in reference to teachers' use of concept definitions, positive and negative examples, concrete as opposed to abstract examples, as well as the extent to which teachers asked students to generalize to new, different positive and negative examples. Frequencies associated with these verbal behaviors were reported. As well, the role which students were playing during concept teaching was examined. The results of this exploratory investigation suggest that areas of complementarity exist between the respective perspectives assumed by researchers and teachers, particularly in relation to use of definitions and positive examples during concept presentations. At the same time, the naturally occurring behaviors of the teachers in this sample were devoid of certain strategies judged essential by instructional designers, in particular use of negative examples during concept teaching sequences. Across the teachers, subject matters, and grade levels represented in this study, approximately one-half of the examples presented in relation to concepts were conceptualized and contributed by students. This pattern emerged during an instructional routine which Duffy (1983) terms the "turn taking model", where classroom interaction is characterized by the teacher asking a question, the student responding, and the teacher reinforcing or correcting. Because instructional designers' prescriptions for example presentation during concept teaching rely heavily on strict control over content and sequence issues, the question is raised whether instructional design models for concept teaching are feasible within the natural setting in general, given the constraints that may be imposed by adoption of turn taking procedures.