Abstract:
This paper describes the types of discourse seven high school teachers used during cooperative leaning. One classroom lesson where students worked in cooperative groups was audiotaped and fully transcribed for each teacher and a vignette of one of the teachers and one of the group's in her room are also provided. The data from the audiotapes showed that the teachers used a range of mediated-learning behaviours that included challenging students' perspectives, asking cognitive and metacognitive questions, and scaffolding students' learning. The students, in turn, modelled many of the discourses they heard their teacher use in their interactions with each other. Follow-up interviews of teachers' perceptions of cooperative learning as a pedagogical practice revealed that they believed it was important to structure the groups (i.e., tasks, composition), teach the appropriate social skills, and present tasks that encouraged students to think critically and reflectively about their learning.