A Comparative Research On Classroom Interaction Between Expert And Novice Teachers

The promulgation of Mathematics Curriculum Standard of Compulsory Education(2011 edition) marked a deeper development of mathematics curriculum reform. In the meantime, the orientation of mathematics teaching activity has promoted from specific teaching suggestions to curriculum fundamental philosophy, emphasizing the important role of interaction between teachers and students in mathematics teaching activity. Nowadays, what is the current situation of the interaction between teachers and students? And it needs deeper researches.In the actual teaching situation, a doubt still cannot be solved: why is there a great difference between novice teachers and expert teachers in teaching the same contents? Novice teachers’ class is boring and dull whereas expert teachers’ class is vividly and lively. In researcher’ opinion, the most obvious and direct difference in the teaching between novice teachers and expert teachers lies in the difference of teacher-student interaction.This research is going to adopt the method of comparative analysis to analyze the interaction ways, interaction levels, interaction skills, interaction language and students’ answers.After analyzing the teaching videos and adjusting the specific dimension of video analysis, teaching videos of three pairs of novice-expert teachers(six periods of class) are chosen. Excel is applied to analyze the data and then to discover the difference in the teacher-student interaction between novice teachers and expert teachers and discuss the causes of the difference. Finally, some suggestions for improvement are proposed to improve novice teachers’ level of teacher-student interaction.1. Results of analysis of teaching videos from novice teachers and expert teachers show that:(1) There is more teacher-student interaction in expert teachers’ teaching, and most are focus-interaction whereas the interaction ways of novice teachers mainly are funnel-interaction, which is 67% of that of expert teachers.(2) Nowadays, the interactions in primary mathematics class are still led by teachers. If there are four levels to describe the interaction situation in class, the level of expert teachers’ teacher-student interaction is between three and four whereas the level of novice teachers is between two and three.(3) Compared to expert teachers, novice teachers are far more inexperienced in using the skills of class interaction flexibly, only 68% of that of expert teachers; in the aspect of feedback to the students, the times of novice teachers are only 49% of that of expert teachers.(4) The usage of classroom language of novice teachers is 69% of that of expert teachers. In the aspect of feedback language, incentive language and inspiring language, the percentage is only 49% for novice teachers, compared to expert teachers.(5) In the interaction between novice teachers and students, the answers from teachers mostly are mechanical and cognitive. Seldom is inferential. Creative answers are basically blank. And the number of student answer in novice teachers’ class is only 70% of that of expert teachers.2. The discussions about the causes of novice teachers’ low level teacher-student interaction.The reasons that cause the low level of teacher-student interaction in novice mathematics primary school teachers result not only from teachers’ own teaching idea and the missing of knowledge structure, but also the deficiency of professional spirit and the lack of effectiveness in teaching activities.(1) Cognitive bias of novice teachers’ teaching idea.(2) The short of novice teachers’ teaching knowledge.(3) The deficiency of novice teachers’ professional spirit in professional development.(4) The lack of effectiveness of school’s mathematics teaching and researching activities. 3. Suggestions for improvementAfter the comparative analysis of teacher-student interaction in two kinds of teachers and the discussion of the causes, some suggestions for improvement are proposed for novice teachers as following:(1)They should change teaching idea, correct wrong ways of interaction and set up the correct teacher-student interaction view, aiming to unify the teaching and learning in teacher-student interaction.(2)They should increase their professional spirit, and reinforce knowledge structure of mathematics in primary education.(3)They should improve the level of teacher-student interaction by using the teaching strategies flexibly on the basis of teaching goals, teaching task and existing basis between teachers and students.(4)As for school, it should improve and innovate teaching and researching activities, and analyze the actual demand from novice teachers to complete the process of teaching and researching activities and improve the level of teaching and researching activities. In order to improve the effectiveness of teaching and researching activities, the guild of expert teachers to the novice teachers should be reinforced.