Collaborative Dialogue in a Synchronous CMC Environment? A Look at One Beginning English Teacher's Strategies

Abstract

This article reports research from an ISTE SigTEL (www.iste.org) award-winning university-secondary school partnership, the Web Pen Pals project, which pairs preservice English teachers in online chat rooms with local middle school students to talk about young adult literature. One goal of teacher preparation programs is to encourage beginning teachers to use technology effectively in their future teaching. A particular goal of the Web Pen Pals project is to encourage beginning English teachers to “take risks” as they consider the role of a form of talk—collaborative dialogue—in academic learning, as well as the use of non-traditional discourse formats that may disrupt recitation patterns. The aim of this article is to summarize findings from a single case analysis of the discourse moves used by a preservice English teacher, Amanda, to facilitate collaborative dialogue about literature with adolescents in a synchronous computer-mediated communication (CMC) environment employed in the Web Pen Pals project. Findings suggest collaborative dialogue did occur, and Amanda used discourse moves that seemed to encourage and facilitate such dialogue. However, some opportunities for collaborative dialogue were missed. Implications for preparation of beginning teachers to use CMC are shared.