Abstract
In inquiry-based science lessons teachers face the challenge of adhering to curricular goals while simultaneously following students’ intuitive understandings. Improvisation (improv) provides a useful frame for understanding teaching in these inquiry-based contexts. This paper builds from prior work that uses improv as a metaphor for teaching to present a translated model for analysis of teaching in an inquiry-based, elementary school science lesson context. We call our model instructional improv, which shows how a teacher spontaneously synthesizes rules of improv with teaching practices to support student learning, engagement, and agency. We illustrate instructional improv through case study analysis of video recorded classroom interactions with one teacher and 26 first and second grade students learning about the complex system of honey bee pollination in a mixed reality environment. Our model includes the following defining features to describe how teaching happens in this context: the teacher 1) tells a story; 2) reframes mistakes as opportunities; 3) agrees; 4) yes ands; 5) makes statements (or asks questions that elicit statements); and 6) puts the needs of the classroom ensemble over individuals. Overall, we show how instructional improv helps explain how teachers can support science discourse and collective storytelling as a teacher (a) shifts power and agency to students; (b) balances learning and agency; and (c) makes purposeful instructional decisions. Findings have immediate implications for researchers analyzing interactions in inquiry-based learning environments and potential future implications for teachers to support inquiry learning.
Highlights
Improvisation can be a productive lens through which to analyze teaching during classroom interactions
Our research team has previously demonstrated that Science through Technology Enhanced Play (STEP) supported students in learning target science content (Danish et al, 2015), shown how different play structures in STEP supported collaborative learning (DeLiema et al, 2019), illustrated how STEP foregrounds the role of the body in student agency and sense making about science (Keifert et al, 2017; Keifert et al, 2020), and discussed the challenges associated with bringing mixed reality to formal K-12 educational settings (Keifert et al, 2017)
Instructional improv as a framework for teaching and learning To show how instructional improv in our data below, we present analysis from two episodes as examples of how instructional improv in teaching led to student agency in science learning
Summary
Improvisation (improv) can be a productive lens through which to analyze teaching during classroom interactions. Too much responsiveness without a plan to guide lessons toward a logical goal may lead to learning something but will be less likely to lead to learning the intended curriculum. This challenge that teachers face in simultaneously guiding inquiry and facilitating student autonomy is common in curriculum research related to teacher decision-making (e.g., Penuel et al, 2014). Improvisational approach can support teachers in finding a balance between their plans and student agency, which is key to effective and engaging instruction (Duschl & Wright, 1989), and perhaps especially beneficial when teaching higherorder concepts such as complex systems (Levy et al, 2018). Because improv rules do not map neatly onto classroom instruction, teachers spontaneously using an improvisational approach undergo an underground translation process to make improv relevant to their pedagogy
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