Learning Spaces and Practices for Participation in Primary School Lessons: A Focus on Classroom Interaction

Abstract

Learning in primary schools is typically located in the province of a classroom. Classrooms provide the cultural, linguistic, physical, and relational space for student learning. One way to understand the nature of this space – the learning space – is to reach beyond the boundaries of the four walls of the classroom (as a type of container object) to understand the practices and practice architectures in which students and teachers encounter one another in learning episodes or lessons each and every day as they step into their schools, step into their classrooms, and step into their lessons. This chapter directs us to the nature of these everyday learning spaces and the practices that enter and come to exist in primary school classrooms and the lessons that unfold there; lessons that unfold through language, in actions, and in relationships. In particular, we focus on the nature and influence of dialogue and its place in shaping these spaces and practices for learning as teachers and students encounter and make relevant and co-produce practices. The chapter makes use of actual classroom examples to exemplify the key ideas.