Teaching and learning moments as subjectively problematic: Foundational assumptions and methodological entailments

Abstract

This article takes a conceptual approach to an issue of pedagogical relevance—the presence of teaching and learning moments within educational environments. We suggest sources of philosophical confusions that design patterns for the classification and creation of typologies of classroom events. We identify three foundational assumptions with the way in which classroom events are analyzed: (1) Describing a classroom event (how it may be identified and described as a teaching and learning moment); (2) Devising a procedure for co-classifying events (introducing a typology distinguishing teaching and learning moments); (3) Repurposing decontextualized events to fit a preferred analytic model (distorting the phenomenology of events for the purpose of classifying these as teaching and learning moments). Hitherto these assumptions have obscured the phenomenal integrity of the learning environment; since the topic sought is based on critical incidents according to analysts’ interests, but not on the actual identifying details of the setting as made available by the participants. While teaching and learning moments are generic issues, in methodological terms these matters have to be explored in their details. In our article, we align ourselves with particular research approaches, namely ethnomethodology and conversation analysis, that facilitate close analysis of ‘perspicuous settings’, such as classroom interactions, through which phenomena such as teaching and learning moments are made visible as collaborative accomplishments.