What Were Willie and Xavier Thinking? A Reflection on James Gallagher’s Research on Student–Teacher Interaction

Abstract

James Gallagher is known for framing the broad ideas that drive our field; he defined policy, described ideal educational infrastructure, and identified acceleration, enrichment, novelty, and sophistication as core attributes of content differentiation (J. J. Gallagher, 1985). What most people do not realize is that he spent his early career engaged in research far removed from policy, scrutinizing transcripts of classroom conversations to determine the cognitive levels of teacher questions and student answers. Gallagher’s early research is a natural consequence of his background. As a child, he gained firsthand experience with inquiry-based curriculum at the innovative Falk Laboratory School at the University of Pittsburgh. Biology was his undergraduate major. In graduate school, he turned to clinical child psychology, where he cultivated an appreciation for the power of questions. The clinician turned to research during the curriculum innovation zeitgeist that followed Sputnik—an era also noted for finegrained research into classroom discourse (Davis & Tinsley, 1967; Flanders, 1963; Parsons, 1971; Taba, 1966). Inquiry, biology, psychology, and questioning converge in “Teacher Variation in Concept Presentation in BSCS Curriculum Program” (J. J. Gallagher, 1967), making it a perfect reflection of Jim Gallagher as a young professional. Gallagher and colleagues built a system for coding questions and responses based on Guilford’s (1956) Structure of Intellect. The Topic Classification System (TCS) is of particular interest to educators of gifted students because it includes categories for