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‘Explain to your partner’: teachers'

instructional practices and students'
dialogue in small groups
a a a
Noreen M. Webb , Megan L. Franke , Tondra De , Angela G.
a a a a
Chan , Deanna Freund , Pat Shein & Doris K. Melkonian
a
University of California , Los Angeles, USA
Published online: 13 Nov 2009.

To cite this article: Noreen M. Webb , Megan L. Franke , Tondra De , Angela G. Chan , Deanna
Freund , Pat Shein & Doris K. Melkonian (2009) ‘Explain to your partner’: teachers' instructional
practices and students' dialogue in small groups, Cambridge Journal of Education, 39:1, 49-70, DOI:
10.1080/03057640802701986

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 Cambridge Journal of Education
Vol. 39, No. 1, March 2009, 49–70

‘Explain to your partner’: teachers’ instructional practices and students’

dialogue in small groups
Noreen M. Webb*, Megan L. Franke, Tondra De, Angela G. Chan, Deanna
Freund, Pat Shein and Doris K. Melkonian

University of California, Los Angeles, USA

(Received 12 June 2008; final version received 26 August 2008)

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Collaborative group work has great potential to promote student learning, and
increasing evidence exists about the kinds of interaction among students that are
necessary to achieve this potential. Less often studied is the role of the teacher in
promoting effective group collaboration. This article investigates the extent to
which teachers’ instructional practices were related to small-group dialogue in
four urban elementary mathematics classrooms in the US. Using videotaped and
audiotaped recordings of whole-class and small-group discussions, we examined
the extent to which teachers pressed students to explain their thinking during their
interventions with small groups and during whole-class discussions, and we
explored the relationship between teachers’ practices and the nature and extent of
students’ explaining during collaborative group work. While teachers used a
variety of instructional practices to structure and orchestrate students’ dialogue in
small groups, only probing students’ explanations to uncover details of their
thinking and problem-solving strategies exhibited a strong relationship with
student explaining. Implications for future research, professional development,
and teacher education are discussed.
Keywords: classrooms; grouping; cooperative group learning

Introduction
There is little doubt about the potential of collaborative group work to promote
student learning, and increasing evidence exists about the kinds of interaction among
students that are necessary to achieve group work’s potential (O’Donnell, 2006;
Webb & Palincsar, 1996). Less often studied is the role of the teacher in promoting
effective group collaboration. This article investigates the extent to which teachers’
instructional practices are related to the students’ dialogue when working in small
groups. Specifically, we focus on teachers’ interventions with small groups and how
their engagement with students during whole-class instruction relates to student
explaining during collaborative group work.
Empirical findings from group-work studies demonstrate the critical relationship
between explaining and achievement (see Fuchs et al., 1997; Howe et al., 2007; Howe
& Tolmie, 2003; King, 1992; Nattiv, 1994; Slavin, 1987; Veenman, Denessen, van
den Akker, & van der Rijt, 2005; Webb, 1991). Moreover, complex explanations
(e.g., giving reasons elaborated with further evidence) have been shown to be more
strongly related with learning than less complex explanations (providing simple
reasons: Chinn, O’Donnell, & Jinks, 2000). Explaining to others can promote

*Corresponding author. Email: webb@UCLA.edu

ISSN 0305-764X print/ISSN 1469-3577 online

# 2009 University of Cambridge, Faculty of Education
DOI: 10.1080/03057640802701986
http://www.informaworld.com
 50 N.M. Webb et al.

learning as the explainer has the opportunity to reorganize and clarify material, to
recognize misconceptions, to fill in gaps in her own understanding, to internalize and
acquire new strategies and knowledge, and to develop new perspectives and
understanding (Bargh & Schul, 1980; King, 1992; Peterson, Janicki, & Swing, 1981;
Rogoff, 1991; Saxe, Gearhart, Note, & Paduano, 1993; Valsiner, 1987). When
explaining their problem-solving processes, students think about the salient features
of the problem, which develops their problem-solving strategies as well as their
metacognitive awareness of what they do and do not understand (Cooper, 1999).
Given the relationship between explaining and student outcomes, what can
teachers do to promote student explaining in collaborative groups? Research has
found that providing instruction and practice in explanation-related behaviours has
beneficial effects on group discussion. Effective training programs include
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instructing students in explaining their problem-solving strategies (instead of just

giving the answer, Gillies, 2003, 2004; Swing & Peterson, 1982; Webb & Farivar,
1994), giving conceptual rather than algorithmic explanations (Fuchs et al., 1997),
justifying their own ideas and their challenges of each others’ ideas, and negotiating
alternative ideas (exploratory talk, Mercer, 1996; Mercer, Dawes, Wegerif, & Sams,
2004; Mercer, Wegerif, & Dawes, 1999; Rojas-Drummond & Mercer, 2003; Rojas-
Drummond, Pérez, Vélez, Gómez , & Mendoza, 2003; Wegerif , Linares, Rojas-
Drummond, Mercer, & Vélez, 2005), and engaging in argumentation (providing
reasons and evidence for and against positions, challenging others with counter-
arguments, weighing reasons and evidence, Chinn, Anderson, & Waggoner, 2001;
Reznitskaya, Anderson, & Kuo, 2007). A number of effective programs combine
many of these elements (see Baines, Blatchford, & Chowne, 2007; Baines,
Blatchford, & Kutnick, 2008; Blatchford, Baines, Rubie-Davies, Bassett, &
Chowne, 2006).
Teachers can also require group members to assume particular roles or engage in
specific practices during their group interaction, such as asking each other specific
high-level questions about the material (Fantuzzo, Riggio, Connelly, & Dimeff,
1989; King, 1999), asking questions to monitor each other’s comprehension
(Mevarech & Kramarski, 1997), engaging in specific summarizing and listening
activities (Hythecker, Dansereau, & Rocklin, 1988; O’Donnell, 1999; Yager,
Johnson, & Johnson, 1985), responding to specific prompts to explain why they
believe their answers are correct or incorrect (Coleman, 1998; Palincsar, Anderson,
& David, 1993), and generating questions and making predictions about text
(Palincsar & Brown, 1989). Yet, training teachers to ‘teach’ their students how to
engage in group work, while it can be done in ways that help students participate,
does not address the role of the teacher in intervening in this group work and
supporting students as they engage together with the content.
Many cooperative learning researchers and theorists advise teachers to monitor
small group progress and to intervene when groups fail to progress or seem to be
functioning ineffectively, when no group member can answer the question, when
students exhibit problems communicating with each other, and when students
dominate group work without allowing true dialogue (see Cohen, 1994; Ding, Li,
Piccolo, & Kulm, 2007; Johnson & Johnson, 2008). Research by Tolmie et al. (2005)
also suggests that teacher guidance may help counteract students’ tendencies to disagree
in unproductive ways and enable children to explore ideas more effectively. How
teachers should intervene with groups to facilitate productive small-group discussion is
 Cambridge Journal of Education 51

less clear. Cohen (1994) cautioned teachers to intervene minimally with small groups,
arguing that students will be more likely to initiate ideas and take responsibility for their
discussions if teachers provide little explicit content help. She recommended that
teachers carefully listen to group discussions to make hypotheses about the groups’
difficulties before deciding on questions to ask or suggestions to make.
The results of some studies examining the relationship between teachers’
interventions with small groups and the quality of group discussion support Cohen’s
(1994) caution against direct teacher supervision. Chiu (2004) found that higher
levels of teacher help (e.g., explaining a concept, or giving a solution tactic) reduced
groups’ subsequent time-on-task and depth of their discussions (whether students
provided new ideas and explanations) compared to lower levels of teacher help (e.g.,
drawing attention to an aspect of the problem through asking questions instead of
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providing a solution strategy or telling groups how to proceed). Gillies (2004) and
Dekker and Elshout-Mohr (2004) also confirmed the detrimental effect of giving
groups direct help about the task content. In Gillies’ study, students in classrooms
with teachers who engaged in communication behaviours such as asking open and
tentative questions to probe, clarify, and focus student thinking provided more
detailed explanations than did students in classrooms in which teachers provided
direct instruction and explicit content help. In Dekker and Elshout-Mohr’s study,
students in classrooms in which teachers were instructed to provide only process help
to groups (e.g., encouraging students to explain and justify their work) engaged in
more extensive discussions and exhibited more equal participation among group
members than students in classrooms in which teachers were instructed to provide
only content help (e.g., hints about the mathematical content and strategies).
Somewhat in contrast to the findings just described, Meloth and Deering (1999)
reported that high-content help (e.g., providing direct instruction about content) was
not necessarily detrimental to productive group discussions.
An important qualification of these results may serve as a unifying thread
throughout these studies, helping to resolve the apparently inconsistent results.
Meloth and Deering found that high-content help facilitated productive group
discussion when the teacher listened to the group’s ideas (for example, finding out
whether groups were focusing on irrelevant information) before providing specific
instruction. Chiu (2004) also suggested that what was effective about the indirect
help that teachers provided in his study was that teachers asked questions of students
to elicit their suggestions about how to proceed. Similarly, Gillies’ (2004) examples of
teachers who had received communications skills training showed teachers
ascertaining students’ ideas and strategies before offering suggestions or focusing
the group’s attention on aspects of the task.
An intriguing possibility, then, is that what matters in terms of teacher
interventions with small groups is not whether teachers provide help that focuses on
the subject matter content of group work versus guidance about what collaborative
processes groups should carry out, or whether teachers should provide more-explicit
versus less-explicit content help. Rather, what may be important is whether teachers
try to ascertain student thinking and base their interaction with the group on what
they learn about students’ thinking on the task. The importance of teachers doing
this finds much support in wider literatures on effective teaching practices (see
Fennema et al., 1996; Franke, Carpenter, Levi, & Fennema, 2000; Franke, Kazemi,
& Battey, 2007; Lampert, 1990; Mercer, 2000).
 52 N.M. Webb et al.

Kazemi and Stipek (2001) contrasted elementary school mathematics

classrooms in which teachers pressed students to explain and justify their
problem-solving strategies mathematically (they termed these practices high-
press) with classrooms in which teachers asked students to describe steps they
used to solve problems but did not ask students to link their strategies to
mathematical reasons or to explain why they chose particular procedures (low-
press). When working collaboratively, students in high-press classrooms used
mathematical arguments to explain why and how their solutions worked and to
arrive at mutual understanding, whereas students in low-press classrooms
summarized, but did not explain, their steps for solving a problem and did
not debate the mathematics involved in the problem. Webb et al. (in press) also
found similar results in that the extent to which teachers asked students to
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elaborate on their explanations about how to solve mathematical problem

showed a strong relationship with the nature and extent of students explaining
to each other during collaborative conversations. Webb, Nemer, and Ing (2006)
found that low-press teacher practices were a possible reason for the infrequent
student explaining that occurred during cooperative group work. Teachers in
that study did not ask students about their thinking but instead assumed most
of the responsibility for setting up the steps in the problem (typically with little
or no rationale given for the mathematics underlying the steps) and asked
students simply to provide the results of specific calculations that the teachers
themselves had posed.
Extending previous research, this study examines how teachers’ practices both
with small groups and with students in the larger classroom context may relate to
student explaining in collaborative groups. Specifically, we examine how the extent
to which teachers press students to explain their thinking during specific
interventions with small groups, as well as during whole-class discussions, relates
to the accuracy and completeness of students’ explanations during collaborative
group work. It should be noted that the analyses reported here address associations
between teacher and student variables, not causal relationships; this issue is discussed
at greater length in a later section of this paper.
The specific research questions addressed in this paper, then:
(1) What are the relationships between specific teacher interventions with small
groups and the extent of student explaining in those groups?
(2) What are the correspondences between teacher-to-teacher differences in
their practices and classroom-to-classroom differences in student explaining
during collaborative group work?

Method
Sample
Four elementary-school classrooms (Grades 2 and 3) in three schools in a large
urban school district in Southern California are the focus of this study.1 These
schools are large (more than 1100 students), serve predominantly Latino (with some
African-American) students, have a high percentage of students receiving free or
reduced lunch, have a substantial proportion of English language learners, and have
low standardized achievement test scores.
 Cambridge Journal of Education 53

Teacher professional development

The four teachers were part of a large-scale study focused on supporting teachers’
efforts to engage their students in algebraic thinking (see Carpenter, Franke, & Levi,
2003; Jacobs, Franke, Carpenter, Levi, & Battey, 2007) and had participated in at
least one year of on-site professional development that explored the development of
students’ algebraic reasoning and, in particular, how that reasoning could support
students’ understanding of arithmetic. The professional development content, drawn
from Thinking mathematically: Integrating arithmetic and algebra in the elementary
school (Carpenter et al., 2003), highlighted relational thinking, including:
(a) understanding the equal sign as an indicator of a relation; (b) using number
relations to simplify calculations; and, (c) generating, representing, and justifying
conjectures about the fundamental properties of numerical operations. Teachers
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received guidance in how to engage their students in conversations in order to help

them explain their thinking and debate their reasoning and how to encourage
students to solve problems in their own ways. A primary focus was on teachers
eliciting student explanations and supporting students to describe the details of their
thinking (Franke, Kazemi, & Battey, 2007).
Approximately 12 months after the conclusion of the professional development,
we selected seven teachers for intensive observation who had shown a range of
student achievement in the prior year. The four teachers analyzed here used small-
group collaborative work as described below.

Observation procedures
In most cases, students worked in pairs, with the exception of a few larger groups
ranging in size from three to five. Teachers assigned students seated adjacently into
pairs (or groups). Because students’ seating proximity was not based on student
characteristics (e.g., achievement level, gender), group composition can be
considered random. Analysis of group composition showed a variety of groupings
in each class (e.g., some same-gender pairs, some mixed-gender pairs), with no
particular pattern predominating. The groups remained intact for the two occasions
of observations analyzed here; otherwise, group membership was fluid and teachers
changed group composition frequently.
Each class was videotaped and audiotaped on two occasions within a one-week
period. We recorded all teacher-student interaction during whole-class instruction,
and recorded a sample of groups, selected at random, from each classroom. The
number of students recorded in each class ranged from 11 to 15 out of the 20
students enrolled in each class. Comparison of the recorded students with the non-
recorded students revealed no significant differences in gender, ethnicity, or
performance on the achievement tests administered in this study.
Observers recorded classroom activity as teachers taught problems of their choice
related to the topics of equality and relational thinking. Teachers posed such problems
as (a) 50+50525+%+50, and (b) 11+255+8 (true or false?). Consistent with their
accustomed practice, teachers incorporated group-work time into the class during
which students worked together to solve and discuss problems assigned by the teacher.
Teachers introduced a problem, asked groups to work together to solve the problem
and share their thinking, and then brought the whole class together for selected students
to share their answers and strategies with the whole class, usually at the board.
 54 N.M. Webb et al.

We made comprehensive transcripts of each class session consisting of verbatim

records of teacher and student talk, annotated to include the details of their non-
verbal participation. These transcripts included whole-class discussion as well as
group-work discussion for recorded students. We also collected student written
work, took field notes during class sessions, and administered student-achievement
measures.

Measures of student achievement

We used two measures of student achievement in this study. The written assessment
was designed to measure relational thinking. Some items were designed to assess
students’ understanding of the equal sign, and whether students held a relational
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view of the equal sign (Jacobs et al., 2007). For example, to answer the problem
3+45%+5, students needed to know that the numbers to the left of the equal sign
summed to the same result as the numbers to the right of the equal sign, rather than
treating the equal sign as an operation such as ‘the answer comes next’. Other items
were designed to assess students’ abilities to identify and use number relations to
simplify calculations. For example, in 889+11821185%, students could simplify this
problem by recognizing that 118211850.
We also individually interviewed the students from each class who were audio or
videotaped on the observation days. We asked students what number they would put
in the box to make certain number sentences true, for example, 13+185%+19, and
asked them to describe their problem-solving strategies. For this paper, we analyzed
the accuracy of their answers. Internal consistency alpha coefficients for the written
assessment and interview were .88 and .74, respectively.

Coding of student and teacher participation

Using transcripts of all classroom talk we coded teacher and student participation
during whole-class and group-work discussions. To analyze whole-class discussions,
we separated the interaction into ‘segments’, each of which consisted of one bounded
interaction between the teacher and a particular student. A segment consisted of a
minimum of two conversational turns each for the teacher and the student. When
analyzing group interaction, we coded each group conversation on a problem as a
single unit. The group conversation started when the group began discussing the
assigned problem and ended when the teacher called the class together again.
We coded teacher practices across the entire lesson (all whole-class segments and
all group conversations). The four teacher practices coded were: (a) probes students’
explanations to uncover details or further thinking about their problem-solving
strategies (asks specific questions about details in a student’s explanation); (b)
engages with students around their work on the problem (either an answer or an
initial explanation) but does not probe the details of student thinking about their
problem-solving strategies (typically, repeats or revoices the student’s work without
asking further questions); (c) interacts with the group only around norms for
behaviour (typically, directing students to talk to, or share with, each other); and (d)
makes other brief comment or suggestion (e.g., acknowledges work on a problem,
repeats the problem assigned, makes a brief suggestion, or makes a comment
concerning classroom management).
 Cambridge Journal of Education 55

We coded student participation along two dimensions. First was the highest level
of student participation on a problem: (a) gives correct and complete explanation;
(b) gives ambiguous, incomplete, or incorrect explanation; (c) gives answer only; and
(d) gives neither an answer nor an explanation (see Table 1). An explanation was
considered complete if the coder could unambiguously discern how the student
solved the problem. This included evidence from both verbal and non-verbal
communication (such as gesturing to different parts of the number sentence). A
correct and complete explanation was any explanation that described in detail a
strategy that would consistently work for the problem, and involved an
unambiguous and appropriate solution to the problem. Any explanation not
considered complete was coded as incomplete, which included both incomplete and
ambiguous explanations. An incorrect explanation was an explanation that was
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mathematically inconsistent with the problem posed.

The second student participation dimension reflected the extent of the group
explaining during or after a teacher’s intervention compared to the group explaining
prior to the teacher’s intervention, and was coded only for groups that had not given
a correct/complete explanation prior to the teacher’s intervention. The three codes
were: (a) the group gives more explanation than before the teacher’s intervention,
and the explanation is correct and complete; (b) the group gives more explanation
than before the teacher’s intervention, but it is not correct and complete; and (c) the
group gives no further explanation.
Seven members of the research team coded student and teacher participation. We
developed and set standards for the application of the coding through an iterative
process that occurred over many regular weekly meetings. Each research-team

Table 1. Examples of student explanations.

Explanation category Example

Correct and complete Problem: 10+1021055+

Five? It’s ‘cause look. We could do this, oh no. Hold up. ‘Cause
ten plus ten equals twenty, huh? And then it says minus ten
equals five plus blank. So it gotta be equal ten, so five plus
five equals ten. And that’s how I got it. Get it?

Ambiguous or incomplete Problem: 8+257+3 (True or false?)

[True] because there’s a two and a three and a seven and an
eight. They’re like an order. [While the answer is correct, this
explanation does not make it clear (a) whether the student is
considering the difference in quantity between 2 and 3 and
between 7 and 8, (b) what the student means by ‘order’, and
(c) how the student is using ‘order’ to justify that the number
sentence is true.]

Incorrect Problem: 4+9556322 (True or false?)

I thought it was false because four plus nine is thirteen, and five
times three is fifteen. Those two do not match.

Answer but no explanation Problem: 3755 + (3* 10)

Let me see. 345?
 56 N.M. Webb et al.

member was involved in the development of the codes and had primary
responsibility for coding particular problems and particular groups of students
from each classroom. We resolved questions about coding through discussion, and
these questions often led to further refinement of the teacher and student codes.
After we refined the codes, research-team members systematically reviewed their
own and others’ coding to ensure that the codes reflected the final coding scheme and
to uncover inconsistencies in coding. All inconsistencies were brought to the entire
team and were resolved through discussion and consensus.

Results
In the following sections, we provide results about teachers’ instructions for student
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behaviour during group work (to produce a picture of these classrooms’ climates for
student participation), the relationship between student participation and achieve-
ment, teacher interventions with small groups and the links between those
interventions and student participation during group work, teacher practices in
the whole class, and classroom differences in students’ explanations and student
achievement.

Teachers’ instructions about student collaboration

All of the teachers in this study gave frequent reminders to students about how to
collaborate during group work. First, in the majority (70%) of the 40 problems
assigned for group work across the four classrooms observed here, teachers gave
preliminary reminders to the whole class about student participation in their groups.
The most common reminders were for students to ‘share with their neighbour’ and
‘talk with your table partners’. Some teacher instructions were more specific, such as
the need to ‘share why you think so or why you don’t think so’, ‘What kind of thinking
went on? How did you solve it?’ and ‘Instead of just saying true or false, tell [your
partners] why you think it’s true or why you think it’s false’. Second, during about half
(54%) of the teacher interventions with small groups, the teacher gave specific
reminders for students to work together, to talk about the problem with each other, to
discuss with their group how they were solving the problem, and to explain to each
other. These results show that teachers frequently communicated expectations for
students to share their work and, often, for students to explain their thinking behind
their answers or to describe the procedures they used to solve the problem.
Consistent with the expectations communicated about student behaviour during
group work, groups showed a high incidence of explaining. Of the 208 group work
conversations observed across the four classrooms, groups gave explanations in 129
(62%) of them. Thus, these classrooms had climates that seemed to be conducive to
explaining during collaborative group work.

Relationship between student participation during group work and student achievement
We next examined the relationship between student participation during group work
and their achievement to confirm that the previously established relationship
between explaining and achievement held up in these classrooms. Consistent with
previous research, Table 2 shows that explaining was significantly correlated with
achievement.2 In particular, giving correct and complete explanations was positively
 Cambridge Journal of Education 57

Table 2. Correlations between student participation during group work and achievement
scores.

Highest level of student participation on a Written assessment Individual interview

problema scoreb scoreb

Gives explanation .46*** .27

Correct and complete .61*** .46***
Ambiguous, incomplete or incorrect 2.18 2.30*

Gives no explanation 2.46*** 2.27*

Answer only .08 .20
No answer or explanation 2.41** 2.35*
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Notes: (a) Percent of group conversations in which a student displayed this behaviour. (b)
Percent of problems correct. *p,.05 **p,.01 ***p,.001.

related to achievement scores. That is, the greater the percentage of group
conversations during which students gave a correct and complete explanation, the
higher were their achievement scores. Other kinds of student participation (giving
ambiguous, incomplete, or incorrect explanations; giving only answers; giving
neither answers nor explanations) were not related or were negatively related to
achievement. The remaining sections, then, pay particular attention to the
relationship between teacher practices and students giving correct and complete
explanations.

Nature of teacher interventions with small groups

Across the 208 group-work conversations, teachers intervened in 81 of them (39%).3
Of the 81 conversations with a teacher intervention, in 27% of them, groups had
already produced a correct/complete explanation at the time the teacher intervened;
in 16%, groups had engaged in some explaining but it was not correct or complete;
and in 57%, groups had not produced any explanation. Of the 127 episodes of
collaborative work without any teacher intervention, in 38%, groups produced a
correct/complete explanation; in 19%, groups produced some explanation but it was
not correct or complete; and in 43%, groups did not produce any explanation. The
difference in explanation patterns for group episodes with a teacher intervention and
those without a teacher intervention was not statistically significant (x2(2;
N5208)53.74, p5.15), which suggests that teachers did not target groups for
intervention based on students’ explaining behaviour.
When they engaged with groups, teachers used a variety of practices, as shown in
Table 3. In about half of the interventions (53%), teachers interacted with groups
around explanations or other work (e.g., answers) on the mathematics problems. In
many of these interventions, teachers probed students’ explanations to uncover
additional details about their problem-solving strategies or further thinking
underlying their strategies. In about half of the teacher interventions (47%), teachers
interacted with groups only around norms for behaviour or management issues. The
distributions of teacher practices were similar for groups that had already provided
a correct/complete explanation when the teacher intervened (22 interventions)
and groups that had not given a correct/complete explanation (59 interventions;
 58 N.M. Webb et al.

Table 3. Teacher practices with small groups.

Teacher practice All teacher Groups gave correct/complete explanation

interventions prior to the teacher’s intervention
(81 group
Yes (22 group No (59 group
conversations)
conversations) conversations)

Teacher probed students’ 26a 23 27

explanations to uncover
details or further thinking
about their problem-solving
strategies
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Teacher engaged with students 27 32 25

around their work on the
problem but did not probe
the details of student thinking
about their problem-solving
strategies

Teacher interacted with the 33 41 31

group only around norms for
behaviour

Teacher made other brief 14 5 17

comment or suggestion

Note: (a) Percent of group conversations in which the teacher exhibited this practice.

x2(3; N581)52.70, p5.44). Importantly, teachers were just as likely to probe

students’ explanations in groups that had already given correct/complete explana-
tions as in groups that had not.

Teacher interventions and subsequent student explanations

Table 4 shows, for each teacher practice with small groups, the explanations that
were given after the teacher’s arrival, specifically whether groups gave more
explanation while interacting with the teacher or afterwards than they had before the
teacher intervened, and whether their group conversation led to a complete/correct
explanation. These results focus on the 59 instances of teacher interventions with
groups that had not already given a correct/complete explanation by the start of the
teacher intervention.4
As shown in Table 4, when teachers probed students’ explanations, groups nearly
always gave additional explanation and many of them produced a correct/complete
explanation of how to solve the problem by the end of the group’s discussion of that
problem. The other teacher practices, in contrast, were less likely to be associated
with additional explaining or to produce correct/complete explanations. The
differences in effectiveness of teacher practices for group behaviour were statistically
significant (Fisher’s exact test, p5.001).5
Although probing students’ explanations was more likely than other teacher
practices to be associated with groups producing correct/complete explanations, not
 Cambridge Journal of Education 59

Table 4. Teacher interventions with student explaining during group worka.

Group explaining during or after teacher’s intervention

Group gave more explanation than Group did not give
before the teacher’s intervention more explanation
than before the
teacher’s intervention
Teacher practiceb Additional Additional
explanation was explanation was not
correct/complete correct/complete

Teacher probed students’ 63c 31 6

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explanations to uncover
details or further thinking
about their problem-solving
strategies

Teacher engaged with students 20 20 60

around their work on the
problem but did not probe
the details of student
thinking about their
problem-solving strategies

Teacher interacted with the 33 11 56

group only around norms
for behaviour

Teacher made other brief 0 20 80

comment or suggestion

Notes: (a) Includes only teacher interventions in which groups did not give a correct/complete
explanation by the time the teacher intervened (59 interventions). (b) Number of group
conversations in each teacher practice category are 16, 15, 18, 10, respectively. (c) Percent of
interventions in which teacher used this practice and in which group exhibited this category of
explaining.

all instances of teacher probing showed the same results. The following examples
contrast more-effective and less-effective instances of teacher probing. In the first
example, the teacher responds to a student’s ambiguous explanation by asking a
sequence of questions specific to what the student said. The questions direct the
student to say more about particular aspects of her strategy. The teacher asks
questions about the student’s strategy until the student has described an explicit
connection between the two sides of the number sentence: 7+1 and the 1022. During
this interchange, the student engages in additional explaining (lines 3, 5, 11, 13) beyond
the initial explanation (line 1) and arrives at a correct/complete explanation (line 13).
Problem: 7+15102%

1. Student 1: Eight take away two is ten. Ten take away eight… so you have to
regroup. Ten take away eight is two. So you take the one to the
zero and it would be zero but it would be a two. And this one is
because seven plus one is eight. Ten take away two is eight.
 60 N.M. Webb et al.

2. Teacher: What were you doing here?

3. Student 1: Regrouping. Eight take away two…
4. Teacher: No, this is eight plus two.
5. Student 1: Eight plus two is ten. You have to regroup. Ten take away eight
is two. And cross this out so it would be zero so the answer
would be two.
6. Teacher: What made you write eight plus two?
7. Student 1: Huh?
8. Teacher: Where did you get the two from?
9. Student 1: It’s cause…
10. Teacher: Were you doing this one here?
11. Student 1: I did this one first and then I did this one.
12. Teacher: Where did you get the eight and the two from?
13. Student 1: Eight is cause seven plus one is eight and ten take away two it
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would be eight.
14. Teacher: OK.
In the second example, the teacher responds to a student’s ambiguous
explanation (line 1) with a follow-up question (line 2) that seeks clarification of
what the student said. The teacher makes a claim in the follow-up question that
extends what the student said and then asks the student if that is what he was
thinking. The student responds by adding clarification to the teachers’ claim (line 3).
In doing so, the student exhibits further thinking, but this interchange does not yield
a correct/complete explanation, nor does this student or group ever produce a
correct/complete explanation for this problem.
Problem: a5b+b. True or false?

1. Student 2: I think not true because an A needs to have a partner and a B too.
2. Teacher: So you think that it has to be two As and two Bs?
3. Student 2: And the B should be on the A side and the A should be on the B
side.
These examples highlight how probing student thinking can play out differently
for students. In both instances students had not yet verbalized a correct/complete
explanation before interacting with the teacher and the interactions elicited more
student explaining. However, in the first example, the teacher used details of the
student’s strategy given in the student’s initial explanation to drive her probing
questions. Her specific questions allowed the student to clarify the specifics of the
initial explanation and provide a correct/complete explanation. While the second
example also showed teacher probing, the teacher interjected her own interpretation
of student thinking into her probing questions, and seemed satisfied with students
engaging in additional explaining, even if the explanations were not correct or
complete.
When teachers engaged with students around their work on the problem but did
not probe the details of student thinking about their problem-solving strategies
(Table 4), groups often gave no additional explanation. Teacher behaviour often
consisted of repeating or revoicing something the students had said, although
teachers sometimes evaluated students’ answers or strategies or, when groups were
having difficulty, led them through the steps in the solution. Sometimes, teachers’
revoicing of students’ explanations left the mistaken impression that the group’s
work was correct. In the following example, the teacher asked groups to fill in the
box to make the number sentence true, but the group misinterpreted the problem.
 Cambridge Journal of Education 61

The teacher repeated the students’ answer (line 4) and implied that their answer was
correct. The group did not talk about the problem after line 5.
Problem: 1000+A51000+50. A5%

1. Student 3: I think it’s A because the other A don’t have no partner.

2. Student 4: I think it’s A because A equals A is A because it didn’t have a
partner at first.
3. Student 3: I think A isn’t, the A don’t have no partner. So we should choose
the other…
4. Teacher: You think A equals A? OK.
5. Student 4: You had it.
In some group conversations, the teacher intervened only to remind students to
talk to each other, to share, or to explain (interaction around norms for behaviour).
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Some of these groups went on to give a correct/complete explanation. In the

following example, the students had given the correct answer (lines 1, 2) but did not
give an explanation until the teacher reminded students to talk to each other (line 3).
The students responded that they had been talking about it (lines 4–8), but they did
provide explanations (lines 10, 11).
Problem: 8+257+3. True or false?

1. Student 5: It’s true. Oh, I didn’t see the three before.

2. Student 6: Eight, nine, ten. True.
3. Teacher: Talk to your neighbour about it.
4. Student 6: I told her.
5. Student 5: We did it.
6. Student 6: I said it was true.
7. Student 5: I know.
8. Student 6: It’s true.
9. Student 5: Because…
10. Student 6: Because that equals ten and that equals ten.
11. Student 5: Yeah. Eight plus two equals ten. Seven plus three equals three…
I mean, ten.
Most groups receiving a norm-related statement from the teacher, however, did
not provide additional explanation. In the following example, as in the example
above, the group had provided an answer but no explanation (line 2) before the
teacher intervened to remind students about the norms for behaviour (line 4).
Despite their acknowledging the teacher’s statement (line 5), they did not do more
than repeat the answer (line 8). Neither student gave any explanation.
Problem: 10+10510+10. True or false?

1. Student 7: I think it’s… what do you think?

2. Student 8: What do you think? You’re the person who writes.
3. Student 7: I think it’s false. I mean true.
4. Teacher: You guys need to do a better job today with communicating.
5. Student 8: Yes.
6. Teacher: Thank you.
7. Student 7: You think it’s true or false?
8. Student 8: True.
Comparison of the groups that gave more explanation after the teacher’s
reminder about norms for behaviour and groups that gave no further explanation
did not provide any clues about the reasons for differences in groups’ behaviour. The
 62 N.M. Webb et al.

two sets of group episodes were similar in terms of the nature of student
participation prior to the teacher’s intervention (e.g., the accuracy of their answers,
the nature of any explanations they gave), their group work behaviour on previous
problems, and the wording of teachers’ reminders about the norms for behaviour. To
account for the effectiveness of these teacher reminders about group work
behaviour, it may be necessary to consider other factors such as general norms for
behaviour in a particular classroom, the nature of the problem, and the particular
students who were working together (and their previous history of collaboration).
Finally, as shown in Table 4, when teachers made brief comments or suggestions,
groups seldom gave more explanation after the teacher’s intervention. Teachers’
brief comments or suggestions included acknowledging or evaluating student work
(‘very creative’, ‘it looks good’), repeating the problem assigned (‘Can you find your
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own numbers to fill in instead of letters?’), suggesting a strategy (‘Can we use the box
strategy?’), or commenting on behaviour (‘quiet down’, ‘let him borrow your
pencil’). Typically, groups did little work after these teacher interjections.

Differences between classrooms in teacher practices

We next turned to investigating teacher practices at the classroom level to examine
how teacher practices in general – both during whole-class instruction and when
intervening with small groups – may have played a role in students’ explaining in
small groups. Table 5 shows the percentage of whole-class problems and teacher
interventions with small groups in which teachers probed student thinking and the
percentage in which they did not (teacher interaction around norms and classroom

Table 5. Teacher practices in whole-class and small-group comments.

Teacher practice Teachera

1 2 3 4

Teacher probed students’ explanations to uncover details or

further thinking about their problem-solving strategies
Whole-class instruction 23b 25 92 71
Small-group interventions 36c 25 77 50

Teacher engaged with students around their work on the

problem but did not probe the details of student thinking
about their problem-solving strategies
Whole-class instruction 77 75 8 29
Small-group instruction 64 75 23 50

Note: (a) Number of problems with teacher–student engagement in whole-class instruction for
each teacher are 30, 8, 12, 7, respectively. Number of small-group interviews for each teacher
are 14, 8, 13, 8, respectively. (b) Percent of teacher engagements with students in whole-class
instruction in which the teacher exhibited this practice. (c) Percent of teacher interventions
with small groups in which the teacher exhibited this practice (includes only teacher
interventions around the math content; excludes teacher interventions around only norms for
behaviour or classroom management because those teacher practices did not occur during
whole-class instruction.
 Cambridge Journal of Education 63

management issues are excluded from this table because they did not occur
during engagements with students in the whole-class context). Not only did
teachers differ from one another in terms of their practices (differences between
teachers in the whole class in the proportion of segments in which they probed
students’ explanations to uncover details or further thinking about their problem-
solving strategies, Fisher’s exact test, p,.001; differences between teachers in
small groups in the proportion of conversations in which they probed students’
explanations to uncover details or further thinking about their problem-solving
strategies, Fisher’s exact test, p5.001), but their practices in the whole-class
setting were strikingly similar to their practices when engaging with small groups.
Teacher 3 showed a strong tendency to probe students’ explanations, whether in
the whole class or in small groups. Teacher 4 probed student thinking a
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substantial proportion of the time. Teachers 1 and 2, in contrast, most often

engaged with students around their mathematics work without probing student
thinking beyond about the details of their strategies, both in the whole class and
with small groups.

Classroom differences in student explanations and student achievement

Teacher differences in their practices when engaging with students were reflected
in corresponding classroom differences in student explanations during group work
and in student achievement. Table 6 gives the distribution of student explanations
and achievement across classrooms. Significant differences appeared between
classrooms on all variables (level of student explaining during group work,
p,.001; written assessment, F(3, 74)55.28, p,.01; individual interview, F(3, 74)5
2.82, p,.05). In Classrooms 3 and 4, the majority of small groups produced
correct/complete explanations; in Classrooms 1 and 2, only a minority of small
groups did so, with the percentage in Classroom 1 being quite low. Differences
between classrooms in student achievement showed the same pattern, with
achievement in Classrooms 3 and 4 being highest and achievement in Classrooms
1 and 2 being lowest.

Table 6. Student explaining during group work and achievement across classrooms.

Classroom
1 2 3 4

Student explaining in small groups

Group gave correct/complete explanation 16a 33 72 56

Group did not give correct/complete explanation 84 67 28 44

Student achievement

Written assessment score 17b 30 47 45

Individual interview score 13b 24 37 44

Note: (a) Percent of group conservations in which group exhibited this behaviour; (b) Percent
of problems correct.
 64 N.M. Webb et al.

Discussion
This study examined the relationship between teacher practices and student
explaining when they worked in collaborative small groups. We examined teacher
practices in two ways: (1) the relationship between specific teacher interventions with
small groups and the extent of student explaining in those groups; and (2)
correspondences between teacher-to-teacher differences in their practices and
classroom-to-classroom differences in student explaining during collaborative group
work. We discuss the results for each of these in turn.
When intervening with small groups, the teacher practice that had the strongest
relationship with student explaining was probing students’ explanations to uncover
details or further thinking about their problem-solving strategies. More than any
other teacher practice, probing students’ explanations when intervening with small
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groups corresponded to students giving more details about their problem-solving

strategies, especially their producing correct/complete explanations of how to solve
the problem. Other ways of engaging with groups – engaging around their
mathematics work (e.g., acknowledging an answer or explanation) without probing
the details of student thinking, referring to norms for behaviour, making other brief
comments or suggestions – were rarely linked to groups providing additional
explanations or giving correct/complete explanations.
Not all instances of probing students’ explanations seemed to function in the
same way, however. Probing of students’ explanations was most likely to be
associated with additional student explaining (especially correct/complete explana-
tions) when teachers used details of students’ strategies given in initial explanations
to drive the probing questions, when teachers persisted in asking questions to push
students to clarify ambiguous aspects of their explanations, and when teachers did
not interject their own thinking (or their own assumptions about what students were
thinking) into their probing questions.
The kind of teacher probing of students’ thinking just described strongly
resembles the practices of teachers in the high-press classrooms that Kazemi and
Stipek (2001) found to correspond with a high level of student explaining. It also
resembles the teacher practices that Hogan, Nastasi, and Pressley (2000) found to
encourage a high level of scientific reasoning during group discussions: teachers
asked students to describe their initial thinking, asked students to elaborate on
specific points they made in their initial explanation, and asked students to clarify
language they used and to expand and extend their explanations.
The finding in this study that issuing reminders or giving directives concerning
norms for behaviour was not often followed by additional explaining by groups is
fairly consistent with Meloth and Deering’s (1999) finding that non-specific teacher
monitoring statements did not change the nature of group discussions, although it is
inconsistent with Dekker and Elshout- Mohr’s (2004) observations that reminders
about behaviour seemed to stimulate groups to share ideas. Further research is
needed to determine whether such norm-related reminders function differently
depending on the general classroom norms for behaviour, the particular composition
of the group (as well as the group’s history), the specific task or problem that a group
is working on (and challenges that the group may be facing in completing the task),
and the nature of the group’s communication prior to the teacher’s reminder.
In this study, teacher-to-teacher differences in their practices also corresponded
to classroom-to-classroom differences in student explaining. The key variable
 Cambridge Journal of Education 65

distinguishing teachers was the extent to which they probed student thinking – both
when interacting with students during whole-class instruction, and when intervening
with small groups. Not only did some teachers probe student thinking much more
frequently than did other teachers, the tendency of teachers to probe (or not probe)
student thinking was remarkably consistent between their interactions with students
during whole-class interactions and when intervening with small groups. In the
classrooms in which teachers often probed student thinking, groups showed the
highest incidence of giving correct/complete explanations. In the classrooms in which
teachers did not often probe student thinking, groups showed lower incidences of
giving correct/complete explanations.
This paper, then, uncovered positive associations between teacher probing of
student thinking (during whole-class instruction and when interacting with small
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groups) and the nature and extent of explaining in small groups, especially whe-
ther groups gave correct/complete explanations. How might we interpret these
relationships?
One interpretation is that teacher probing is an effective intervention strategy for
promoting explaining in small groups, especially for giving correct/complete
explanations. Teachers’ questions may help students clarify ambiguous explanations,
make explicit steps in their problem-solving procedures, justify their problem-solving
strategies, and correct their misconceptions or incorrect strategies. Another
interpretation is that frequent teacher probing of student thinking communicates
the expectation that students should engage in extended explaining, especially
continuing until they are able to give correct/complete explanations. This
expectation then becomes a feature of the classroom climate that influences student
participation. Wood, Cobb, and Yackel (1991) observed this process in action. By
asking students to explain their methods for solving problems and refraining from
evaluating students’ answers, teachers helped create expectations and obligations for
students to publicly display their thinking underlying how they solved mathematical
problems.
We must be cautious, however, about interpreting the direction of effects
between teacher practice and student participation. While one interpretation of the
positive association between teacher probing and group explaining is that teacher
probing helped groups to explain further and give correct/complete explanations, it
is also possible that (a) these groups would have given correct/complete explanations
even in the absence of the teacher’s probing questions (the teacher’s practice was
unrelated to group behaviour); (b) teachers chose certain groups for apply probing
behaviour with the expectation (perhaps based on previous experience or
observations) that they would be able or likely to provide more complete or correct
explanations (previous group behaviour influenced the teacher’s practice); (c) high-
level student explaining (possibly due to higher student mathematical ability) elicited
teacher probing (when students revealed details about their strategies and thinking,
teachers had more information on which to base probing questions); or (d) teacher
practices and student participation influenced each other in reciprocal fashion
(teacher probing promoted student explaining, and student explaining enabled
teacher probing).
Similar caveats apply to the relationship observed here between teacher-to-
teacher differences in teacher practices and classroom-to-classroom differences in
group behaviour. For example, students in some classrooms may be more capable of
 66 N.M. Webb et al.

giving explanations than students in other classrooms, independent of their teachers’

practices (perhaps as a result of classroom experiences in previous years; or as a
result of greater mathematical understanding to start with). To test these alternative
interpretations, it would be important to observe small-group processes at the
beginning of the school year before teacher practices have a chance to influence
student behaviour and before norms are developed, and, optimally, examine changes
in both teacher practices and student behaviour over time.
A further qualification of the findings concerns the task and subject matter. The
mathematical group-work tasks used here (often open-ended questions about
mathematics conjectures) were conducive to student explaining and teacher probing
of student thinking. Whether the details of teacher practices and student
participation found to be important in this study will emerge with other kinds of
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group-work tasks and in other content domains remains to be investigated.

The results of this study show the importance of paying attention to the details of
teacher practices and student participation during group work. In this study, more
significant than asking students to give explanations was teachers’ probing of the
particulars in student thinking; and more significant than whether students gave
explanations was the accuracy and completeness of students’ explanations.
Our approach and findings have important methodological implications for future
research on teachers’ instructional practices and students’ learning in small groups.
Close attention to what students say and do in relation to what a teacher says helps us
understand the details of practice that matter for student learning. It is imperative not
only to analyze the dialogue among students, but also to examine student participation
in relation to teacher participation and the context of the classroom. This type of
analysis is difficult as one cannot strip what teachers say from the context in which it
happens or from how students engage with each other and with the teacher. Yet, this
type of analysis, in conjunction with a variety of student outcomes, can help us
understand the ways in which teachers can support students’ understanding through
dialogue that supports students in explaining their thinking.
The findings also have important implications for teaching and professional
development of teachers in connection with small-group work. Teachers’ questions
shape what happens for students. More than simply asking students to explain their
thinking, it is important that teachers focus on what students say in relation to
critical ideas (here, in mathematics) and help students make the details of their
thinking explicit. There is a great deal of knowledge and skill embedded in these
practices, including making sense of what students are saying, drawing out the
subject-matter ideas, and supporting students in detailing that thinking. These
principles can and should be embedded in professional development for teachers to
help them develop their intervention practices with small groups. The findings of this
study provide good exemplars to include in such professional development.

Acknowledgements
This work was supported in part by the Spencer Foundation; the National Science
Foundation (MDR-8550236, MDR-8955346); the Academic Senate on Research, Los
Angeles Division, University of California; and the Diversity in Mathematics Education
Center for Learning and Teaching (DIME). Funding to DIME was provided by grant number
ESI-0119732 from the National Science Foundation.
 Cambridge Journal of Education 67

We would like to thank Marsha Ing for her helpful comments on an earlier version of this
article.

Notes
1. Analyses of teacher practices and student participation in three of these classrooms were
reported in Webb et al. (in press). The current study is larger and more comprehensive than
the previous one: it uses a larger sample of classrooms, considers all instances of
collaborative group work in all classrooms, uses more in-depth (and finer grained) coding
of teacher practices and student activity, and analyzes links between teacher practices and
student activity during the same group episodes.
2. For some classes prior achievement scores (standardized test scores from the previous
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spring) were not available. Consequently, we could not compute partial correlations to
control for prior achievement.
3. All recorded students except one (n550) experienced a teacher intervention.
4. All recorded students except one (n550) were members of groups that had not already
given a correct/complete explanation by the start of the teacher intervention.
5. For contingency tables with small expected cell counts, we used a Fisher’s exact test (Fisher,
1935).
6. Unless otherwise indicated, all significance levels are the results of Fisher’s exact tests of
contingency tables.

Notes on contributors
Noreen M. Webb is a Professor in the Department of Education, Graduate School of
Education & Information Studies, University of California, Los Angeles. Her research spans
domains in learning and instruction, especially the study of teaching and learning processes
and performance of individuals and groups in mathematics and science classrooms, and
educational and psychological measurement.
Megan L. Franke is a Professor in the Department of Education, Graduate School of
Education & Information Studies, University of California, Los Angeles. Her work focuses on
understanding and supporting teacher learning through professional development,
particularly within elementary mathematics.
Tondra De is a doctoral student in the Department of Education, Graduate School of
Education & Information Studies, University of California, Los Angeles.
Angela G. Chan is a doctoral student in the Department of Education, Graduate School of
Education & Information Studies, University of California, Los Angeles. Her research
interests include issues of equity in the development of elementary mathematics teachers, with
a particular focus on classroom practice and teacher identity.
Deanna Freund is a doctoral student in the Department of Education, Graduate School of
Education & Information Studies, University of California, Los Angeles.
Pat Shein is a doctoral student in the Department of Education, Graduate School of
Education & Information Studies, University of California, Los Angeles. Her interests include
exploring ways to support English Learner students in mathematics learning.
Doris K. Melkonian is a doctoral student in the Department of Education, Graduate
School of Education & Information Studies, University of California, Los Angeles. Her
interests include collaborative learning, and gender related issues in mathematics and science
education.
 68 N.M. Webb et al.

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