Fostering Communication Between Students Working Collaboratively: Results From a Practitioner Action Research Study

Abstract

As a secondary mathematics teacher, I used practitioner action research to determine effective ways to intervene with students working in groups, with the goal of improving their communication. Utilising transcripts of group interactions and teacher interventions, field notes, and student feedback, I discovered ten different issues that prevent students from communicating effectively and developed ways in which I could intervene with the students, when these issues occurred, through questions or comments. Readers may identify with the issues presented in this article and be able to use the interventions to help improve discourse between their students working in groups.