Embedded teaching (Dalgren, 2017)

Dalgren, S. (2017). Questions and answers, a seesaw and embodied action: How children respond in informing sequences. In A. Bateman & A. Church (Eds.) Children’s Knowledge-in-Interaction: Studies in Conversation Analysis (pp. 37–56). Singapore: Springer.

In this chapter, Sara Dalgren shows how a preschool teacher in Sweden uses sequences of questions and answers to orient the children’s attention to the physical properties of their play on a seesaw. These Q&A sequences enable the two children to explore the concepts of levers, balance, equilibrium and the distribution of weight. Importantly this provides an example of intentional teaching within the activity of play. As Dalgren summarizes, the teacher ‘through the question answer sequences, in coordination with the children’s embodied experience of the non-movement of the seesaw, methodically is accomplishing embedded teaching (Tate et al, 2005)’ (p,54.)