PATTERNS OF INTERACTION BETWEEN TEACHERS AND STUDENTS CLASSROOM THINKING, AND THEIR IMPLICATIONS FOR THE PROVISION OF LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES

This paper reports on a study of teachers' and pupils' perceptions of effective teaching and learning. A total of 13 teachers and 325 pupils (aged between 11 and 12) were observed and interviewed. The central f ocus of the paper is the interaction that was detected between teacher s' and pupils' ways of thinking. A grounded analysis of the interactio nal data yields support for a transactional theory of learning (the wo rks of Bruner and Haste and Vygotsky are cited in particular). The pap er also introduces the idea of a continuum of teaching strategies, and shows how perceived teacher effectiveness can be associated with the teacher's ability and willingness to move freely between different poi nts of the continuum, thereby implicitly rejecting crude dichotomies b etween teacher-centred and pupil-centred learning. It is shown that pu pils claim to benefit from both teacher-centred and pupil-centred stra tegies when the strategies are selected in order to carer for pupils' specific learning requirements. The greatest coherence in teacher pupi l accounts of effective teaching and learning, however, seems to focus on the mid-point of the continuum, described here in terms of ''inter active'' and ''reactive'' strategies.