Date
Publisher
arXiv
Classroom discourse is a core medium of instruction - analyzing it can provide a window into teaching and learning as well as driving the development of new tools for improving instruction. We introduce the largest dataset of mathematics classroom transcripts available to researchers, and demonstrate how this data can help improve instruction. The dataset consists of 1,660 45-60 minute long 4th and 5th grade elementary mathematics observations collected by the National Center for Teacher Effectiveness (NCTE) between 2010-2013. The anonymized transcripts represent data from 317 teachers across 4 school districts that serve largely historically marginalized students. The transcripts come with rich metadata, including turn-level annotations for dialogic discourse moves, classroom observation scores, demographic information, survey responses and student test scores. We demonstrate that our natural language processing model, trained on our turn-level annotations, can learn to identify dialogic discourse moves and these moves are correlated with better classroom observation scores and learning outcomes. This dataset opens up several possibilities for researchers, educators and policymakers to learn about and improve K-12 instruction. The dataset can be found at this https URL.
Study at a glance
- Question: Can an AI model learn to identify instructional talk moves in elementary math classrooms?
- Setting and data: 1,660 fourth- and fifth-grade math observations from 317 teachers across four school districts, collected between 2010 and 2013.
- Method: Dataset creation and training a natural language processing model on annotated classroom transcripts.
Why it matters
Classroom discourse is a core medium of instruction. Analyzing it can provide a window into teaching and learning and drive the development of new tools to improve instruction.
Key findings
- In 1,660 fourth- and fifth-grade math lessons across 317 teachers, an AI model successfully learned to identify conversational teaching moves from transcripts.
- Interactive classroom discussion moves were correlated with higher teacher observation scores.
- The use of these conversational teaching moves was also correlated with better student learning outcomes.
Summary drafted with AI from the paper’s abstract and may contain errors. See the full paper for details.
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