Classroom discourse analyzer (CDA): A discourse analytic tool for teachers

Abstract

Teachers can reflect on and analyze their classroom discourse to inform their instructional practice. When teachers try to do so however, they often face analytic difficulties, which include the data set (e.g., data input, data transformation, and utterances by unknown speakers), coding (e.g., coding complexity, reliability, and efficiency), visualization (e.g., representations of a variety of information, synchronization of displays, and adaptation to the data/codes changes), and tracking and comparison difficulties (e.g., many students’ actions across discussion sessions). This paper introduces a practical tool called classroom discourse analyzer (CDA) to address these difficulties, as shown in the analyses of classroom discourse from a fourth grade science class. The analyses demonstrate how CDA can be used by teachers to support their reflection on classroom discourse and how it can provide personalized, data-supported evidence to inform teachers’ classroom practice. Challenges in using CDA and future research directions are also discussed.