Experiment with dialogic instructional moves that connect students' everyday experiences to conceptual knowledge to move beyond experience-based reasoning.¶

Strategy · All strategies
Evidence · 5 claims (3 for, 2 mixed) · 1 study (1 qualitative), q2 · 0 of 1 report an effect size · 5 claims rest on one study

Description¶

This is the article's own implication for instructional work in life skills education. It recommends that teachers attend to students' ideas and everyday experiences and try out dialogic moves that link those resources to conceptual knowledge, addressing the observed problem that conversations sometimes "remained at an experience-based level without linking the student's everyday experiences to academic perspectives". The article's instruction moves include attuning to, acknowledging, repeating and revoicing student contributions.

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• Teachers must orient to students' everyday experiences and ideas as they arise in classroom conversations.

Constraints¶

Target Learners¶

• Lower secondary school students (Grade 9, ages 14-15) in life skills education

Target Learning Goals¶

• Conceptual understanding of life skills concepts such as identity, self-esteem, exclusion and role

Claims¶

• Teachers can respond to sensitive and emotional student contributions in whole-class life skills conversations by acknowledging the contribution, integrating it and redirecting toward general aspects of the topic, thereby avoiding a therapeutic role. [+W]
• Teachers' instructional moves of attuning to, acknowledging, repeating and selectively picking up on student contributions appear to enable students to develop increasingly complex understandings of life skills concepts. [+W]
• Teachers faced challenges integrating students' everyday experiences with conceptual knowledge, and conversations sometimes remained at an experience-based level without reaching academic perspectives. [~W]
• Inviting students to share everyday experiences contributed to a safe, inclusive classroom climate in which students willingly shared personal experiences in life skills conversations. [~W]
• Teachers can guide students' conceptual understanding of life skills concepts by building on the everyday experiences students invoke in classroom conversations. [+W]

Related Strategies¶

Examples¶

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Key Sources¶

• Kenneth Silseth, Marthe Fundingsrud, Anniken Furberg. (2026). Infusing students' everyday experiences in classrooms: a case study of classroom conversations in life skills education. Instructional Science. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11251-026-09820-4