A Phenomenography of Teacher-Student Instructional Interactions

Abstract: the expectations of educational system stakeholders (learner, families, and cultural, social and economic section) show increasing diversity and complexity. This confronts the teachers with a variety of interests, cultures and demands and they have to work in an environment of uncertainty and ambiguity. This trend is rooted in the changes that societies have experienced in several aspect (political, economical and cultural) and it has led the teachers toward finding ways for facing these conditions, maintaining positive interaction, and higher adaptation with the educational demands. Therefore, this study has focused on teachers experiences to find an interactions style in instructional engagements of teacher and students through phenomenography (as one of qualitative research method). The participants included 20 experienced teachers teaching in Sanandaj secondary schools. Semi-structured interviews were the primary instrument of data collection in this study. The obtained data was analyzed by inductive method. The data analysis revealed six qualitatively different ways in which teachers experienced instructional interaction with students. These categories included providers of information, transmitters of a body of knowledge, facilitators of learning, guided participators role, mentoring and speculative illumination. Each category had special characteristics with regard to the roles of teacher, students, classroom climates and curriculum.