Neil Mercer
Biographic Data
| ID | 376237 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Neil Mercer |
| GIVEN NAMES | Neil |
| FAMILY NAME | Mercer |
| SIGNATURE | MERCER N |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Cambridge |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-6829-8072 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 33 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 141 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 33 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1974 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2023 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
An analysis of the forms of teacher-student dialogue that are most productive for learning
Dialogic approaches based on active student participation, open, respectful discussion, exploring and critiquing different perspectives are increasingly found to support student learning. However, the specific productive forms of teacher-student interaction have rarely been studied systematically. A recent large-scale project explored the relationship between dialogic forms of interaction and learning outcomes for students aged 10–11 in primary s…
Coding classroom dialogue: Methodological considerations for researchers
Teacher–Student Dialogue During Classroom Teaching: Does It Really Impact on Student Outcomes?
It is now widely believed that classroom dialogue matters as regards student outcomes, with optimal patterns often regarded as requiring some or all of open questions, elaboration of previous contributions, reasoned discussion of competing viewpoints, linkage and coordination across contributions, metacognitive engagement with dialogue, and high student participation. To date, however, the relevance of such features has been most convincingly exa…
Dialogue, thinking together and digital technology in the classroom: Some educational implications of a continuing line of inquiry
This article describes a continuing programme of school-based applied research. The basis of this research, which originated in a project called ‘Thinking Together’, lies in the relationship between language and cognitive development postulated by sociocultural theory. The research has developed and tested methods for improving the quality of classroom interaction amongst teachers and students, looking for improved levels of collaboration, reason…
Using sociocultural discourse analysis to analyse professional discourse
The impact of Lesson Study professional development on the quality of teacher learning
Adherence to self-monitoring healthy lifestyle behaviours through mobile phone-based ecological momentary assessments and photographic food records over 6 months in mostly ethnic minority mothers
Objective Mobile phones can replace traditional self-monitoring tools through cell phone-based ecological momentary assessment (CEMA) of lifestyle behaviours and camera phone-based images of meals, i.e. photographic food records (PFR). Adherence to mobile self-monitoring needs to be evaluated in real-world treatment settings. Towards this goal, we examine CEMA and PFR adherence to the use of a mobile app designed to help mothers self-monitor life…
Replicating Evidence-Based Practices with Flexibility for Perinatal Home Visiting by Paraprofessionals
There are many explanations for the failure to find significant benefits: insufficient statistical power; the benefits of repeated assessments by warm, supportive peers to improve outcomes; or the failure of EBP and the need to maintain replication with fidelity. All study mothers had better outcomes than documented among comparable published samples of low-income, Latina and Korean-American mothers in Los Angeles, CA. ClinicalTrials.gov registra…
A research-informed dialogic-teaching approach to early secondary school mathematics and science: The pedagogical design and field trial of the epiSTEMe intervention
The Effecting Principled Improvement in STEM Education [epiSTEMe] project undertook pedagogical research aimed at improving pupil engagement and learning in early secondary school physical science and mathematics. Using principles identified as effective in the research literature and drawing on a range of existing pedagogical resources, the project designed and trialled a classroom intervention, with associated professional development, in a for…
Teacher learning in the context of Lesson Study: A video-based analysis of teacher discussions
The study of talk between teachers and students, from the 1970s until the 2010s
The close study of classroom talk has been an active field of research since the 1970s, when John Furlong made his significant contribution. Focusing particularly on research into teacher–student interactions, we will review the development of this field from the 1970s until the present, considering what has been learned and the educational implications of the results. We also discuss the impact of the findings of this research on teacher educati…
Interthinking: Putting talk to work
Through using spoken language, people are able to think creatively and productively together. This ability to ‘interthink’ is an important product of our evolutionary history that is just as important for our survival today. Many kinds of work activity depend on the success of groups or teams finding joint solutions to problems. Creative achievement is rarely the product of solitary endeavour, but of people working within a collective enterprise.…
‘Wait, let's just think about this’: Using the interactive whiteboard and talk rules to scaffold learning for co-regulation in collaborative science activities
Explaining the dialogic processes of teaching and learning: The value and potential of sociocultural theory
The analysis of classroom talk: Methods and methodologies
This article describes methods for analysing classroom talk, comparing their strengths and weaknesses. Both quantitative and qualitative methods are described and assessed for their strengths and weaknesses, with a discussion of the mixed use of such methods. It is acknowledged that particular methods are often embedded in particular methodologies, which are based on specific theories of social action, research paradigms, and disciplines; and so …
Dialogic teaching in the primary science classroom
This paper describes research on dialogue between teachers and pupils during primary school science lessons, using talk from two classrooms to provide our examples. We consider whether teachers use dialogue to make education a cumulative, continuing process for guiding the development of children's understanding. Case studies of two teachers, using observational data taken from a larger data set, are used to illustrate their use of talk as a peda…
The Seeds of Time: Why Classroom Dialogue Needs a Temporal Analysis
The process of teaching and learning in school has a natural long-term trajectory and cannot be understood only as a series of discrete educational events. Classroom talk plays an important role in mediating this long-term process, and in this article I argue that more attention should be given to the temporal dimension of classroom dialogue, both empirically and theoretically, if we are to appreciate how children gain an education from their cla…
Talk and the Development of Reasoning and Understanding
Wertsch’s clarification of Vygotsky’s claims about the role of social interaction in the development of children’s thinking made an important contribution to educational research. Revisiting that clarification, I suggest that ‘talk’ instead of ‘speech’ best describes Vygotsky’s concern with the functional dynamics of dialogue rather than the language system. Reviewing research on teacher-pupil interaction and collaborative activity amongst peers,…
Dialogue and the Development of Children's Thinking: A Sociocultural Approach
This book draws on extensive research to provide a ground-breaking new account of the relationship between dialogue and children’s learning development. It closely relates the research findings to real-life classrooms, so that it is of practical value to teachers and students concerned that their children are offered the best possible learning opportunities. The authors provide a clear, accessible and well-illustrated case for the importance of d…
Sociocultural discourse analysis: Analysing classroom talk as a social mode of thinking
Reasoning as a scientist: Ways of helping children to use language to learn science
Sociocultural researchers have claimed that students' learning of science is a discursive process, with scientific concepts and ways of reasoning being learned through engagement in practical enquiry and social interaction as well as individualized activity. It is also often claimed that interacting with partners while carrying out scientific investigations is beneficial to students' learning and the development of their understanding. The resear…
Words and Minds: How We Use Language to Think Together
Words and Minds takes a lively and accessible look at how we use language to combine our mental resources and get things done. Examining everyday language and drawing on a wide range of research, but always with a light style, Neil Mercer provides a unified account of the relationship between thought and language.Mercer analyses real-life examples of language being used effectively, or otherwise, in many different settings, including workplaces a…
Promoting Mr. ‘Chips’: The construction of the teacher/computer relationship in educational advertising
English Language Teaching in Its Social Context
From social interaction to individual reasoning: An empirical investigation of a possible socio-cultural model of cognitive development
Words and Minds: How We Use Language to Think Together
Words and Minds takes a lively and accessible look at how we use language to combine our mental resources and get things done. Examining everyday language and drawing on a wide range of research, but always with a light style, Neil Mercer provides a unified account of the relationship between thought and language.Mercer analyses real-life examples of language being used effectively, or otherwise, in many different settings, including workplaces a…
Reasoning as a scientist: Ways of helping children to use language to learn science
Sociocultural researchers have claimed that students' learning of science is a discursive process, with scientific concepts and ways of reasoning being learned through engagement in practical enquiry and social interaction as well as individualized activity. It is also often claimed that interacting with partners while carrying out scientific investigations is beneficial to students' learning and the development of their understanding. The resear…
Children's Talk and the Development of Reasoning in the Classroom
Sixty British primary school children aged 9‐10 and their teachers took part in an experimental teaching programme, designed to improve the quality of children's reasoning and collaborative activity by developing their awareness of language use and promoting certain ‘ground rules’ for talking together. Children's subsequent use of language when carrying out collaborative activities in the classroom was observed and analysed, and effects on their …
The analysis of classroom talk: Methods and methodologies
This article describes methods for analysing classroom talk, comparing their strengths and weaknesses. Both quantitative and qualitative methods are described and assessed for their strengths and weaknesses, with a discussion of the mixed use of such methods. It is acknowledged that particular methods are often embedded in particular methodologies, which are based on specific theories of social action, research paradigms, and disciplines; and so …
The impact of Lesson Study professional development on the quality of teacher learning
Teacher learning in the context of Lesson Study: A video-based analysis of teacher discussions
Reconstructing context: The conventionalization of classroom knowledge
Extracts of classroom discourse involving teachers and groups of 9‐year‐olds are analyzed in terms of what they reveal about the establishment of shared knowledge between teacher and pupils. This shared knowledge is identified with the “context” of the discourse as this develops through time, context being defined as “intermental,” in Vygotsky's (1978) terms, that is to say, as existing intersubjectively for the participants rather than objective…
Promoting Mr. ‘Chips’: The construction of the teacher/computer relationship in educational advertising
A research-informed dialogic-teaching approach to early secondary school mathematics and science: The pedagogical design and field trial of the epiSTEMe intervention
The Effecting Principled Improvement in STEM Education [epiSTEMe] project undertook pedagogical research aimed at improving pupil engagement and learning in early secondary school physical science and mathematics. Using principles identified as effective in the research literature and drawing on a range of existing pedagogical resources, the project designed and trialled a classroom intervention, with associated professional development, in a for…
English Language Teaching in Its Social Context
Cues to Retrieval from Long-Term Verbal Memory
Language and Social Psychology
Reconstructing context: The conventionalization of classroom knowledge
Extracts of classroom discourse involving teachers and groups of 9‐year‐olds are analyzed in terms of what they reveal about the establishment of shared knowledge between teacher and pupils. This shared knowledge is identified with the “context” of the discourse as this develops through time, context being defined as “intermental,” in Vygotsky's (1978) terms, that is to say, as existing intersubjectively for the participants rather than objective…
Language and Literacy from an Educational Perspective
Language Events with two dimensions: The relationship between talking and writing as exemplified in a set of counselling interviews
(1994). Language Events with two dimensions: The relationship between talking and writing as exemplified in a set of counselling interviews. Changing English: Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 154-167
The Guided Construction of Knowledge: Talk Amongst Teachers and Learners
This book examines how people help other people learn. Using examples of talk recorded in classrooms, it shows how teachers and learners succeed and fail in the process of guiding learning and constructing knowledge. The book is directly relevant to teachers concerned about the quality of education in their classrooms
The quality of talk in children's collaborative activity in the classroom
From social interaction to individual reasoning: An empirical investigation of a possible socio-cultural model of cognitive development
Children's Talk and the Development of Reasoning in the Classroom
Sixty British primary school children aged 9‐10 and their teachers took part in an experimental teaching programme, designed to improve the quality of children's reasoning and collaborative activity by developing their awareness of language use and promoting certain ‘ground rules’ for talking together. Children's subsequent use of language when carrying out collaborative activities in the classroom was observed and analysed, and effects on their …
Promoting Mr. ‘Chips’: The construction of the teacher/computer relationship in educational advertising
English Language Teaching in Its Social Context
Words and Minds: How We Use Language to Think Together
Words and Minds takes a lively and accessible look at how we use language to combine our mental resources and get things done. Examining everyday language and drawing on a wide range of research, but always with a light style, Neil Mercer provides a unified account of the relationship between thought and language.Mercer analyses real-life examples of language being used effectively, or otherwise, in many different settings, including workplaces a…
Sociocultural discourse analysis: Analysing classroom talk as a social mode of thinking
Reasoning as a scientist: Ways of helping children to use language to learn science
Sociocultural researchers have claimed that students' learning of science is a discursive process, with scientific concepts and ways of reasoning being learned through engagement in practical enquiry and social interaction as well as individualized activity. It is also often claimed that interacting with partners while carrying out scientific investigations is beneficial to students' learning and the development of their understanding. The resear…
Dialogue and the Development of Children's Thinking: A Sociocultural Approach
This book draws on extensive research to provide a ground-breaking new account of the relationship between dialogue and children’s learning development. It closely relates the research findings to real-life classrooms, so that it is of practical value to teachers and students concerned that their children are offered the best possible learning opportunities. The authors provide a clear, accessible and well-illustrated case for the importance of d…
The Seeds of Time: Why Classroom Dialogue Needs a Temporal Analysis
The process of teaching and learning in school has a natural long-term trajectory and cannot be understood only as a series of discrete educational events. Classroom talk plays an important role in mediating this long-term process, and in this article I argue that more attention should be given to the temporal dimension of classroom dialogue, both empirically and theoretically, if we are to appreciate how children gain an education from their cla…
Talk and the Development of Reasoning and Understanding
Wertsch’s clarification of Vygotsky’s claims about the role of social interaction in the development of children’s thinking made an important contribution to educational research. Revisiting that clarification, I suggest that ‘talk’ instead of ‘speech’ best describes Vygotsky’s concern with the functional dynamics of dialogue rather than the language system. Reviewing research on teacher-pupil interaction and collaborative activity amongst peers,…
Dialogic teaching in the primary science classroom
This paper describes research on dialogue between teachers and pupils during primary school science lessons, using talk from two classrooms to provide our examples. We consider whether teachers use dialogue to make education a cumulative, continuing process for guiding the development of children's understanding. Case studies of two teachers, using observational data taken from a larger data set, are used to illustrate their use of talk as a peda…
The analysis of classroom talk: Methods and methodologies
This article describes methods for analysing classroom talk, comparing their strengths and weaknesses. Both quantitative and qualitative methods are described and assessed for their strengths and weaknesses, with a discussion of the mixed use of such methods. It is acknowledged that particular methods are often embedded in particular methodologies, which are based on specific theories of social action, research paradigms, and disciplines; and so …
Explaining the dialogic processes of teaching and learning: The value and potential of sociocultural theory
Interthinking: Putting talk to work
Through using spoken language, people are able to think creatively and productively together. This ability to ‘interthink’ is an important product of our evolutionary history that is just as important for our survival today. Many kinds of work activity depend on the success of groups or teams finding joint solutions to problems. Creative achievement is rarely the product of solitary endeavour, but of people working within a collective enterprise.…
‘Wait, let's just think about this’: Using the interactive whiteboard and talk rules to scaffold learning for co-regulation in collaborative science activities
The study of talk between teachers and students, from the 1970s until the 2010s
The close study of classroom talk has been an active field of research since the 1970s, when John Furlong made his significant contribution. Focusing particularly on research into teacher–student interactions, we will review the development of this field from the 1970s until the present, considering what has been learned and the educational implications of the results. We also discuss the impact of the findings of this research on teacher educati…
Teacher learning in the context of Lesson Study: A video-based analysis of teacher discussions
Replicating Evidence-Based Practices with Flexibility for Perinatal Home Visiting by Paraprofessionals
There are many explanations for the failure to find significant benefits: insufficient statistical power; the benefits of repeated assessments by warm, supportive peers to improve outcomes; or the failure of EBP and the need to maintain replication with fidelity. All study mothers had better outcomes than documented among comparable published samples of low-income, Latina and Korean-American mothers in Los Angeles, CA. ClinicalTrials.gov registra…
Psychology (28 works) · Pedagogy (19 works) · Sociology (19 works) · Mathematics education (17 works) · Computer Science (16 works) · Innovative Teaching and Learning Methods (11 works) · EFL/ESL Teaching and Learning (10 works) · Linguistics (10 works) · Sociocultural evolution (8 works) · Teacher Education and Leadership Studies (8 works)