Turn taking with turn-talk in group: Actions and reflections with children and teachers

Conversations are structured by norms for turn taking. Turn taking is practiced in primary schools, starting from 8 years of age, when turn taking is used for managing group conversations. Being rather abstract for children to master, teachers use physical objects to convey turn taking. However, such physical objects tend not to be effective with children. Past research indicates that interactive tangible objects (briefly, tangibles) might help primary school classes master turn taking and positively affect their conversation behaviours. The research of this paper pursues this idea and shows how a meta-design approach, based on action research, can help design tangibles for conveying turn taking in group. The paper focuses on several actions with TurnTalk in the same primary school classroom with 9–10 years old children, and it shows how actions led to benefits for the class and designers.