Get Out of the Car (and meet some new people this summer)

On October 10, 2015, an incident occurred at the University of Missouri homecoming parade that made national news but somehow escaped my attention. A group of black students protesting systemic and overt racism dating back to 1839, when the university was built as a whites-only institution using slave labor, blocked a convertible in which the university’s president, Tim Wolfe, was riding. Wolfe remained in the car as the small group of protestors interrupted the parade to present a chronological series of examples of ongoing racial injustices at Mizzou, “not an indictment on white folks but. . .an indictment on white structures and white supremacy.”

The mostly white crowd yelled at the protestors and chanted loudly as if to drown out what the protestors were saying. A number of white men and women attempted to move the protestors from the parade route and to form a human chain to block the protest and allow the president’s car to pass. All the while, President Wolfe remained in his red convertible, where he could clearly see and hear the protest. The protest ended 11 minutes after it began when several police officers intervened and asked the protestors to step aside.  

To simplify a complicated story, one of the activists involved in the protest, Jonathan Butler, began a hunger strike to protest the president’s lack of responsiveness to racist incidents, during the parade as well as when other complaints were reported. The hunger strike attracted media attention and put Mizzou in the spotlight.

Nearly a month after the parade incident, Wolfe finally issued an apology for his silence during the parade. “My behavior seemed like I didn’t care,” the apology stated. “That was not my intention. I was caught off guard at that moment. Nevertheless, had I gotten out of the car to acknowledge the students and talk with them, perhaps we wouldn’t be where we are today.” Several days later, after a threatened strike by Mizzou football players calling for his resignation, Wolfe stepped down.

Reading the news articles about this incident and watching video footage of the protest conjured up many emotions in me, but the part that keeps haunting me is the line in Wolfe’s apology: “[H]ad I gotten out of the car to acknowledge the students and talk with them, perhaps we wouldn’t be where we are today.”

I wonder if enough educators today are “getting out of the car:” meeting diverse students where they are and letting them know they are heard, seen, and valued.

I’m can’t say that every school is that racially charged or that most students of color have reached a similar brink of frustration. I do know that 80% of public school teachers in America are white, and that less than half of the 50 million students enrolled in public schools are white.

For the rest of this essay, I’ll be talking mostly to the 80% of us who are white educators, but the rest of you are welcome to join me to make sure I’m not saying anything foolish.

According to Beverly Daniel Tatum in Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?, a 2013 American Values Survey found that “75 percent of Whites have entirely White social networks, without any minority presence.” The same is not true about the homogeneity of other races’ social networks. Apparently, a lot of white people only hang out with other white people.

It’s difficult to understand the way others perceive the world if we don’t get to know them. In order for me to understand the treatment others experience, I need to listen to those people and hear their stories. I need to shut up and quit my whitesplaining (ironic, since that’s what I’m doing right here. . . sorry) so that I can give others a voice. If I know who someone is, I am more likely to connect with them and others who share an identity with them. If a growing number of the students I see every day come from racial backgrounds different than mine, I face some potential challenges in connecting with those students. I imagine some of these students feel like the students at the University of Missouri felt: unseen, unheard, and wronged. I need to get out of the car, listen to them, and let them know that they are valued.  

So what’s a white person to do if they’re among the 75% who only socialize with other white people? I suggest figuring out how to bring some diversity into your social circle. It’s terribly awkward (and, really, just wrong) to collect friends of different races like you are hunting Pokémon, so please don’t go out into the world with a diversity checklist to complete. Consider volunteering in the community at somewhere other than your place of worship (as those tend to remain largely segregated in America today), attending arts events (I love a good talkback after a theatre performance, though I usually listen a lot more than I talk), or finding a group, such as DFW’s Community Conversations, where people meet for the purpose of talking and listening to understand one another’s perspectives.

Making connections like these requires some effort, and there’s no guarantee of success. A less risky way to “meet” some new people is through reading their stories. Take a look at your bookshelf. Was every book written by a white author? Maybe it’s time to step outside the usual to encounter some new literary voices.

Some of my favorite reading experiences are ones in which I have allowed a person with a cultural identity unlike mine to tell me their story. As a college student on summer vacation reading The Autobiography of Malcolm X, I was uncomfortable, shocked, and moved as I experienced racism through Malcolm’s eyes and felt the source of his indignation. As an adult, digesting Ta-Nahesi Coates’s letter to his son, Between the World and Me, continued to stretch my thinking about race relations, cultural identity, and the struggles black Americans face that I seldom consider as a white male.  Recently, I’ve read a number of young adult novels with non-white characters and authors, each of which has helped me grow in my understanding of multicultural perspectives. In Erika L. Sánchez’s I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter, I felt the pains of growing up as a precocious Latina teen in inner-city Chicago. Getting to know Adib Khorram’s hilarious narrator in Darius the Great is Not Okay, who struggles with his half-Persian identity (and general teenage angst) as he travels to visit his mother’s family in Iran, provided some insight into cultural norms unlike my own. Reading Dear Martin (Nic Stone), On the Come Up (Angie Thomas), All-American Boys (Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely), and The Field Guide to the North American Teenager (Ben Philippe) gave me multiple perspectives on what it might be like to be a black teenager today. Understanding another cultural identity, that of transgender youth, is easier for me after reading Lily and Dunkin by Donna Gephart. The 57 Bus: The True Story of Two Teenagers and the Crime That Changed Their Lives by Dashka Slater helped me see two sides of an incident from the perspectives of two teens: a gender-fluid boy and his African-American classmate.

Can I claim to be an expert on any of these cultures because I read a few books or met a few people? Of course not. Every individual’s cultural identity and life experiences are their own. Just as I can’t speak with authority about the experience of every middle-aged, white male in America, I certainly have no right to claim a full understanding of the experiences of a group I don’t belong to based on my own interactions, however extensive. But opening my mind and heart as I let others tell their stories develops my understanding and empathy. And, when I learn from listening that something in the system we (and by “we,” I mean people who look a lot like me) have built in our country is corrupt, unfair, or unjust, I can lift my voice along with their voice to do something about changing it.

Fellow educators, I invite you to join me this summer in getting out of the car, meeting some new people (whether in real life or on the pages of books), and joining the conversation. Let others be heard, so that we can make more meaningful—more human—connections with our students, their parents, our colleagues, and all the other wonderful humans in this beautifully diverse country we live in.  

I Put on Clothes for This?

Here I go again, sounding like an old person. . .

Back in the days before the Internet, curious scholars who wanted to learn from a wise expert enrolled in classes to listen to lecturers pontificate about their areas of knowledge. I have fond memories of many of my college professors (and some of my high school teachers) regaling  (mostly) eager students with lectures while we furiously took notes to capture as many brilliant ideas as we could.

In today’s world, we can find lectures in many places. A simple Google search will yield numerous videos, podcasts, and presentations on nearly any topic featuring eminent scholars from around the globe. Students can now receive a better-than-average traditional education for free with only a smartphone and a pair of earbuds.

It would be vain for any of us to believe that our lecturing abilities surpass those of everyone who has ever made a TED Talk or YouTube video, so if we are relying on the one-way transmission of information during our classes as our sole mode of instruction, we are replicating (probably less effectively) an experience students can get elsewhere. Similarly, if we spend class time showing videos or movies, we are asking students to come to school to do something they could do just as effectively at home without having to change out of their jammies.

The advent of learning management systems, such as Google Classroom, and the trend toward 1-to-1 access to technology have made it all too easy for instructors to post an assignment and sit back while the students work quietly on it on their Chromebooks, laptops, or tablets. In many cases, these online assignments are the electronic equivalent of worksheets, with students filling in blanks and boxes as they answer teacher-created questions or complete online charts and tables. Many students come to school and spend most of their day sitting silently in front of screens, providing the information asked for, with little to no interaction with their instructor or peers. It’s really no different than if they had stayed at home taking an online course, except, of course, they had to put on clothes to come to school.   

If physical schools and colleges are going to remain viable in the present and future, they must provide an education that is different and better from what students can receive at home online. Real school has to be different from e-school.* There has to be substantial value in making the effort to get dressed and come to class beyond just hanging out with friends in the halls and cafeteria.

Additionally, if teachers want to remain in actual classrooms with students and to push back on politicians who try to increase class sizes, we have to show that our physical presence in proximity to our learners makes a difference. We can’t follow the example of “Ditto,” the character from the 1984 movie Teachers, whose students are so accustomed to filling in worksheets without any interaction that no one notices the teacher has dropped dead at his desk until  they run out of mimeographed worksheets to complete. We must put into practice the things that distinguish live instruction from e-learning.

One benefit to being a student in a classroom with an actual, living teacher is the opportunity to receive live, in-person, in-the-moment verbal feedback from the instructor. We know that the most effective feedback is the kind that occurs when learners actually need it, at the point when they can improve what they are working on. Telling students what they should have done after the fact doesn’t have the same impact as coaching students along the way. As students are reading, writing, or creating, teachers could hold quick check-in conferences with individuals or small groups to clear up confusion, redirect those who are heading off track, offer suggestions for growth, ask questions to promote self-reflection, or nudge students to the next level.

The teacher isn’t the only source of valuable feedback in a face-to-face classroom. Some of the most transformative feedback comes from peers. When we teach students to give and receive feedback from one another, everyone becomes more skilled and accomplished. Establishing structures and procedures for providing feedback in class on one another’s work is a worthwhile step toward making the most of the learning options available in traditional classroom settings.

Differentiation is another opportunity that is seized more easily in an in-person teaching situation. A savvy teacher figures out where each student is and offers next steps that are responsive to each student’s needs. If we are marching all our students in unison through a one-size-fits-all series of experiences, we are missing out on the opportunity to grow all our students to their fullest capacity. Teachers who make the biggest differences with students have a sequence of clear goals in mind and are able to put each student at the right point on the continuum to move them closer to the target. They also have an idea of how to challenge at a deeper level any student who has reached mastery.

Perhaps the most significant bonus of coming to school and learning in classrooms is the chance to have conversations in real time about what we are learning. The art of verbal discourse is limping along in our emoji-driven society. When the only communication students have with other humans is through Snapchat pics and abbreviated text messages, they don’t get better at speaking. Yet those who can effectively express themselves verbally get what they want in life. What better place is there to practice speaking than in a classroom where there are others with whom to converse and a teacher to offer feedback for improvement? Classroom conversations—whether in informal pair-share situations, structured discussions (such as Socratic Seminars or Philosophical Chairs debates), collaborative study groups, or small work groups—bring the learning to life. Students aren’t just sitting there slack-jawed in front of screens; they are engaged with one another, defending positions, trying out new ideas, clarifying their thinking, and questioning themselves and each other. This is where the learning happens. This is when the effort of coming to class becomes worth it.

As we plan for instruction, it’s not a bad idea to look critically at how we are teaching. If every day of class involves something students could do just as effectively at home in isolation, it’s time to change it up. We need to rethink the role of the teacher and the role of the student in schools. When we see the teacher as a valuable source of feedback, individualized coaching, and inspiration and the students as active participants in a community of learners, school will once again become something worth putting on clothes for.

* I mean no disparagement to those who are doing important work developing online courses and electronic learning experiences for students. There’s a growing demand for e-school classes, and I’m impressed by the efforts to make online learning increasingly interactive, open-ended, and responsive to student needs. I wonder whether the demand for e-school classes is partly due to the fact that so many traditional schools are still teaching like it’s 1985.  

In Defense of Turn and Talk

Several weeks ago at a literacy conference in Waco, I heard an impressive set of speakers talk for three days about reading and writing. If you follow me on Twitter, you may have noticed a barrage of tweets detailing many of my takeaways from this rich learning experience. My tweets and retweets were digital-age “Amens” as these literacy gurus preached about the importance of student choice in reading, providing authentic reading and writing experiences, ways teachers can support and promote reading, and growing students to become more literate, discerning citizens.

One thing I didn’t tweet was an offhand comment made by one of the presenters. Just before he asked us to turn and talk with a neighbor about a question he posed, the speaker said, “Don’t you think we’ve kind of overdone ‘Turn and Talk’ in schools?” He said it as if the pair-share were some sort of plague spreading maliciously though classrooms, killing learning by forcing students to interact with one another. According to him, America’s teachers are Turn-and-Talking their students to death. Turn and Talk, he seemed to believe, is as passé as bottle flipping and fidget spinners.

As an educator who spends hours each week in classrooms, I have to respectfully disagree with the notion that we are asking students to talk with a neighbor too frequently or that the strategy is losing its power. The undisputed truth about classroom talk is that in most classrooms, teachers still do the majority of the talking. Full-class discussions usually involve only a fraction of the students and don’t give every kid the chance to work through the ideas on their own. The idea that we are asking our students to share too frequently seems absurd to me, but, having spent several days listening and agreeing with this particular literacy expert, I am trying to figure out where his opinion is coming from.

I’ve identified several ways Turn and Talk might go bad; let’s call them Turn and Talk Traps. Perhaps this student talk naysayer has experienced these pitfalls and is objecting based on his observations.

Making Turn and Talk a Thing: There’s a danger when using any learning strategy that the strategy itself may become something bigger than it ought to be. We make it a “thing” rather than just providing a topic, question, or prompt and asking our kids to talk with one another about it. When this happens, we risk the danger of making our strategies bigger than the learning they are supposed to facilitate. We turn them into elaborate productions.  We say things like, “Okay, kids, we are about to do a Turn and Talk,” as if we are saying, “Now it’s time to do a triple axel followed by a double lutz and a quadruple salchow.” Students don’t necessarily need to know the terminology behind every teacher move we make. Turning to a neighbor and talking about your learning can (and probably should) be a seamless part of our daily lessons, a habit we get into because we know that all our students—not just a few—deserve the opportunity to talk through and test out their ideas so they can develop complex understandings of their own and the learning will stick. Instead of “doing a Turn and Talk,” simply ask students to turn to a neighbor and talk. It’s really simple and effective.      

Nebulous Talk:  Another misstep is asking students to turn and talk without giving them direction or parameters for their discussion. This leaves them with uncertainty: What am I supposed to talk about? How long? When am I supposed to talk, and when am I supposed to listen? Who talks first? I’ve been guilty of stopping my lesson at what seems to be an appropriate spot and asking my students to discuss the content with their table neighbor. A handful of students talk while the others visit about their weekend or simply stare at one another, unsure of exactly what they are expected to say. Sometimes I’ve provided way too much time for my nebulous classroom talk so there is no sense of urgency about getting to the discussion. Student talk should be focused, succinct, and accompanied by clear expectations. Carefully planned questions can provide a spark for meaningful talk. Sentence frames and stems offer some structure and help students develop more sophisticated academic language. Talk can be timed; roles of each partner can be clarified. When the teacher has a clear plan for what is supposed to happen during this talk time, students don’t see this as an arduous add-on to their day.    

Turn and Talk Without a Follow Up: Paired student talk probably shouldn’t be an end in itself, but it can be meaningful as a lead-in to something else. For instance, posing a question to the entire class and allowing students to discuss it with a partner before opening it up to the full class gives students confidence to respond because they’ve tried their ideas out on a partner. Turn and Talk can precede student writing, aid students in summarizing and clarifying information in the midst of a lecture or video, serve as closure to a lesson (followed by a share-out of key takeaways), allow students to refine their own notes through comparison with another student’s, assist students in figuring out how to approach a problem, or help students set a personal goal or objective for the day. The way to make student talk worthwhile is to show students that it’s an integral part to their learning process and will improve their chances of success in our classrooms.

I’m sticking to my original stance. We haven’t done Turn and Talk to death. Perhaps we’ve done it poorly from time to time. When it’s done well—which isn’t that difficult to pull off with a little planning—paired student talk can be one of the most powerful tools for empowering students to make their learning meaningful, grow in their understanding, and clarify and reinforce their thinking. We could do a whole lot worse than making Turn and Talk our go-to strategy in the classroom.

What are your thoughts about incorporating student talk in your classroom? Turn to someone nearby and discuss that question for a minute. Afterwards, you can put some of these ideas into practice.      

Face-to-Face (or Side-by-Side) in a One-to-One World

Kids today (I say in my crotchety old man voice) are really good at staring at screens. I guess that’s not a totally new thing. I have photos of me and my brother sitting slack-jawed in front of the television watching Scooby Doo cartoons in our pajamas. My brother spent countless hours playing Atari games while I tuned into every game show our rabbit-ears antenna picked up (Big bucks, no whammies! ... I”ll take Paul Lynde to block.... Survey says…!). 

Screens today are ubiquitous, though. You can’t escape them. Now they fit in your pocket, so there’s no excuse to be away from your electronic device. Teens no longer phone one another; the hours spent tying up the family landline while switching back and forth between two friends on call waiting have been replaced with chats, snaps, tweets, and insta-whatevers with numerous friends and acquaintances around the globe. In many ways, young people are more social now than they ever were. 

But they don’t do a lot of speaking. 

In fact, when given the opportunity to have free time, I’ve found that groups of high schoolers will sit in a circle staring at their phones in silence rather than engage in live, in-person conversation. 

There’s a tiny part of my English teacher self that is pleased that teens are spending more time than ever composing written text for others to read. So much written communication has to have some positive impact on writing skills, right? There’s probably something to that theory, though the flipside is probably just as valid: students’ abilities to write a “correct” sentence are declining. (Incidentally, I recently learned that it’s now considered rude and offensive in the world of teenage electronic communication to punctuate the ends of sentences. A colleague’s fifteen-year-old son informed her that every time she put a period at the end of text it was like she was stabbing him, and another friend’s college-aged son asked her why she was angry when she sent a reply of “Yes.” This is completely off the topic, but I wanted my readers who communicate with their offspring to be aware of their unintentional electronic microaggressions.)  

More alarming to me than the decline in traditional conventions of written English is the dip in spoken interactions among screencentric people. As education moves to an increase in instructional technology in classrooms, teachers need to be mindful not to forget the importance of face-to-face verbal communication. 

Before you dismiss this as the angry rant of a technophobe, let me assure you that I’m no Luddite. Technology opens up so many possibilities to transform the factory model of traditional education by engaging students in authentic writing and inquiry in ways we never would have imagined several decades ago. Collaboration can occur within a classroom, across class periods, and even across the globe. Teachers who know AVID strategies can WICORize traditional lessons with thoughtful technology applications. As many campuses shift to one-to-one environments where every student has a laptop, Chromebook, or other device handy at all times, teachers can harness the power of technology to extend student learning to new frontiers. 

At the same time, teachers run the risk of creating classrooms where digital communication completely replaces speaking. On a technology-rich campus, students could conceivably spend their entire school day sitting in chairs and staring at screens, with all communication occurring electronically. 

I don’t think this is ideal. Students still need to talk to one another. Students still need to get up and out of their seats. Teachers need to plan deliberately to include both of those. 

I’ve often said that the ability to write well gives a person an edge in life. A well-written essay can get you into college. An effective cover letter can land you an interview for a competitive job. A compelling persuasive e-mail can get others to listen to what you have to say. 

It’s also true that the ability to speak clearly gives a person an advantage. Someone who can speak articulately and powerfully can ace an interview, move a crowd to action, convince coworkers to listen to a new idea, and get what they want. A person who is comfortable speaking to another, who makes eye contact, who employs effective body language, and who has a command of spoken language can succeed in higher education and in the workplace. As educators, we have the responsibility to provide our students with every opportunity to hone oral language skills as one of the “basics” along with reading and writing. 

If you’re working on a campus with abundant access to technology, please embrace those powerful tools for reaching students and helping them learn in 21st century ways. At the same time, intentionally build in opportunities for students to talk to one another—in pairs, in small groups, and in more formal larger groupings. Allow them to collaborate as they work on their devices, and not just by sharing a document and typing away in silence. Provide turn-and-talk breaks for students to share what they are learning, strategize about their next moves, offer constructive feedback, and question one another. Explore options for having students communicate orally using technology applications such as video chats and recordings (both video and audio). Don’t forget, though, that speaking at a camera isn’t the same thing as learning to express oneself in front of another human being who can respond in the moment. Developing comfort, poise, and fluency in oral communication will serve our students in so many ways. 

Medical experts have become especially vocal recently about the dangers of sitting. Combining speaking and movement—like asking students to walk and talk with a partner about something they are learning—keeps our classrooms from becoming silent deathtraps. An abundance of  technology in the classroom makes it easy for students to sit; teachers, too, can sit at their desks and monitor student work from their own screens. Be aware that though this may be a learning preference for some, others need to process orally, interact with others, and get their blood flowing through movement. 

Technology is wonderful. So are speaking and movement. Making room for all three turns the 21st century classroom into a brain-based happy place where students can thrive and develop the skills they need to succeed wherever the road of life takes them. 

What Student-Focused Talk Looks Like

I received some positive responses to last week’s article explaining my beliefs about student talk. I also heard some questions about what this kind of talk looks like and how to make it happen in a classroom. As a follow-up, this week I am providing several scenarios to help you identify some of the ways you can shift your instructional focus to incorporate more conversation into your teaching practice.

Scenario 1:  

Teacher-Talk Approach:  The students are reading the Prologue of Romeo and Juliet. The teacher reads the text aloud and asks students to read along. Then, the teacher rereads the passage line by line, explaining what each line means. At the end, the teacher asks, “Does everybody get it?”  The students dutifully reply, “Yes.”  “Any questions?”  Silence.

Student-Talk Approach:  The teacher reads the 14 lines of the Prologue silently as the students follow along. Then, she asks the students to read it along with her in unison. Students then read back through the passage silently, underlining all the phrases they understand. Then, the teacher asks them to discuss with a partner, first talking about the things they understand. Then, she asks them to identify the places they are confused and talk about why, specifically, these places are difficult, formulating questions about their points of confusion. Each pair of students joins with another pair and discusses the points of confusion, clarifying where possible. The remaining questions then go to the entire class and teacher for discussion and explanation.  

Craig’s notes:  In this scenario, the students read aloud in unison, which allows all to practice fluent oral reading with a safety net (and without subjecting the students to having to listen to befuddled peers butcher Shakespeare). Then, students are doing the comprehension work with a partner, modeling the things that good readers do as they decipher difficult text. Allowing the students to struggle reinforces a growth mindset and helps dispel the idea that the teacher will swoop in to provide correct answers at the slightest sign of difficulty.  

Scenario 2:  

Teacher-Talk Approach: Government students read a chapter explaining the three branches of the U.S. government. They individually complete a study guide with questions that highlight the most important points in the chapter. Students may use the study guides on an open-note quiz to check for understanding.

Student-Talk Approach:  Prior to reading an explanation of the three branches of the U.S. government, students talk in four-person table groups about the following: “What would happen if the U.S. legislature passed a law that violated the Constitution? What would happen if the President tried to overstep his or her power?” After students discuss, the teacher encourages them to look for the answers as they read the chapter. Then, students complete a two-minute quickwrite and talk in pairs about this question: “What is the difference between the separation of powers and checks and balances?” The teacher asks students to answer the question individually in writing on a notecard as a ticket out the door.

Craig’s notes: The teacher in the student-talk scenario follows a variation of Nancy Motley’s Talk Read Talk Write strategy. Students first talk about the topic in order to activate prior knowledge and give a focus for their reading. The second talk involves a common misunderstanding of students and provides students the opportunity to wrestle verbally with this potentially confusing distinction between two related topics. The teacher’s question requires complex thinking rather than a simple regurgitation of facts or definitions. Allowing students to complete the quickwrite before discussing helps them clarify their thoughts. Finally, the exit card allows the teacher to monitor individual students’ understanding and to use that to guide the next day’s instruction.

Scenario 3:  

Teacher-Talk Approach: A teacher gives a lecture with accompanying PowerPoint slideshow. Students take notes from the slides to use to study for the upcoming test.

Student-Talk Approach: The teacher delivers the lecture while students take notes on the right column of a page of Cornell Notes. The PowerPoint (if one is used) contains only images and occasionally important words, so students have to take their own notes based on what the teacher says. Every ten minutes, the teacher stops to allow students to work with a partner to compare notes. The partners verbally recreate the preceding portion of the lecture using their notes--adding to, clarifying, or correcting their notes, as needed. For homework, students review and revise their notes--circling key terms, underlining important ideas, adding symbols, charts, pictures, or other marginalia to process what they learned. The next day in class, students work in pairs to review their notes and create higher-level questions about the topics in the left column of the Cornell Notes. These questions can be used for small-group discussion over the notes. For homework, students review their notes and questions and write a summary of the notes at the bottom of their Cornell Notes. At the beginning of the next class period, students share their summaries with a partner before moving on.  

Craig’s notes:  Welcome to my high school education, except back in the day we used an overhead instead of PowerPoint. Sadly, lecturing is still a frequently overused (and largely ineffective) teaching method. When lecturing must occur, best practice says that teachers should stop and allow students to process approximately every 10 minutes. This provides a state change (which wakes up the brain) and helps the students digest the material. The student-talk approach above takes the class through the multiple stages of the Focused Note-Taking process in which students revisit the material collaboratively in multiple ways--review and revision, questioning, summarizing. This models the necessary repetitions to move the students toward long-term understanding of the content. Yes, it takes longer, but the students will actually understand and remember what they learned. For more on Cornell Notes, read this.

Scenario 4:

Teacher-Talk Approach: A math teacher works a problem that many students missed on a test to show the class how to solve it correctly.

Student-Talk Approach:  The math teacher displays the attempt of a fictional student who solved the problematic problem incorrectly. In pairs, students look at what the student did and try to explain where the student went wrong. What was this student’s misunderstanding or mistake? After students discuss, the teacher calls upon a student to share what he and his partner discussed.

Craig’s notes: Teacher talk usually involves passive students. In the student-talk approach, the onus of the learning is on the kids as they wrangle with the problem and try to explain the thought processes of the solver. Practicing this sort of discussion can help the students become more adept at diagnosing their own missteps as they solve problems individually later. Another effective approach is to have one student explain to another how she solved a problem and to allow the other student to verify whether the student’s explanation and solution are correct. Often, students can explain concepts to one another in language that is more accessible than the teacher’s attempts.

Scenario Five:  

Teacher-Talk Approach: Students have been working for several days on an essay in class, and, as she did the day before, the teacher begins the period by asking students to take out the assignment sheet and the rubric and follow along as she reminds them of the most important points.

Student-Talk Approach: Since students have heard this once already, the teacher asks the students to take out their assignment sheet and rubrics and to talk with a partner. Partner A explains the assignment to Partner B for 30 seconds. Partner B responds using a sentence stem the teacher has put on the board, “What I heard you saying is…and I also want to point out...” and then re-summarizes what Partner A originally said, adding some additional important information. The teacher asks the pairs to look at the rubric. Partner B begins with the stem, “In order to do well on this essay…” and explains the criteria for an outstanding essay according to the rubric. Partner A responds using this teacher-provided stem: “Some things you should avoid doing are…” and uses the rubric to elaborate. Students then begin work on their essays individually.

Craig’s notes: When teachers “go over” assignment sheets and rubrics, students often hear the “waah waaah waaa-wah waaaah” of Charlie Brown’s teacher. Just because we said it, doesn’t mean they got it.  One way to prompt students to look more closely at instructions and rubrics is by asking them to explain things to one another in their own words. The sentence stems provided by the teacher give students a guide for how to use academic register in summarization. These are especially effective for English language learners but work well for all students. Nearly every teenager can use a little practice in how classroom talk differs from informal talk among peers in non-academic settings. As the students are explaining the rubric and assignment sheet to one another, the teacher can monitor the discussions to identify points that require clarification for the entire class.

I could keep writing these scenarios for days, but I’d rather let you do some of the thinking yourselves. I encourage you to find a colleague and have some productive talk as you brainstorm ways to get your students to do more of the talking in your own classes. I think you’ll be pleased at the level of student engagement that will occur after the students grow accustomed to talking--and thinking--about what they are learning.