This series of ideas for helping
teachers lighten their loads has been longer than I expected. It turns out, there are many effective
teaching practices that take less time than grading stacks of worksheets or
red-penning finished essays. Today I
turn my attention to another pedagogical tool that works well across grade
levels and academic areas: discussion.
The penultimate form of productive
in-class discussion is student-to-student discussion. The kind where the
teacher doesn’t interject to say, “Good answer,” or to pose the next
question. The kind where students build
off of one another’s ideas to strengthen conceptual understanding.
In its simplest form,
student-to-student talk looks like “turn-and-talk” or “think-pair-share.”
Teachers can easily build in short bursts of time where students stop listening
to the teacher and process what they’ve heard with a thinking partner. Teachers boost the effectiveness of such
partner talk by posing thoughtful questions for the discussion, by monitoring
and elevating astute comments, and by keeping the timeframe appropriate for
these (usually short) discussions.
More complex (and rewarding) are student-to-student
whole group discussions where teachers give space for students to explore
ideas, speaking one at a time, as a whole group. These are “volleyball”
discussions, where many students take a turn before passing it back to the
teacher, rather than “ping pong” discussions that follow the familiar pattern
of teacher initiation, student response, teacher evaluation of the comment. Peter Johnston, in his book Opening Minds, suggests that “dialogue
is a bit like a game in which keeping the ball in play is the goal rather than
winning.”
Student-to-student whole group
discussion may require some undoing. Oftentimes students have become used to
the teacher-student-teacher pattern of classroom conversation, and new ground
rules have to be explicitly set. Reminders like, “Look at your classmates when
you make a comment,” for the speaking student and “Look at the classmate who is
talking” for the others who listen make the conversation more authentic.
Teaching students sentence stems like, “I’d like to add on…,” “I agree with
______ because,” and “I disagree because,” can make a big difference.
These student-to-student dialogues can
be short intermissions in the midst of other learning activities. For example,
after a teacher presents new content, he can ask students to explain and give
examples, being careful not to insert his own voice too frequently. This gives
an opportunity for learning, as students make the concepts their own, and for
formative evaluation, as misconceptions and understandings are revealed.
More extended student-to-student
conversations may be useful when a topic is debatable, or as a culminating
activity. These types of conversations
deserve special attention. Making space for students to sit or stand so they
can see each other makes a huge difference. Giving students the chance in advance
to write down an important idea and frame their own questions is helpful. The teacher signals a different kind of
discussion in these instances, and these grand conversations can provoke deep
learning.
Student-to-student discussion can lighten
teachers loads. For example, it may take less time to plan such a discussion
than to prepare a lengthy PowerPoint presentation or lecture. A discussion doesn’t result in scads of
papers to grade. However, that doesn’t
mean such discussions are easy. In
fact, I consider student-to-student discussions a pinnacle of pedagogical
excellence. What they minimize in terms of time for preparation, they maximize in
expertise required for effective outcomes.
That, my coaching friends, is where you come in.
Coaches can make suggestions such as
those above and even offer recommendations for specific questions that could
launch a conversation. You might help them frame open-ended questions that promote
learning rather than simply evaluating it. Talk with the teacher about what type of
student-to-student discussion techniques she is already using and which she
would like to expand. Help her hone her role in facilitating discussion, knowing
when to step in and probe, when to step back and listen.
“The one who does the talking does the
learning,” is a maxim that is just as true in coaching as in classrooms, so be
sure to listen a lot after making recommendations about using discussion. You
can help teachers lighten their loads and improve student learning by
supporting a teacher’s use of student-to-student dialogue.
This
week, you might want to take a look at:
This video about discussion
techniques:
Or this one with similar tips for
discussion:
And here’s an idea for encouraging
effective partner talk:
(Thanks, Teaching Channel, for
these examples!)
Why
teachers should care about PLCs:
Coaching
as a social-emotional practice:
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