Conversations in the Classroom
People doing the most talking are doing the most learning
Accountable Talk
Accountable talk is a discourse between teachers and students, or students and students where they are focused on academically relevant content. Providing students with opportunities to have accountable talk allows students more time to deepen their understanding, and it provides insight for teachers as to what students know. It is a critical and constructive source of assessing how and what children think.
Talk in Action
Here are a few sample strategies to encourage accountable talk. These activities should first be modeled so that students have an understanding of the skills they need to be successful. Common accountable talk skills include: active listening, taking turns, asking for clarification, paraphrasing, avoiding put downs, or making connections.
Four Corners
The teacher poses a question and posts Strongly Agree, Agree, Disagree and Strongly Disagree in the 4 classroom corners. Students move to the corner they can identify with the most, and they discuss their thinking with the others in the group. Each group then has a chance to explain their reasoning to the class.
Think-Pair-Share
The teacher poses a question and students have time to first think of their own response. Next they share their thinking with a partner. Then a few of the pairs share their thinking with the whole class.
Student-Teacher Conferences
An opportunity for a brief, scheduled meeting between the teacher and a student to discuss the student’s progress, work, and goals. Conferences enable teachers to find out about students’ own perceptions of their learning and achievements and to obtain a deeper understanding of students’ progress. It is a great time for providing immediate and relevant descriptive feedback.
Asking Quality Questions
It is critical that as a teacher the questions you pose to your students allow for them to think deeply and critically. Some different question categories are: Knowing/Understanding (recalling, organizing, describing etc.), Applying (using facts, rules or principles), Analyzing (looking at parts of a whole), Creating (combining ideas to create something new) and Evaluating (developing opinions, judgments or decisions). There is a place for all types of questions in every classroom, it a matter of finding the right balance. As a teacher you need to ensure you are providing students with opportunities to engage discussions that involve higher level thinking (such as creating and evaluating).