Two More Easy Student Talk Strategies

Did you get a chance to try our student talk suggestions from last week? Here are two more suggestions, again from Sarah Tantillo’s blog, “12 Ways to Get Students Speaking and Listening.” Feel free to visit her blog to find even more.

7. Don’t repeat what students say.

Students are like cats who want more food in their bowl: they train us! If you allow students to train you to repeat what they say, then they won’t develop proper speaking or listening skills. When you repeat what students say, it sends the message that they should not to listen to one another. It also teaches them to mumble because they know you will amplify everything.

Another downside is that repeating unnecessarily lengthens class discussions and undermines the ratio of student cognitive work. Doug Lemov (Teach Like a Champion) describes an array of methods for enhancing this ratio, including unbundling (asking numerous questions to dissect a topic or problem), feigning ignorance, and batch-processing (instead of responding to every single comment, responding after several have been made), among others.

                   

9. Invite students to ask questions as often as possible.

But this does not mean asking, “Does anyone have any questions?” for which the answer is almost invariably, “No.” Instead, ask, “What questions could we ask in this situation?” or “What questions can we ask about ____?” Then write their questions down on the board to show how much you value them. As a default, students need to know the utility of applying Five W’s and the H (who, what, when, where, why, and how) to pick apart texts.

Is there data to support student talk?

John Hattie says that “self-verbalization and self-talk” has a .64 effect size in enhancing student achievement.  Since any effect size over .4 exceeds the normal effect that student development with an average teacher would yield in a year, it’s no surprise that our CEL 5D document has two criteria for student talk: 2.2 (Expectation, support, and opportunity for participation and meaning making) and 2.3 (Substance of student talk).

Setting Goals With Students

A Parent’s Guide to Setting Goals With Their Children:

For more tips on setting goals with students, check out the following:

http://www.educationtransformation.org/2013/01/5-tips-for-setting-goals-with-students.html

http://imbloghoppin.blogspot.com/2011/10/meeting-with-parents.html

Student Talk

How might you painlessly integrate more student talk opportunities into your classroom?  Sarah Tantillo’s blog,  12 Ways to Get Students Speaking and Listening is a great resource. 

Here are two of our favorite suggestions from her blog. We’ll share two more next week. Feel free to visit her blog to find even more.

3. Move from paraphrasing to inference as much as you can, and ask students for evidence to back up their ideas or arguments (2.1, 2.3).

For example: “What can you infer from what James just said? What evidence gave you that idea?” Teach students how to paraphrase and infer early in the year so that they can log many hours of practicing these skills. Also, clarify the difference between argument and evidence. No matter what grade or subject you teach, even if the terms are not new to them, the review will establish a common language in the room. Posters can serve as handy reminders. The more students are invited to explain their ideas, the stronger their inference and comprehension skills will become.

5. Ask why as often as possible, to give students more opportunities to explain their ideas (2.1, 2.3).

This will boost their inference skills. Even when they give the “correct” answer, ask them why because (1) they might have guessed and (2) their explanation will teach others in the room who might not have understood the material.

Note: The first few times you ask why, students who aren’t accustomed to being questioned might back away from their response or become defensive. I like to tell students, “I’m not asking why because I think you’re wrong; I’m asking why because I genuinely want to know how you think and because your explanation will help your classmates understand this better.”

Is there data to support student talk?

John Hattie says that “self-verbalization and self-talk” has a .64 effect size in enhancing student achievement.  Since any effect size over .4 exceeds the normal effect that student development with an average teacher would yield in a year, it’s no surprise that our CEL 5D document has two criteria for student talk: 2.2 (Expectation, support, and opportunity for participation and meaning making) and 2.3 (Substance of student talk).

3-2-1 Summary-Formative Assessment

Looking for a new way to assess for learning? Here’s one that is easy to use and easily modified to fit the needs and grade level of your classroom. The 3-2-1 summary is a strategy that allows students to be reflective, while providing teachers with clear evidence of understanding and/or misunderstanding at the end of a lesson. This strategy can be adapted to any topic or content area. The numbers, 3-2-1, refer to how many of each kind of summary statement or response you are asking students to provide. For example:

·         3 facts I learned

·         2 questions I have

·         1 personal connection

Here are some examples of what this could look like in the classroom:

This sample is from the blog Create-Teach-Share

The possibilities are endless, and the responses students give will allow you to assess for student learning to guide future instruction and/or student groupings. The more focused the prompts are, the better the assessment will be to guide next steps.

Here are a few very focused examples for using the 3-2-1 strategy from the book “25 Quick Formative Assessment Strategies for a Differentiated Classroom” by Judith Dodge:

Math:

• 3 strategies for solving word problems
• 2 important things to look for when solving word problems
• 1 solution to a provided word problem

Science:

• 3 parts and functions of a plant
• 2 ways to keep plants healthy
• 1 way the earth would be affected if there were no plants

This strategy elicits student learning by nature, but remember it is only formative assessment if and only if evidence of learning is elicited and used by the teacher and or student to inform next steps.

Claim Evidence Reasoning - Supporting Students in all Core Subjects

Help your students work toward mastering Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for ELA, History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subject and Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and Math Practice #3, Communicating Reasoning.

Using your own content, ask your students to use the claim, evidence, reasoning framework:

1. Compose an arguable claim (also argument, thesis, statement that answers a question)
2. Support the claim with evidence (also text based evidence, data, observations, sources, personal experience)
3. Explain their reasoning (also elaboration, commentary, explanation; showing thinking about the evidence)

This can be accomplished through student talk as well as writing.  

Additional Resources and Information:

     Claim-Evidence-Reasoning in Science by Jodi Wheeler-Toppen

     CCSS for English Language Arts 

     look on the right side for history/social studies, science, and technical subjects
     CCSS for Math