Teacher to Teacher

In my previous post, I suggested discontinuing the practice of hand raising as a way to structure classroom discussion.  Eliminating this practice helps ensure that every student, rather than just a few volunteers,  is engaged in the discussion.   However, Dr. Feldman cautions:

“Merely tossing out provocative questions to the classroom stratosphere and inviting responses will not support these fragile readers and language users in responding competently and confidently.

“In secondary academic settings, unstructured discussions characteristically elicit learner passivity, default conversational register, selective listening and off-task behavior…all of which keep the status quo…” (Feldman, 2009).

In order to mitigate these problems, teachers can provide a scaffold for classroom discussion.  Here’s a model for preparing students for “academic discourse”:

• Provide students with the language tools (vocabulary, grammar & syntax) necessary to competently discuss the topic.
• Pose a question to the students about the topic.
• Model for the students what a response to your question might sound like.  Use a sentence stem that the students will also use.  Examples of sentence stems would be:
  • “One consequence of the invention was a rise in _________.”
  • “One trait of a mammal is ___________.”
• Have students repeat the model sentence chorally BEFORE rehearsing their sentences with a partner.
• Using the sentence stem, each student shares his or her individual response to the question with a partner.  For additional practice, students can also write their responses before or after sharing with one another.
• Finally,  the teacher calls together the whole class and elicits a response to the question from several of the students.  Remember, the students do not raise their hands.  It is now fair game to randomly call on any student because they’ve had a chance to rehearse their responses.

There are several benefits to this structured thinking and partner rehearsal BEFORE engaging in class discussion:

• It increases the number of students actively “doing the doing” of learning.  They are actively responding.
• All students get feedback/clarification/support from their partners.  Students are not practicing errors.
• The additional time to think and rehearse encourages reflection and thoughtfulness.
• Students are more likely to be confident and willing to share with the group.
• All students are provided the scaffolding in order to confidently utilize the target academic language (vocabulary and syntax).
• The partner practice increases the odds that students are attentive and engaged in the instructional conversation.
• The teacher has written or spoken “evidence checks” of learner engagement.
• This model provides the teacher with informal assessment.  The teacher can listen in or “dip stick” two or three pairs. (Feldman, 2009)

What are some other tasks you’ve scaffolded in order to help ensure student engagement and learning?

Reference

Feldman, K. (2009).  “Response to intervention and older struggling readers:  Special education reform as part of meaningful school improvement.” Educational Service Units Professional Development Organization.  Kearney, NE. 18 Feb. 2009.