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Specific Prompts for Academic Discourse. Teachers love this one. I've used it when I do coaching and it's a very handy tool.

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Academic Discourse or Scientific Argumentation

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Academic Discourse or Scientific Argumentation

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The teacher needs to establish rules and routines for students to follow concerning listening and speaking roles. These protocols would include only one person speaks at any given time and the other students listen and focus on what the speaker is saying, follow CER (claim, evidence and reasoning) practices when making statements, every student is expected to participate, any disagreements need to focus on the topic (if their opinion differs from yours, then “agree to disagree”), and always be respectful of others.

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Veronica Lake
Conversation Starters and Routine Cards

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Veronica Lake
Conversation Starters and Routine Cards

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A few of the key resources embedded in iLit that promote academic discourse included Conversation Starters and Routine Cards. I appreciate theses resources being at the teachers finger tips. We have to teach students how to effective engage in academic conversations for the purpose of learning or expanding learning. A few additional strategies that I use during training sessions are:
1. Accountable Talk Stems
2. Questioning Strategies

All of these strategies require us to develop communication skills as both listener and speaker as it relates to the conversation.

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8 Strategies for Building Students' Academic Language- 
Judi Word

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8 Strategies for Building Students' Academic Language- 
Judi Word

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1. Encourage students to read diverse texts
2. Introduce summary frames
3. Help students translate from academic to social language (and back)
4. Have students complete scripts of academic routines
5. Dynamically introduce academic vocabulary
6. Help students diagram similarities and differences
7. Have students write with a transition handout
8. Teach key words for understanding standardized test prompts

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      MIX IT UP
I’ve used this to encourage discourse.  The rotation helps to mix-up the groups and expose participants to different styles and approaches.  
1.  Assign topics to groups.
2.  Groups then report out on the topic on a sheet which is then posted on a wall.  The reporting out can be pictures, diagrams, flowcharts, outlines or just sentences (group prerogative).
3.  Then one person from the group stays by the sheet while the rest of the group gathers around the next group’s sheet.
4.  That person then explains to the new group about the topic.
5.   Then that person joins that group and that group leaves one person behind to talk about the topic to the next group.
6.   The rotation continues until all groups have had an opportunity to visit each of the topics.  

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      MIX IT UP
I’ve used this to encourage discourse.  The rotation helps to mix-up the groups and expose participants to different styles and approaches.  
1.  Assign topics to groups.
2.  Groups then report out on the topic on a sheet which is then posted on a wall.  The reporting out can be pictures, diagrams, flowcharts, outlines or just sentences (group prerogative).
3.  Then one person from the group stays by the sheet while the rest of the group gathers around the next group’s sheet.
4.  That person then explains to the new group about the topic.
5.   Then that person joins that group and that group leaves one person behind to talk about the topic to the next group.
6.   The rotation continues until all groups have had an opportunity to visit each of the topics.  

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Enabling language production for ELLs in math:  Jim Cummins is the author/consultant for the enV ELL Toolkit.  One of the principles he discusses in the Toolkit is enabling language production for ELLs in the academic language & discourse of math.  The simple translation being:  ELLs need multiple, frequent opportunities to not only learn math concepts & vocabulary but how to use them in meaningful academic discourse through all language domains - listening, speaking, reading, writing.  That means more opportunities for students to interact which everyone’s posts facilitate.  I’m looking forward to trying them out.  With any group interactivity where math is involved, instead of calling out numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5..., call our numbers by grade appropriate math content such as make a group of 2 + 3 - 4 + 1, 2 squared or the square root of 16, or 9/3.  Provides opportunities for students to hear verbal models of grade level math content in grammatically correct sentences & contexts.  Plus it’s fun.  😊

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Using a protocol as suggested in the New York Times article below and inspiration from Visual Thinking Strategies to have students think about and describe what is happening in a photo or piece of art and providing evidence about how they know.  This is particularly powerful for EL students developing not only vocabulary for discussions, but content vocabulary as well.

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40 Intriguing Photos to Make Students Think (Published 2016)

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A slide show of some of our favorite “What’s Going On in This Picture?” posts, culled from four years of images.

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Reciprocal Teaching Roles with Sentence Frames

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Reciprocal Teaching Roles with Sentence Frames

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Students have routine reciprocal teaching roles that each have their own set of sentence starters. Students rotate through positions regularly so they become fluent with the different roles and sentence starters that support the discussion.

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Yvette Payne 10 Student Led Discussion Strategies Reference: lindsayannlearning.com

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Yvette Payne 10 Student Led Discussion Strategies Reference: lindsayannlearning.com

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10 STUDENT LED DISCUSSION STRATEGIES FOR WHOLE CLASS DISCUSSION

Do you struggle with student led discussion strategies? Been there; done that!  Before this school year started, as I was thinking of what I might focus on for a blog series, I kept coming back to the idea of classroom discussion. It’s the heart of what an ELA classroom is about. Our foundation is built on the exchange of ideas, the use of speaking and listening skills to process and further student learning.  Yet, depending on the class, it can be like pulling teeth to get a discussion rolling.

Before we get too far, did you catch my other posts about classroom discussion strategies?  If not, be sure to check them out:

4 Goals for Classroom Discussion

10 Ways to Make Sure Whole Class Discussions Will Fail

Teaching Strategies for Small Group Discussion

How to Engage Introverts in Classroom Discussion

7 Free Online Discussion Tools

ONWARD AND FORWARD:  10 STUDENT LED DISCUSSION STRATEGIES FOR SPICY DISCUSSION

If you are a tech-savvy soul, you will also want to check out this post about tech discussion strategies and tools for student discussion.

1. “STOPLIGHT DISCUSSION”

The Gist:  If you’re looking for a way for students to run their own discussion (hello, Danielson Framework Domains 2 and 3!), this is a simple and effective discussion strategy for you! When I first started thinking purposefully about student discussion during my national board process, this one of the first teaching hacks I used.

Have students sit in a circle.  Give each student three different Silo cups – red, yellow, and green.  Discuss with students the procedure for using the cups during discussion:  they will invite their peers into the conversation based on the cup color displayed.  They are building a conversation with each other, not with you, the teacher.  This is a paradigm shift for many students, especially if they aren’t used to student-led discussion, and you may have to remind them that they are not looking to you for “approval” during the conversation. They should be most concerned with what their peers are saying.

What do the Student Led Discussion Cups Signal?

Red = I am processing and/or taking notes right now.  Don’t call on me.

Green = I am ready to jump into the conversation.  Please call on me.

Yellow = I would like to take this conversation in a new direction.  Call on me to shake up a repetitive or “dead” discussion.

Tips:  Have students track their own participation and reflect/goal-set after a discussion. To encourage productive student led discussion, you may also need to jump in and call on students who haven’t had an opportunity to talk. At first, your participants may not always follow the norm of equity during discussion. That’s to be expected. Students usually catch on pretty quickly after I’ve done this a few times, especially if I have clearly set norms for conversation.  Hearing my voice means they are not doing their job!  A simple fix is to make sure students all know the names of other students in the class.  I digress, but it is always worth it to make time for team building.  In the beginning of the year.  During the year.  Always!

2. “SNOWBALL DISCUSSION”

The Gist:  The basic premise of a snowball discussion is that students will form larger and larger groups over time.  This is great student led discussion strategy to use if you have a series of questions that build on each other or if you want students to hear a variety of different opinions while incorporating a bit of movement.  Most recently, I chose this type of discussion as a processing tool after students watched “The Danger of a Single Story” and responded individually to some questions about Adichie’s themes and ideas.  I had students start out with a partner, and then “snowball” to continue the discussion with another partnership and a different question.  By the time we formed one large “snowball,” the class was warmed up and ready to discuss.  Their last and largest question focused on the big picture “so what” and personal application of the TED talk to their own lives.

Change it Up:  If you want students to practice argumentation skills and have debatable question prompts, you could purposefully select certain students to be the “devil’s advocates” in the midst of the snowball discussion.

3. “SPEED DATING” / “CONCENTRIC CIRCLES”

The Gist: Speed dating is one of my favorite student led discussion tools if I want to incorporate movement and a variety of different student partnerships.  I divide the class in half and line them up on different sides of the classroom (or hallway).  One of these lines stays in place. One of these lines rotates, with students moving to the left or right to a new discussion partner when I direct them to do so or after a certain number of minutes. Students who get to the end of the line will rotate back to the beginning of the line.

Change it Up: Have students form two concentric circles.  Again, one circle rotates and the other does not.  Set a time limit, and instruct students to rotate to their left or right to find their next discussion buddy.

4. “SAY SOMETHING”

The Gist: This is great as a warm-up, to help students process a complex topic, or to practice the skill of building a conversation. I will have students stand in a circle or sit on their desks. Everyone must “say something” new about a text or topic.  Each student must briefly summarizing the conversation/comment that came prior to his or her comment before building the conversation, playing devil’s advocate, or continuing with a new idea.  This reinforces the idea that one’s voice in a discussion does not exist in isolation and is really entering into a conversation.  It also challenges students to think of different perspectives and explore different angles for discussion and analysis since they cannot repeat something that has already been said. Like all good discussion strategies, this one is flexible. Want to continue around the circle another time? Sure!  Highlight a rock star moment to “spark” a new discussion topic for students to consider?  Sure!

Tips: As a teacher, you need to be ready and willing to jump in and “flag” a comment as a repeat.  You also may have to help students build a conversation at first by showing excitement, modeling effective “building” and “summarizing” comments, and asking questions.  You can even give this responsibility over to students/a teacher’s assistant.  Have him or her hold up a red card or wave a red flag if a comment repeats rather than extends the conversation.

5. “PINWHEEL”

The Gist: This student led discussion strategy works well when students all have read different texts and are coming together to discuss a common theme.  It also works well if you want students to explore one text, but from different character perspectives or different analytical lenses. Students form lines, or sit in rows fanning out from a smaller circle of chairs/desks placed in the center of the room.  Throughout the discussion, students rotate into the center seat, seamlessly continuing the conversation.  To see this discussion in action, plus more tips, I suggest checking out this Teaching Channel resource.

6. “FISHBOWL”

The Gist: This tried and true student led discussion strategy is well-known, so I won’t spend a lot of time describing it. The premise of a fishbowl is that students discuss as a small group in the center of the room while the rest of the class observes. I have found that this works best when you set a purpose for the students who are not discussing.  What are they watching for or which student are they watching?  Will they write a reflection or respond to a brief question on Google Classroom afterward?  Are they going to be having their own discussion via a chat tool such as Today’s Meet?  Do you want to keep it lighthearted with by having the students play Fishbowl Bingo?

Change it Up: Assign one or two students as “coaches” to one student inside the fishbowl.  Give them a whiteboard or signs to hold up in order to “coach” the fishbowl participant.

7. “PANEL DISCUSSION”

The Gist: This is student led discussion gold! Assign students any topic to research and discuss as “experts.” This works well if you want students to “teach” the class about different topics or explore inquiry-based questions.

Change it Up: Allow students to rotate in and out of the panel or allow the audience to ask questions which, in turn, direct the conversation.  You could even set up dueling panels to facilitate exchange of ideas on two sides of an issue or synthesis of two related topics.

8. “PASS-PASS-SYNTHESIZE”

The Gist: This is a written student led discussion strategy.  Students respond to a question or write about a topic for a set amount of time before “passing” the paper to a partner who then writes for another set amount of time.  After two rounds of response and writing, the paper is passed a third time. This time, each student has to read the two previous responses and “synthesize” them together.  You may want to provide students with sentence stems for synthesis and response. This has natural extension to share-out or a whole-class share out.

Change it Up: Trash talk:  Have students wad their papers up into small balls and “throw” them into the air or to another student.  Each student grabs one, smooths out the paper, responds, and then wads it up again to pass it on.

9. “GALLERY WALK”

The Gist: Think of this as a student led discussion on wheels. Students write or create something and then present it to the class by posting it on a wall or table in the room.  You may choose to divide the class and have half of the students stand by their paper or project in order to explain it to their peers as they stop by, or you may have all students circulate, taking notes to identify trends, ideas with which they agree or disagree, or leaving a sticky note comment/response for each student.

Tips:  After spending time in the “gallery,” you can have students come back together to discuss what they learned, trends they observed, and extend their learning with a “big picture” application or synthesis question. You could also have students return to their posted work and categories sticky notes left by classmates, write a written reflection, or share out briefly.

10. “GRAFFITI WALL”

The Gist: I’ve used this to generate classroom discussion about reading homework by asking students to “graffiti” the board or a large sheet of paper with a meaningful quote and image to represent their reading.  Then, I ask students to look at the wall and look for trends and patterns to connect the quotes and images together.  You can also ask students to then select a quote or image that they did not personally contribute to the graffiti wall and respond to it in writing before sharing out with a partner, small group, or with the whole class.

Change it Up: You can create an online graffiti wall using Google Drawings or Padlet.

I hope you have gained a new teaching idea or two. Sometimes the best experiences come from a slight tweak or change-up of a tried-and-true discussion strategy. Here’s to flexibility and responsiveness!

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Lindsay Ann Learning English Teacher Blog

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Do you struggle with student led discussion strategies? Been there! Done that! Before this school year started, I kept coming back to the idea of classroom discussion. The ELA classroom is all about the exchange of ideas and the use of speaking and listening skills to process and further student learning. Yet, depending on the class, it can be like pulling teeth to get a discussion rolling.

Before we get too far, did you catch my other posts about classroom discussion strategies? Be sure to check them out:

10 Student Led Discussion Strategies for Spicy Discussion

If you are a tech-savvy soul, you will also want to check out this post about tech discussion strategies and tools for student discussion.

1. "Stoplight Discussion"

The Gist: Are you looking for a way for students to run their own discussion (hello, Danielson Framework Domains 2 and 3!)? Stoplight discussion is a simple and effective discussion strategy for you! When I first started thinking purposefully about student discussion during my national board process, this one of the first teaching hacks I used.

Have students sit in a circle. Give each student three different Silo cups - red, yellow, and green. Discuss the procedure for using cups during discussion: they will invite their peers into the conversation based on the cup color displayed. Because cups signal conversation, students build a conversation with each other and not with you, the teacher.

This is a paradigm shift for many students, especially if they aren't used to student-led discussion.

You may have to remind them that they are not looking to you for "approval" during the conversation. They should be most concerned with what their peers are saying.

What do the Student Led Discussion Cups Signal?

Red = I am processing and/or taking notes right now. Don't call on me.

Green = I am ready to jump into the conversation. Please call on me.

Yellow = I would like to take this conversation in a new direction. Call on me to shake up a repetitive or "dead" discussion.

Tips: Have students track their own participation and reflect/goal-set after a discussion. To encourage productive student led discussion, you may also need to call on students who haven't had an opportunity to talk. At first, your participants may not always follow the norm of equity during discussion. That's to be expected. Students usually catch on pretty quickly after I've done this a few times, especially if I have clearly set norms for conversation. Hearing my voice means they are not doing their job!

A simple fix is to make sure students all know the names of other students in the class. I digress, but it is always worth it to make time for team building. In the beginning of the year. During the year. Always!

2. "Snowball Discussion"

The Gist: The basic premise of a snowball discussion is that students will form larger and larger groups over time. This is great student led discussion strategy to use if you have a series of questions that build on each other or if you want students to hear a variety of different opinions while incorporating a bit of movement.

Most recently, I chose this type of discussion as a processing tool after students watched " The Danger of a Single Story " and responded individually to some questions about Adichie's themes and ideas. Students began with a partner, and then "snowballed" to continue the discussion with another partnership and a different question.

By the time we formed one large "snowball," the class was warmed up and ready to discuss as a whole class. Their last and largest question focused on the big picture "so what" and personal application.

Change it Up: If you want students to practice argumentation skills and have debatable question prompts, you could purposefully select certain students to be the "devil's advocates" in the midst of the snowball discussion.

3. "Speed Dating" / "Concentric Circles"

The Gist: Speed dating is one of my favorite student led discussion tools. I love to incorporate movement and a variety of different student partnerships!

I divide the class in half and line them up on different sides of the classroom (or hallway). One of these lines stays in place. One of these lines rotates. Students move to the left or right to a new discussion partner when I direct them to do so or after a certain number of minutes. Students who get to the end of the line rotate back to the beginning of the line.

Change it Up: Have students form two concentric circles. Again, one circle rotates and the other does not. Set a time limit, and instruct students to rotate to their left or right to find their next discussion buddy.

4. "Say Something"

The Gist: This is great as a warm-up, to help students process a complex topic, or to practice the skill of building a conversation. Students stand in a circle or sit on their desks. Everyone must "say something" new about a text or topic. Each student must briefly summarizing the conversation/comment that came prior to his or her comment before building the conversation, playing devil's advocate, or continuing with a new idea.

Summarizing reinforces the idea that one's voice in a discussion does not exist in isolation and is a part of a larger conversation. This discussion skill also challenges students to think of different perspectives and explore different angles for discussion and analysis since they cannot repeat something that has already been said.

Like all good discussion strategies, "say something" is flexible. Want to continue around the circle another time? Sure! Highlight a rock star moment to "spark" a new discussion topic for students to consider? Sure!

Tips: As a teacher, you need to be ready and willing to jump in and "flag" a comment as a repeat. You also may have to help students build a conversation at first by showing excitement, modeling effective "building" and "summarizing" comments, and asking questions. You can even give this responsibility over to students/a teacher's assistant. Have him or her hold up a red card or wave a red flag if a comment repeats rather than extends the conversation.

5. "Pinwheel"

The Gist: This student led discussion strategy works well when students all have read different texts and are coming together to discuss a common theme. It also works well if you want students to explore one text, but from different character perspectives or different analytical lenses. Students form lines, or sit in rows fanning out from a smaller circle of chairs/desks placed in the center of the room. Throughout the discussion, students rotate into the center seat, seamlessly continuing the conversation. To see this discussion in action, plus more tips, I suggest checking out this Teaching Channel resource.

6. "Fishbowl"

The Gist: This tried and true student led discussion strategy is well-known, so I won't spend a lot of time describing it. The premise of a fishbowl is that students discuss as a small group in the center of the room while the rest of the class observes. I have found that this works best when you set a purpose for the students who are not discussing.

What are they watching for or which student are they watching?

Will they write a reflection or respond to a brief question on Google Classroom afterward?

Are they going to be having their own discussion via a chat tool such as Today's Meet?

Do you want to keep it lighthearted with by having the students play Fishbowl Bingo?

Change it Up: Assign one or two students as "coaches" to one student inside the fishbowl. Give them a whiteboard or signs to hold up in order to "coach" the fishbowl participant.

7. "Panel Discussion"

The Gist: This is student led discussion gold! Assign students any topic to research and discuss as "experts." Panel discussion works well if you want students to "teach" the class about different topics or explore inquiry-based questions.

Change it Up: Allow students to rotate in and out of the panel. Or, allow the audience to ask questions which, in turn, direct the conversation. You could even set up dueling panels to facilitate exchange of ideas on two sides of an issue or synthesis of two related topics.

8. "Pass-Pass-Synthesize"

The Gist: P-P-S is a written student led discussion strategy. Students respond to a question or write about a topic for a set amount of time before "passing" the paper to a partner. This partner then writes for another set amount of time. After two rounds of response and writing, the paper is passed a third time. This time, each student has to read the two previous responses and "synthesize" them together.

You may want to provide students with sentence stems for synthesis and response. P-P-S has natural extension to share-out or a whole-class share out.

Change it Up: Trash talk! Have students wad their papers up into small balls and "throw" them into the air or to another student. Each student grabs a paper ball, responds, and then wads it up again to pass it on.

9. "Gallery Walk"

The Gist: Think of a gallery walk as a student led discussion on wheels. Students write or create something and then present it to the class by posting it on a wall or table in the room. You may choose to divide the class and have half of the students stand by their paper or project in order to explain it to their peers as they stop by, or you may have all students circulate, taking notes to identify trends, ideas with which they agree or disagree, or leaving a sticky note comment/response for each student.

Tips: After spending time in the "gallery," you can have students come back together to discuss what they learned, trends they observed, and extend their learning with a "big picture" application or synthesis question. You could also have students return to their posted work and categories sticky notes left by classmates, write a written reflection, or share out briefly.

10. "Graffiti Wall"

The Gist: I've used graffiti walls to generate classroom discussion about reading homework. Students "graffiti" the board or a large sheet of paper with a meaningful quote and image to represent their reading. Then, students look for trends and patterns to connect the quotes and images together. You can also ask students to then select a quote or image that they did not personally contribute to the graffiti wall and respond to it in writing before sharing out with a partner, small group, or the whole class.

Change it Up: You can create an online graffiti wall using Google Drawings or Padlet.

I hope you have gained a new teaching idea or two!

Sometimes the best experiences come from a slight tweak or changing of a tried-and-true discussion strategy.

Here's to flexibility and responsiveness!

Hey, if you loved this post, I want to be sure you've had the chance to grab a FREE copy of my guide to streamlined grading. I know how hard it is to do all the things as an English teacher, so I'm over the moon to be able to share with you some of my best strategies for reducing the grading overwhelm.

Click on the link above or the image below to get started!

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Student Led Discussion Strategies for Whole Class Discussion

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Do you struggle with student led discussion strategies? Been there! Done that! Before this school year started, I kept coming back to the idea of classroom discussion. The ELA classroom is all about the exchange of ideas and the use of speaking and listening skills to process and further student learning.

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Podcast with Videos by 
JENNIFER GONZALEZ

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Podcast with Videos by 
JENNIFER GONZALEZ

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Connie Lowder

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Listen to this post as a podcast:
When I worked with student teachers on developing effective lesson plans, one thing I always asked them to revise was the phrase "We will discuss."
We will discuss the video. We will discuss the story. We will discuss our results.
Every time I saw it in a lesson plan, I would add a note: "What format will you use? What questions will you ask? How will you ensure that all students participate?" I was pretty sure that We will discuss actually meant the teacher would do most of the talking; He would throw out a couple of questions like "So what did you think about the video?" or "What was the theme of the story?" and a few students would respond, resulting in something that looked like a discussion, but was ultimately just a conversation between the teacher and a handful of extroverted students; a classic case of Fisheye Teaching.

The problem wasn't them; in most of the classrooms where they'd sat as students, that's exactly what a class discussion looked like. They didn't know any other "formats." I have only ever been familiar with a few myself. But when teachers began contacting me recently asking for a more comprehensive list, I knew it was time to do some serious research.

So here they are: 15 formats for structuring a class discussion to make it more engaging, more organized, more equitable, and more academically challenging. If you've struggled to find effective ways to develop students' speaking and listening skills, this is your lucky day.

I've separated the strategies into three groups. The first batch contains the higher-prep strategies, formats that require teachers to do some planning or gathering of materials ahead of time. Next come the low-prep strategies, which can be used on the fly when you have a few extra minutes or just want your students to get more active. Note that these are not strict categories; it's certainly possible to simplify or add more meat to any of these structures and still make them work. The last group is the ongoing strategies. These are smaller techniques that can be integrated with other instructional strategies and don't really stand alone. For each strategy, you'll find a list of other names it sometimes goes by, a description of its basic structure, and an explanation of variations that exist, if any. To watch each strategy in action, click on its name and a new window will open with a video that demonstrates it.

Enjoy!
a.k.a. Chat Stations
Basic Structure: Stations or posters are set up around the classroom, on the walls or on tables. Small groups of students travel from station to station together, performing some kind of task or responding to a prompt, either of which will result in a conversation.

Variations: Some Gallery Walks stay true to the term gallery, where groups of students create informative posters, then act as tour guides or docents, giving other students a short presentation about their poster and conducting a Q&A about it. In Starr Sackstein's high school classroom, her stations consisted of video tutorials created by the students themselves. Before I knew the term Gallery Walk, I shared a strategy similar to it called Chat Stations, where the teacher prepares discussion prompts or content-related tasks and sets them up around the room for students to visit in small groups.
a.k.a. Values Continuum, Forced Debate, Physical Barometer, This or That
Basic Structure: A statement that has two possible responses-agree or disagree-is read out loud. Depending on whether they agree or disagree with this statement, students move to one side of the room or the other. From that spot, students take turns defending their positions.

Variations: Often a Philosophical Chairs debate will be based around a text or group of texts students have read ahead of time; students are required to cite textual evidence to support their claims and usually hold the texts in their hands during the discussion. Some teachers set up one hot seat to represent each side, and students must take turns in the seat. In less formal variations (which require less prep), a teacher may simply read provocative statements students are likely to disagree on, and a debate can occur spontaneously without a text to refer to (I call this variation This or That in my classroom icebreakers post). Teachers may also opt to offer a continuum of choices, ranging from "Strongly Agree" on one side of the room, all the way to "Strongly Disagree" on the other, and have students place themselves along that continuum based on the strength of their convictions.

Basic Structure: Students are divided into 4 groups. Three of these groups are assigned to represent specific points of view. Members of the fourth group are designated as "provocateurs," tasked with making sure the discussion keeps going and stays challenging. One person from each group (the "speaker") sits in a desk facing speakers from the other groups, so they form a square in the center of the room. Behind each speaker, the remaining group members are seated: two right behind the speaker, then three behind them, and so on, forming a kind of triangle. From above, this would look like a pinwheel. The four speakers introduce and discuss questions they prepared ahead of time (this preparation is done with their groups). After some time passes, new students rotate from the seats behind the speaker into the center seats and continue the conversation.

Variations: When high school English teacher Sarah Brown Wessling introduced this strategy in the featured video (click Pinwheel Discussion above), she used it as a device for talking about literature, where each group represented a different author, plus one provocateur group. But in the comments that follow the video, Wessling adds that she also uses the strategy with non-fiction, where students represent authors of different non-fiction texts or are assigned to take on different perspectives about an issue.
a.k.a. Socratic Circles
Basic Structure: Students prepare by reading a text or group of texts and writing some higher-order discussion questions about the text. On seminar day, students sit in a circle and an introductory, open-ended question is posed by the teacher or student discussion leader. From there, students continue the conversation, prompting one another to support their claims with textual evidence. There is no particular order to how students speak, but they are encouraged to respectfully share the floor with others. Discussion is meant to happen naturally and students do not need to raise their hands to speak. This overview of Socratic Seminar from the website Facing History and Ourselves provides a list of appropriate questions, plus more information about how to prepare for a seminar.

Variations: If students are beginners, the teacher may write the discussion questions, or the question creation can be a joint effort. For larger classes, teachers may need to set up seminars in more of a fishbowl-like arrangement, dividing students into one inner circle that will participate in the discussion, and one outer circle that silently observes, takes notes, and may eventually trade places with those in the inner circle, sometimes all at once, and sometimes by "tapping in" as the urge strikes them.
a.k.a. Affinity Diagramming
Basic Structure: Give students a broad question or problem that is likely to result in lots of different ideas, such as "What were the impacts of the Great Depression?" or "What literary works should every person read?" Have students generate responses by writing ideas on post-it notes (one idea per note) and placing them in no particular arrangement on a wall, whiteboard, or chart paper. Once lots of ideas have been generated, have students begin grouping them into similar categories, then label the categories and discuss why the ideas fit within them, how the categories relate to one another, and so on.

Variations: Some teachers have students do much of this exercise-recording their ideas and arranging them into categories- without talking at first. In other variations, participants are asked to re-combine the ideas into new, different categories after the first round of organization occurs. Often, this activity serves as a good pre-writing exercise, after which students will write some kind of analysis or position paper.
a.k.a. Speed Dating
Basic Structure: Students form two circles, one inside circle and one outside circle. Each student on the inside is paired with a student on the outside; they face each other. The teacher poses a question to the whole group and pairs discuss their responses with each other. Then the teacher signals students to rotate: Students on the outside circle move one space to the right so they are standing in front of a new person (or sitting, as they are in the video). Now the teacher poses a new question, and the process is repeated.

Variations: Instead of two circles, students could also form two straight lines facing one another. Instead of "rotating" to switch partners, one line just slides over one spot, and the leftover person on the end comes around to the beginning of the line. Some teachers use this strategy to have students teach one piece of content to their fellow students, making it less of a discussion strategy and more of a peer teaching format. In fact, many of these protocols could be used for peer teaching as well.

Basic Structure: Another great idea from Sarah Brown Wessling, this is a small-group discussion strategy that gives students exposure to more of their peers' ideas and prevents the stagnation that can happen when a group doesn't happen to have the right chemistry. Students are placed into a few groups of 4-6 students each and are given a discussion question to talk about. After sufficient time has passed for the discussion to develop, one or two students from each group rotate to a different group, while the other group members remain where they are. Once in their new group, they will discuss a different, but related question, and they may also share some of the key points from their last group's conversation. For the next rotation, students who have not rotated before may be chosen to move, resulting in groups that are continually evolving.

Basic Structure: Two students sit facing each other in the center of the room; the remaining students sit in a circle around them. The two central students have a conversation based on a pre-determined topic and often using specific skills the class is practicing (such as asking follow-up questions, paraphrasing, or elaborating on another person's point). Students on the outside observe, take notes, or perform some other discussion-related task assigned by the teacher.

Variations: One variation of this strategy allows students in the outer circle to trade places with those in the fishbowl, doing kind of a relay-style discussion, or they may periodically "coach" the fishbowl talkers from the sidelines. Teachers may also opt to have students in the outside circle grade the participants' conversation with a rubric, then give feedback on what they saw in a debriefing afterward, as mentioned in the featured video.

Basic Structure: One student assumes the role of a book character, significant figure in history, or concept (such as a tornado, an animal, or the Titanic). Sitting in front of the rest of the class, the student responds to classmates' questions while staying in character in that role.

Variations: Give more students the opportunity to be in the hot seat while increasing everyone's participation by having students do hot seat discussions in small groups, where one person per group acts as the "character" and three or four others ask them questions. In another variation, several students could form a panel of different characters, taking questions from the class all together and interacting with one another like guests on a TV talk show.
a.k.a. Pyramid Discussion
Basic Structure: Students begin in pairs, responding to a discussion question only with a single partner. After each person has had a chance to share their ideas, the pair joins another pair, creating a group of four. Pairs share their ideas with the pair they just joined. Next, groups of four join together to form groups of eight, and so on, until the whole class is joined up in one large discussion.

Variations: This structure could simply be used to share ideas on a topic, or students could be required to reach consensus every time they join up with a new group.

Whereas the other formats in this list have a distinct shape-specific activities you do with students-the strategies in this section are more like plug-ins, working discussion into other instructional activities and improving the quality and reach of existing conversations.

One of the limitations of discussion is that rich, face-to-face conversations can only happen when all parties are available, so we're limited to the time we have in class. With a tool like Voxer, those limitations disappear. Like a private voice mailbox that you set up with just one person or a group (but SOOOO much easier), Voxer allows users to have conversations at whatever time is most convenient for each participant. So a group of four students can "discuss" a topic from 3pm until bedtime-asynchronously-each member contributing whenever they have a moment, and if the teacher makes herself part of the group, she can listen in, offer feedback, or contribute her own discussion points. Voxer is also invaluable for collaborating on projects and for having one-on-one discussions with students, parents, and your own colleagues. Like many other educators, Peter DeWitt took a while to really understand the potential of Voxer, but in this EdWeek piece, he explains what turned him around.

A backchannel is a conversation that happens right alongside another activity. The first time I saw a backchannel in action was at my first unconference: While those of us in the audience listened to presenters and watched a few short video clips, a separate screen was up beside the main screen, projecting something called TodaysMeet (update: TodaysMeet has shut down. Use YoTeach! instead.) It looked a lot like those chat rooms from back in the day, basically a blank screen where people would contribute a few lines of text, the lines stacking up one after the other, no other bells or whistles. Anyone in the room could participate in this conversation on their phone, laptop, or tablet, asking questions, offering commentary, and sharing links to related resources without ever interrupting the flow of the presentations. This kind of tool allows for a completely silent discussion, one that doesn't have to move at a super-fast pace, and it gives students who may be reluctant to speak up or who process their thoughts more slowly a chance to fully contribute. For a deeper discussion of how this kind of tool can be used, read this thoughtful overview of using backchannel discussions in the classroom by Edutopia's Beth Holland.
a.k.a. Accountable Talk
Talk moves are sentence frames we supply to our students that help them express ideas and interact with one another in respectful, academically appropriate ways. From kindergarten all the way through college, students can benefit from explicit instruction in the skills of summarizing another person's argument before presenting an alternate view, asking clarifying questions, and expressing agreement or partial agreement with the stance of another participant. Talk moves can be incorporated into any of the other discussion formats listed here.

Whole Brain Teaching is a set of teaching and classroom management methods that has grown in popularity over the past 10 years. One of WBT's foundational techniques is Teach-OK, a peer teaching strategy that begins with the teacher spending a few minutes introducing a concept to the class. Next, the teacher says Teach!, the class responds with Okay!, and pairs of students take turns re-teaching the concept to each other. It's a bit like think-pair-share, but it's faster-paced, it focuses more on re-teaching than general sharing, and students are encouraged to use gestures to animate their discussion. Although WBT is most popular in elementary schools, this featured video shows the creator of WBT, Chris Biffle, using it quite successfully with college students. I have also used Teach-OK with college students, and most of my students said they were happy for a change from the sit-and-listen they were used to in college classrooms.

An oldie but a goodie, think-pair-share can be used any time you want to plug interactivity into a lesson: Simply have students think about their response to a question, form a pair with another person, discuss their response, then share it with the larger group. Because I feel this strategy has so many uses and can be way more powerful than we give it credit for, I devoted a whole post to think-pair-share; everything you need to know about it is right there.

TWO MORE YOU'LL LOVE

Since writing this post, I have learned about two more discussion strategies that teachers are finding to be incredibly effective and powerful for getting students to talk, especially about books and other texts:

This protocol has students come up with their own Thoughts, lingering Questions, and Epiphanies from an assigned reading. Teachers who have used this method say it has generated some of the richest conversations they have ever heard from students!

This strategy places students into one-on-one conversations, getting them to learn each others' names better and create a track record of what they talked about. Excellent for classes where you want to assess for discussion and help students get more comfortable with each other.

So what else do you have? I would like to think this is a pretty complete list, but I'm sure more strategies are out there. If you use a discussion strategy that's not mentioned here, please share it below.

Come back for more.
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The Big List of Class Discussion Strategies

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Here they are: 15 formats for structuring a class discussion to make it more engaging, more organized, more equitable, and more academically challenging.

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Partner A and Partner B work together.
Partner A makes a statement from the learning activities (could be vocabulary definition, statement of content information, inference about the content topic, etc.)

Partner B listens carefully to the statement and paraphrases what Partner A said.

If Partner B has doe this correctly, Partner A congratulates Partner B. If not, Partner A repeats the original statement and Partner B paraphrases again and awaits confirmation that the paraphrase was accurate.

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Think about your earliest memory of Reading…

Where were you?

What were you reading?

Were you able to read it and enjoy it?

Could you get through the text?

Tell your partner about that experience

When you’re done I want to show you a video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMZsDaTxaKo

After the participants watch the video, I have them reflect on the GAZILLION rules of reading in English.

Now on the tri-fold paper I have provided write a response for:

1)    the grapho-phonemic rules that Ricky encountered in section 1

2)    how many vowel phonemes there are in the English language in section 2

3)    how many grapho-phonemic rules there are in the English language in section 3

We come back to the large group and participants display their responses when I ask the three questions.  Normally, no one gets this correct, but it definitely gives them an idea of how difficult English is and facilitates the opportunity for academic discourse.

It is so difficult at times for a native speaker to project themselves in an ELL experience.  Although this video is funny, imagine a child making these mistakes, in front of their peers and on a daily basis.  This gives participants a perspective of an EL experience.

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The classroom is broken up into groups of 4-5 with each group being assigned a letter. Every student in the group is assigned a number. Each group discusses the topic questions. When the classroom re-convenes the teacher can call on a group and choose a number from the jar and the student with the corresponding number is asked to discuss the group's answer. This strategy encourages students to speak who do not normally speak in the classroom setting and allows all students to have a discussion point from their group discussion.

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America;s Choice - "Classroom Conversation - A Way to Begin"

Strategies for Student to Student Discourse:
1. Teacher discusses the parameters of student discourse and defines what a conversation is and how to conduct one
2. Group norms are established and may include; One person speaking at a time, Active listening by students, Showing respect of students and their responses, Using a students name when responding to a statement made by a student.
3. Ask open ended questions to start the discussion
4. Allow students some time to discuss the question posed by the teacher in small group. This provides students the opportunity to practice their discussion skills in an environment having less anxiety/stress.
5. Move into whole class discussion:
a. Re-enforce the idea that the teacher is not the focus of the conversation but that the students will be responding to each other
b. Exercise wait time
c. Teacher physically removes him/herself from the focus by standing off to the side encouraging students to respond to each other and NOT the teacher
d. Teacher may need to ask probing questions to rekindle the conversation
e. Teacher encourages students to support their claims by citing evidence from the text
f. Debrief the discussion with the students allowing them an opportunity to state what they liked/disliked, what came easy/ what was difficult, etc.

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Building Natural Academic Discourse - Not Your Normal Word Wall (Amanda Hesssion

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Building Natural Academic Discourse - Not Your Normal Word Wall (Amanda Hesssion

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While academic discourse is formal by definition it's nice to build on to the natural conversation that takes place in any learning environment. Forced academic discourse, where the dialogue is not natural and doesn't build from the learners ideas can feel silted and unnatural. One strategy I used to assist students in making their everyday classroom conversation more "mathy" or to elevate the academic discourse in my classroom was to use a word wall. This word wall was non standard in that the focus words were the normal everyday language students naturally used and the supporting information was the formal math jargon. That way students could easily access and replace common words with a higher level of vocabulary. I'd simply ask them to "math-up" their language and point at our wall.

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Discover…What are you aware of that needs work

Decide…What have you decided to do about it

Discipline…What’s a 3 step plan of action

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Tabita Adair

In the book Intentional Talk, the authors discuss the idea of students “revising their math thinking”. Students are often hesitant to participate in discussions/ discourse because they are afraid to say something incorrect. This simple phrase is a fantastic way to develop a classroom culture where it is okay to make a mistake or change your thinking based on new mathematical experiences or other students’ reasoning/ justification. I like to go back to students who may have initially had an incorrect concept or partial understanding and ask them if they would like to “revise their thinking”. I even look for opportunities to revise my own thinking “out loud” for students to see. Using this phrase consistently in the classroom will encourage discussion because it gives students freedon to present ideas that are still “in progress” or “unpolished” knowing they always have the freedom to go back and revise their thinking,

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This framework from - ASCD can be used to guide academic discourse.

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Hand Up-Stand Up-Pair Up
Students raise hand, walk around to find a partner (music can be used for pacing), give a high five, and then discuss the given prompt or questions. Sentence stems can help discussion and also designating what student talks first and then second helps (for example, the student with the longest hair shares first, after 30 second you prompt the second student to start sharing).  I have been working with a district focusing on Kagen strategies.  Their goal to develop discourse is "equal turns and equal time".  A good simple reminder for discourse and equity.

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Save the Last Word

Purpose: Save the last word is a small-group discussion protocol that lasts 20–30 minutes and is designed to help participants pull the main ideas out of a text, listen to one another, and build on one another's ideas.  Participants read a text in advance and choose a sentence or passage they consider important or striking. After a participant has read the passage he or she has chosen aloud, the other participants each have one minute to respond. Then, the first participant gets "the last word," with two to three minutes to explain why she/he chose that passage and to connect her/his thinking to that of her fellow participants.

Process/Ritual:

1. Participant A reads aloud the selected text (he/she may also direct group members to this excerpt in the actual text).

2. In a go-round, one at a time, each group member makes at least one comment about the selected text:

● I think that quote means…

● I think the author is saying…

● How does the word/phrase, “______” connect to…?

● What do you think the author means when he writes, “________”?

● I agree/disagree with _____ because ___________.

● I’d like to add on to what ____ said about _______.  _________

● This quote develops the author’s idea that…

● I’m a little confused by how/why…

3. Participant A then concludes the go-round:

● I chose this quote because…

● I think the author is saying…

● I’m not sure what the author means by, “__________”

● _______ helped me understand that ____________

4. The group then repeats the process for additional group members.

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100 questions that promote Mathematical Discourse

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100 questions that promote Mathematical Discourse

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I like to pull various questions from this document during lessons to encourage deeper discussions and allow the students to communicate not only with me but with each other as well. It also helps them to reason and justify their responses in addition to practicin critical thinking skills.

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Can the questions you're asking in the mathematics classroom be answered with a simple "yes" or "no," or do they invite students to deepen their understanding?
Asking better questions can open new doors for students, promoting mathematical thinking and classroom discourse. To help you encourage deeper discussions, here are 100 questions to incorporate into your instruction by Dr. Gladis Kersaint, mathematics expert and advisor for Ready Mathematics.

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100 Questions that Promote Mathematical Discourse

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Can the questions you're asking in the mathematics classroom be answered with a simple "yes" or "no," or do they invite students to deepen their understanding? Asking better questions can open new doors for students, promoting mathematical thinking and classroom discourse.

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5 Practices for Orchestrating Mathematical Discourse

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5 Practices for Orchestrating Mathematical Discourse

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This is from NCTM - I use this poster when coaching, with emphasis on selecting and sequencing student responses.

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I have two questions that I use consistently to stimulate thinking:
What do you notice?
What do you wonder?
I ask students to think for about 60 seconds, then turn and talk, or do a Think-Pair-Share

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Partner Activity: Give one partner a Yes and other partner a No card. Ask formative type questions during a training and have them discuss question with partner and decide who will hold up their card (if the answer is Yes or No).  Call for show of cards, then ask a couple of different partnerships to justify and explain why they chose Yes or No. Sample question: "Academic discourse only refers to verbal  communication." Discuss with partner and be ready to justify answer.

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Add sentence frames in a text box inside a large speech bubble (8 x 6) using a large font (70-80). Print landscape on colored paper, laminate, and post.

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I use Stand & Talks as an ice-breaker activity in workshops as a demonstration of ideas to get students participating in class/group discussions.  Sara Van Der Werf  has lots of great ideas on discourse for the math classroom!

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I recently did a 1 hour Global Math Department Presentation on 'Stand & Talks'. UPDATE 11.15.18: You can view a recording of that presentation HERE. In the presentation I share a link to a google folder of additional resources I've developed since writing this blog post.

This post is my #1 tip for math teachers in 2017-18. It has been the secret to increasing the number of students who talk out loud about math each day in class to nearly 100% - everyday. The best news is anyone can do this. It's easy. Once you start doing this and seeing results you will also be excited to change tasks to increase discourse. This post is LONG, but stay with me. This tip has really been amazing in my own practice. I do it everyday in my classes now and it has radically changed the amount of discourse in my classroom.

Recently I was sitting at a coffee shop blogging and at the table next to me was a recent education grad doing a practice interview with someone. He was asked to prepare a 4th grade math lesson he needed to teach to those interviewing him. I could not help but listen in to his answers. He was eager, serious and obviously had little experience like all newbies. His answers were full of the things that they teach you in your college ed programs saying words like 'do now', formative assessment, exit tickets and think/pair/share. He said the right things, but his answers were hollow, missing the practicalities of how these things played out in a real class. When he said 'think/pair/share' I inwardly cringed, because I know better now. I use to say I used 'think/pair/share' and/or 'turn & talk' all the time - now I know better and I do better.

I thought I would share with you something that has transformed my classroom culture. It is a small tweak anyone can do A.N.Y.O.N.E. It does not matter how you define yourself as a teacher - traditional, radical, groups, rows.....This tweak is the one thing observers in my room always comment on (in a positive way). " Sara, how do you get every student to talk?" " Sara, I've never seen _______ speak in class ever." This tweak has made me look good. Seriously, you need to do what I am going to write about every day in your class. Every day. If you work with adults, you need to do this with adults. I started doing this regularly 4 years ago and seriously for the last 2 years and my classroom discourse has changed. I don't recommend this because it will make you look good to observers, I recommend this because it is best for students and without much effort on your part will change your classroom culture related to student discourse.

Let's be honest, this doesn't work as well as leaders claim.

Think/pair/share (or turn & talks) as an instructional tool has been around for years. You will hear the phrase in most teacher interviews and at teacher conferences. Mentors recommend this move in post-observation meetings. There are things that are amazing about this move. The silent think time removes the stigma that being good at math is being fast at math. It invites so many learners into believing they are mathematicians. Here is where it falls about. We then say as teachers, "Turn to your shoulder partner" and discuss what you were thinking about.

This is what it is suppose to look like. Every student is talking to their partner or group. They all have eye contact with one another. None of them have phones out in their lap texting. Everyone is 100% engaged. i don't know about you, but in my classroom, the only group that looks like this is the one I was standing next to looking at. I always have a few groups that take 2-4 minutes for even one word to come out of their mouths. 2-4 minutes to get started is often way longer than I want to give before we have a class discussion. When I do have a class discussion, I still hear from the same 2-5 students I always hear from.

Note: I do think there are teachers who can pull 'think-pair-share' off successfully all the time. It is way better than doing nothing. It is great for EL students as well as many others. One of my favorite bloggers, Jennifer Gonzalez has a podcast titled "In praise of 'think, pair share'". Check it out HERE. That said, I still think this one tweak would enhance the best practices she shared.

THE INSTRUCTIONAL MOVE

I lovingly call this move ' stand & talk'. If you've been doing think/pair/shares with students already, then this tweak will be easy for you. Basically you give students some private think time (30-120 seconds), have them stand-up and walk across the room to find a partner and share their thinking. It is a smidgen more complicated than this though - because you need to give them something to talk about, something to notice and describe. The success of stand & talks is dependent on the work of the teacher prior. I will tell you that in my own experience, other than maybe the first one or two

Stand & Talks I've done, it takes the same or less amount of time to do a S&T versus a turn and talk and the results are better.

I love doing stand & talks because it fits two of the goals I have for my classroom - that students will move at least every 20 minutes everyday and that students will will say (notice and describe) mathematical concepts before I say it for them. I also know talking out-loud engages students brains differently than just sitting and getting information.

side note: someday soon I am doing a blog post on ideas for incorporating movement in the secondary math classroom. A small way to give students a ' brain-break' is to have them stand up and walk across the room. An easy best practice (movement) that is rarely seen daily in secondary math classrooms.

To help you understand 'stand & talks' in my classroom I will share with you a script of sorts for doing one, tons of examples of what I ask students to stand and talk about and some tips for implementing them in your classroom. Here we go.....

A STAND & TALK IN ACTION (a script)

When I train teachers on doing stand & talks I start by doing one with them & following up with the question, ' What teacher moves did you see me doing during the last 5-10 minutes " Since this is a blog, I will do my best to replicate this. Here we go...

Note: Depending on what I am using with students, I may or may not give time prior for individual think time - I often do, but not always, it depends on the task.

(nothing on my screen) "Learners, I'd like everyone to stand up. Do not have anything in your hands. No calculators. No notebooks. No phones or pencils. Nothing. (I wait until everyone stands before I give my next directions). In a moment I am going to give you something that I want you to look at with a partner. I want you and your partner to notice at least 10 things on the sheet. I want to hear you asking each other things you wonder about. Look closely at all the details. You will be working with this partner for just a few minutes. You can work with anyone except for the people at your table. Please go now and find your partner, no groups of 3 & I will bring you a 1/2 sheet to look at."

Notes:

I give directions after everyone is standing because if I do it when they are sitting they are much slower to get up and find a partner. Later in the year, my beginning directions are much shorter than this, because students know what to do when working with a partner.

As students find partners I am handing out a 1/2 sheet for them to look at. I like to hand things out myself, because this gets me moving around the room with my students. It also allows me to link up students who do not have a partner - usually I have just a couple of students who don't have a partner right away and usually only because they can't see who is still looking.

Once I've passed out the 1/2 sheets - this takes me 30 seconds or less, I turn on the same thing they are looking at on my screen. Here is the one I do with teachers (and my students) when I model the procedure for them.

As partners are working I continue to move around the room, listening in. Often students don't even notice me. I give students usually 60-180 seconds to talk. I rarely comment as they talk to one another. I only intervene if partners are not talking to one another, and this is rare.

You will hear me announce to the class during this time - if there is a lull things like....

Me: "I should see you pointing at your card"

Me: "I want you to notice at least 10 things" (hint, use a big # like 10, 15, 20...)

Me: "What do you wonder?"

Me: "Everything on the card is there for a reason, what else do you notice?"

I then ask students to take their seats. (note: about 40% of the time I have the next conversation while they are still standing). Students generally do this really quickly.

Me: "What did you notice? Shout out your noticing and wonderings"

In the case of this task Here are typical things my students say.

I noticed....there are different colors.

I noticed....triangles

I noticed....lines

I noticed....some lines are dotted and some are solid.

I noticed....points

I noticed....some points are open and some are filled

I noticed....a test point

I noticed....a horizontal line at -4

I noticed the test point is at the origin

I noticed....3 equations

I noticed....the equations have less than and greater than symbols

I wonder....why some sections are darker.

I wonder.... why there is a point inside of the triangle

I wonder....why some lines are dotted

and so on and so on.....

Note: I use this task at the start of our systems of inequalities unit. My goal if for my students to see the details of the structure before I tell them things like "When you graph a line with this symbol < you use a dotted like". My students rarely say the things math teachers say when I use this with them, they go right for 'correct mathematics' and say things like "I notice a graph of the solutions to a system of inequalities". Even when I ask teachers to notice and wonder things their student would notice and wonder, they struggle to see the details students notice first. I don't care that students in their partners use the word 'inequality' with this - it always comes out in our class discussion.

During the class discussion, after I started using Stand & Talks, I noticed how many more students volunteered to speak - students I'd never heard from before.

The 2-4 minute S&T not only increases the quantity of students that contribute to the class discussion, but it also increases the quality of what they say. I rarely have a S&T where not every single student is talking out-loud to their partner.

Just in case you are curious, I use this image to further the conversation with the class round inequalities. By adding letters to each region, I find students are also more willing to contribute to the class discussion. (side-note: I often get asked how I made this graph - and of course the answer is Desmos - it is so easy there)

MY TIPS FOR SUCCESSFUL STAND & TALKS

The first few stand & talks you do will take just a bit more time so you set up the norms for future stand and talks . The most important thing you want to do is make sure everyone stands and moves across the room to work with someone not in their table group. (no leaning or sitting unless there is a health reason, but I even make people in casts stand - though they do not have to move across the room). It is important that you make this a no-opt out experience. I will go around the room using non-verbals and or saying something if necessary to assure everyone is standing and talking to only their partner (not from their table) and that the only thing in their hand is the 1/2 sheet I gave them to look at. Demanding 100% will assure the success of all future S&Ts . This takes very little managing after the firs couple of S&Ts .

When I first do these at the start of the year, I tell students why we are doing this. See this post for more on students understanding the definition of math and knowing what mathematicians do. S&T's allow my students to do what mathematicians do - notice and describe. I catch them and name when I see them being mathematicians

Work in partners always. There should be at most one group of 3 and I get to make it. As students make groups I am walking around the room handing out what I want them to work on. As I do this I help students find a partner if they don't have one. I just say "Ayan go over and work with Bo". I've not had a problem with students moving to work with someone. If I have other adults in my classroom, I put them students who don't have partners. My EL aide is great about seeking out a student to work with (and students love working with him and seek him out). Everyone talks.

I usually don't join in with a partner. The main reason for this is I am constantly circulating the room listening in on conversations. I rarely join in except for rare occasions to refocus the students. I do at times say to a partnership either "I am going to call on you to say that to the class" or "Make sure you say that out loud when we come back together as a class"

Make these experiences safe for students. I usually let students select their partner. I find my ELL student will seek out other ELL students and often speak in their first language. I almost always introduce a stand and talk by saying noting the time (1-4 min) they will be working with a a partner. Because I always keep these short, students seem to be OK working with anyone. Last year I never had anyone refuse to work with a single person in class. Students knew that working with this student was not a forever commitment.

I highly recommend if you want them to look at something up front you give it to them to held between them. One sheet per 2 people. I've been amazed how much students point at the paper, even without prompting from me. I don't always give them something to look at, but I'd say 75%+ of the time I do.

If possible, print out what they will look at on cardstock. Most of my stand & talks are 1/2 sheets on cardstock. Since I reuse these each class, I only have to print out 9 sheets of paper giving me 18 cards for 36 students.

If I want students to have a copy of what we are doing for themselves I still use the 1/2 sheet card-stock for partners and then say "whoever is holding the paper, come to my stool and trade it in for 2 copies for you and your partner." I do this as they are returning to their seats. I usually have my students then glue this (usually smaller) version of whatever we were looking at into their notebook. I usually have them get their own copy IF I want them to do something additional with it. (annotate it, solve something....)

I often use S&Ts when there is a lull in class and I need to infuse some energy. Most of my S&Ts are planned, but when we need a shot of energy I will say, "Please open your notebook (or white-board or...)up to what you were just working on. Please stand up, nothing in your hands, no phones, calculators or pencils. Walk across the room and find a partner you've not worked with in a while." Once students are with a partner I'll say, "Whomever is wearing the most black (or the tallest student, or the person standing closest to the door or...), bring your partner to your table and show them what you were working on in your notebook - stay standing" After 1-3 minutes I say, "Switch, go visit your partner's table and have them explain their work". It is amazing how 2-4 minutes of standing and talking re-engages students brains and energizes the room.

I think one reason S&Ts work so well, is it demphasizes me as the teacher and empowers the students. Since they are standing I am hidden. (even at my 5'11' height). S&Ts de-fronts the classroom.

TYPES OF STAND & TALKS

For my stand & talks to work, I've needed to give my students something to talk about. About 80% of the time I put one 1/2 sheet of card stock in the hands of each set of 2 students. Below I'll share with you examples I've used - many from my Advanced Algebra classroom with the hope to inspire you to create to fit your content.

Many of my stand & talks ask students to notice and wonder. I love, love, love having students notice and wonder. For example, before doing Fawn Nguyen's Noah's Ark Task I use this in a S&T .

I love doing stand & talks with new vocabulary. One of my favorite way for students to define new terms (or to review old terms) is with examples and non-examples. For example this is what I used when we defined polynomials....

This is one you can use for students to define polygons.

I teach a large number of ELL students and students in poverty. Anytime I am doing something where I the context may be a challenge, I often address this in a S&T . For example with playing cards. What do you notice?

Or this one to make sure that students did not confuse the non-math and math definitions for 'expressions'.

Or before doing a task about a walking race, I used this picture of a race-walker. You can read more about this task HERE.

If I am going to have my student read text, I often have them read it out-loud with a partner, taking turns to read sentence or paragraphs. I model how to point as you read and how to number paragraphs. Here is one text I had students read for a task at the start of my quadratics unit.

After reading this out-loud with a partner, I had them sit down and individually draw what they just read about. I found students own drawings were much better when they read this standing vs. them reading it alone or someone reading it to the class.

I have a daily goal for students to connect representations in mathematics. This may be at least 2 of the 5 forms of a function (context, graph, table, equation, words) or connecting a visual to a students calculation like this S&T to review multiplying integers before we multiplied polynomials.

I love the #connectingreps Connecting Representation instructional routine found in the New Visions Math Curriculum. Here are a few you can find HERE. They have a lot more.

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I use S&Ts all the time to review material that students should remember from prior courses. For example, at the start of my Advanced Algebra probability unit I used this visual with students and asked them to notice and wonder with a partner.

within 5 minutes our class had reviewed all the basics of probability - including giving a title to this visual. The students named these basics for themselves before I told them what to say. Here is what our work looked like 5 minutes later.

I highly recommend reviewing material this way with a S&T. Students know more than they think they know about prior material. Doing something like this is much faster than taking 3 days each unit to review material.

I like to use S&T's at the start of every unit by giving them something we will be studying in the unit to ponder. For example, here is a visual I use at the start of a unit on the Pythagorean theorem. What do you notice? What do you wonder?

At the start of units I also love to give students a sheet of pictures they will see in the unit and ask them to predict what we will be studying in the unit. Here is the one I use for unit 1 in Advanced Algebra. What do you think my students will learn in this unit?

are amazing with the 200+ visual patterns found HERE. Here are 2 that I used during my exponential equations unit.

Creating a scenario (also called numberless word problems & check out the graph in this post too) removes the numbers, labels, questions and more from a task. Here is one I use with positive and negative numbers.....

Instead of starting with the one that has the numbers already there.

It is amazing how much a student will notice and say if you remove the mathematical question from the task at the start. I encourage you to start with a 'scenario'. Here is a favorite one I used instead of starting with the classic 'painted cube problem. This one is from Nicole Paris. Love it.

I love this photo. Imagine the math questions you could ask about this. Before giving the questions for students start with a scenario.

I love, love this picture. This one is from my home state of Minnesota. What do you notice, what do you wonder? There are some great math questions in this pic.

This is a screen shot from the Wall Street's Journal 's time-lapse video

of an entire Pine City, Minnesota High School Boys Basketball game. The Pine City dragons take only 3-point and layup shots in their games. You can learn a lot more about why my hometown state team does this from a local news station.

Rather than say 'explain why' or 'prove', I often use the phrase "convince me which calculator is correct." Here is a S&T I did using this instructional move to talk about order of operations.

Convince me that these answers are correct.

Of course, 'which one doesn't belong?' tasks are great with Stand & Talks . I often do the class conversation on these as we all continue to stand with our partners.

I also recommend using with #smudgedmath or Open Middle Problems.

I also love using S&T's to introduce new mathematical notation to students. Do you know how much more quickly I could introduce summation notation using this than doing it any other way I've tried before? Seriously, so good. Students who had never seen sigma before were able to figure it out for themselves before I told them anything - in fact in this case I am not sure the class conversation after the S&T with a partner was even necessary.

Here is a S&T I did for students first introduction to augmented matrices. I've never had had so few errors with students setting up augmented matrices in my career with so little effort on my part.

I have lots and lots more examples of stand and talks I do with students because I do them all the time. If I showed them to you all, this post would be 10x longer. Perhaps I need to write a book of these. Ha.

ONE TEACHERS STORY

At the end of this school year I was sitting and talking to a teacher in my school I really

respect. I asked him how he was filling up the last few days. His eyes lit up. He was really excited about a task that he was going to use in his Pre-calculus classes. He had found this site where someone had stacked a bunch of baseballs. He was going to have his students notice and wonder first with this picture and then build a sum of a series.

Moved by his enthusiasm for the task, I said, "Can I offer you one tweak to what you are going to do?". He said ' yes.'. I told him that I thought he should do a Stand and Talk with the pictures during the notice/wonder time and described how to do it. I even made him a document ( Pile of Baseballs Stand & Talk) he could print out on cardstock (which I provided and printed this one time) so he could see that me doing this process took 5 minutes to set up. He agreed to give it a try.

The next afternoon he stopped by my classroom to let me know how it went. "Did all your students talk?", I asked. He smiled and said, "Yes, but I decided to test your theory and in my 2nd class I had them use the visual while sitting and there was far less discussion." I loved his test. It showed both of us that there is something magical about having students stand to talk to one another. I asked if standing took any more time and he shook his head no. This was all the evidence that I needed to keep going with Stand and Talks in my own classroom. I am hoping my coworker will use them much more when we return this fall.

In the past year I've become a huge fan of Peter Liledahl's work on Building Thinking Classrooms. In his work he has identified 9 strategies for engaging students in mathematics. 2 of his strategies have received lots of attention with the online mathematics community - Vertical Non-Permanent Surfaces #vnps and Visibly Random Grouping #vrg In his research on #vnps he measured 'time to task' as a reason for using this. Having students work vertically vs. at a desk changed the engagement in classrooms. If you follow the #vnps hashtag on twitter you will see enthusiastic teachers touting their success with this. When I read the research, it resonated with me because I had been having students get vertical (stand) for years and had seen huge increases in engagement. I think one stumbling block for some teachers using #vnps is not seeing how they can do this everyday. If you want to dip your toes into #vnps, then commit to doing this at least once every unit and use Stand & Talks every other day. For more information on Peter's work, I highly recommend his Global Math Department presentation which is FREE to view HERE.

A final note on #StandTalks

The secret is out. You must start doing Stand & Talks with your students. They are the best thing I started doing in the last 10 years of my classroom. I recommend doing them everyday, but just start with at least one.....but really.....If you think Stand & Talks are something you want to try, I recommend doing at least 5-8 of them over a two weak period. Do it several times before you give up on this instructional move in your classroom. Us math teachers need to get our students moving more, but ultimately my goal is to find ways to engage all students in discourse around mathematics and to empower them as learners. My wish is that you would see immediate results like I did.

Ultimately, I hope that in creating stand & talks for your classroom you adopt the lens that I bring to my classroom. How can I have students say things before I say things for them. What can I put in front of them so they notice the mathematics first? If I get this right, my students feel empowered as mathematicians and do not rely on me or others to make meaning of mathematics. This is my goal e.v.e.r.y - d.a.y!

As always, I love hearing from you when and if you use my ideas in your own classroom. Tweet me @saravdwerf or email me at [email protected] or comment below.

follow-up: David Wees tweeted me this resource ('Rumors' - a group learning routine) after reading this blog post. Thank you to everyone who connects me with more and more great stuff.

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STAND & TALKS. The best thing I ever did to get students talking to one another. - Sara VanDerWerf

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I recently did a 1 hour Global Math Department Presentation on 'Stand & Talks'. UPDATE 11.15.18: You can view a recording of that presentation HERE . In the presentation I share a link to a google folder of additional resources I've developed since writing this blog post.

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Idaho Guidebook for Math and Science Educators: Making Content Accessible to English Learners, WestEd c. 2008

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This is a quick exercise for scaffolding peer critique/feedback.
T--Tell something you like
A--Ask a question
G--Give a suggestion on how your partner can improve their work
Students can choose the work product to use in the discussion. Using a graphic organizer or a sentence frame for each category further supports the student discourse.

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This is an equity based strategy that increases engagement while allowing the teacher or facilitator to have access to their prior knowledge and connections through academic discourse.

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Boosting Engagement With Notices and Wonders

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When students make "I notice" and "I wonder" comments on course content, teachers can see what they know-and what they need to learn.

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3 things you discovered
2 interesting things

1 question that lingers

Categories can be changed depending on group or activity

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This permits all patricipants to be active in a discussion and gives opportunity for new learning to be processed while engaging in meaningful conversation with a partner

1. Share something your partner shared with you

2. What did you and your partner discuss?

3. What is something you and your partner are still wondering?

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Create discussion groups around the following concepts:
a.  Assumptions
b.  Agreements
c.  Arguments
d. Aspirations

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1.  One end of the room is designated as the "agree" and opposite "disagree."  The center of the room is the "Valley."
2.  Teacher/Instructor provides a statement about content, character, issue, concept.
3.  Students move to one of the sides of the room, if undecided they move to the valley.
4.  Each side has an opportunity to get together and discuss why they decided to stand at "their side."
5.  Students share reasoning based on facts, text, research.
6. Students in the valley must make a decision to move to one side of the room or another.

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"Self-Thinking" markers to improve comprehension. As skilled readers, we are constantly agreeing, questioning, connecting, etc. with the text. Use markers as discussion with partners or small groups.

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This allows participants to discuss a topic with structured time limits.
a.  Pairs designate A and B
b. When signaled, A will start talking about the given topic for the allotted amount of time.
c.  When signaled A will stop and B will start.
d. Pattern continues for three rounds.