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The Challenge of Rigorous Inclusive Academic Discussions

Active engagement in rigorous academic discussion is absolutely fundamental to a successful secondary Language Arts classroom. However, research confirms what every teacher has observed, a relatively small handful of students tend to dominate most classroom discussions thereby deriving most of the benefit. The key to solving this ubiquitous problem involves carefully structuring each phase of the discussion to insure every student is prepared to contribute, supported in contributing, while being held accountable for actively contributing.

Key Principles for Structuring Academic Discussions

1) Provide/Clarify a focus question

-  pre-teach vocabulary embedded in the question

-  frame the question such that all can respond
2) Structuring thinking/processing time

- brief written response

- academic sentence starter

3) Partner rehearsal

4) Unified Class Discussion - Random calling on students

5) Additional Volunteers & Wrap up

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High quality talk between the teacher and student(s) provides a fertile ground for an active, highly collaborative and cognitively stimulating learning process leading to improved learning outcomes. High quality classroom talk is characterised by the use of open and authentic questions and formative feedback whereby student contributions are probed and elaborated on.

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Samples of Classroom Norms for Discussions

Students Rights:

1. You have the right to make a contribution to an attentive and responsive audience.

2. You have the right to ask questions.

3. You have the right to be treated civilly.

4. You have the right to have your ideas discussed, not you, personally.

Student Obligations:

1. You are obligated to speak loudly enough for others to hear.

2. You are obligated to listen for understanding.

3. You are obligated to agree or disagree(and explain why) in response to other people's ideas.

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Dialogic teaching concerns itself with high quality teaching and learning talk.

Dialogic teaching is based on a set of principles:

collective: teachers and students address learning tasks together, whether as a group or as a class, rather than in isolation;

reciprocal: teachers and students listen to each other, share ideas and consider alternative viewpoints;

supportive: students articulate their ideas freely, without fear of embarrassment over ‘wrong’ answers; they help each other to reach common understandings;

cumulative: teachers and students build on their own and each other’s ideas and chain them into coherent lines of thinking and enquiry;

purposeful: teachers plan and facilitate dialogic teaching with particular educational goals in view.

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It is important for teachers to model to students effective classroom discourse practices and to provide them with ample opportunities to practice in class. This will also have a far reaching impact outside of the classroom in terms of students’ transferable skills and learning autonomy.

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Resources for more information on Social Discourse

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Resources for more information on Social Discourse

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Article on: Classroom Discourse and Student Learning

http://www.ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/ass/article/viewFile/1078/1038

Examples of Student/ Teacher conversations involving social discourse in the classroom

http://education.stateuniversity.com/pages/1916/Discourse.html

Video Lecture explaining Social DIscourse

http://study.com/academy/lesson/academic-discourse-definition-examples.html

Book: Content-Area Conversations

by Douglas Fisher, Nancy Frey and Carol Rothenberg

http://www.ascd.org/publications/books/108035/chapters/Why-Talk-Is-Important-in-Classrooms.aspx

Article:

Practical Strategies to Improve Academic Discussions in Mixed Ability Secondary Content Area Classrooms.

http://www.ode.state.or.us/wma/teachlearn/commoncore/structuring-acad-discuss-.pdf

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http://www.ode.state.or.us/wma/teachlearn/commoncore/structuring-acad-discuss-.pdf

http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED565017.pdf

https://www.mydigitalchalkboard.org/portal/default/Content/Viewer/Content?action=2&scId=504488&sciId=17964