Element 3 - Conversation

Why is this important?


Content focused conversation accomplishes a number of goals at once:

  • Students get a chance to process content, practice for writing or presentation, get feedback

  • Students get a chance to get better at speaking and listening,  a key 21st century skill and part of the ELA standards

  • Students are more engaged when they are asked to process, learn and discuss learning and ideas with others

  • The ability to have learning-focused conversations determines the quality of a classroom learning community where students expect to interact around their learning.


SO -- learn better, engage more, develop interaction skills. Easy to see why this is one of the Ten Elements for Effective Instruction!


Consider one way/one time in the past week that you asked peers to talk to one another.


Explore a number of Total Participation Techniques to help your students engage in constructive peer-to-peer interaction/discussion while learning content.

When thinking about Amphibious Design...Thinking about how you will facilitate online and virtual conversations is not intuitive.  Conversation when not in person is often stilted or stifled or hard to get going, much less to sustain.  You need to think about how you will train students how to have meaningful content focused conversations online. Then, of course, students will need lots of practice and coaching. Some ideas and approaches to consider:


You might want to explore:


A Total Participation Techniques Professional Learning Activity (to grow your practice) by Himmele and Himmele


See it in action:

Resources:


When thinking about Amphibious Design...Thinking about how you will facilitate online and virtual conversations is not intuitive.  Conversation when not in person is often stilted or stifled or hard to get going, much less to sustain.  You need to think about how you will train students how to have meaningful content focused conversations online. Then, of course, students will need lots of practice and coaching. Some ideas and approaches to consider:




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