December 5, 2013 Angienette Estonina, Nicole Knight Cathy O’Connor, Jeff Zwiers, Gabriela Uro SFUSD-OUSD.org Constructive Classroom Conversations: OUSD-SFUSD

December 5, 2013Angienette Estonina, Nicole Knight

Cathy O’Connor, Jeff Zwiers, Gabriela Uro SFUSD-OUSD.org

Constructive Classroom Conversations: OUSD-SFUSD Collaboration

• Create “common enough” understandings of output and interaction

• Define the most pressing questions to answer

• Figure out best ways to collaborate to answer our questions

• Develop drafts of products to serve both districts (e.g., tools, web site)

Objectives

Our aim is for ALL students and their teachers to engage in classroom interactions that foster

•content learning, •language development, and•complex reasoning

In many classrooms we do see such interactions going on, now and then…

So our collective question is this:

How can we increase these productive interactions, and how can we improve them?

How can we increase these productive interactions,

(note: this doesn’t mean six hours a day)

and how can we improve them?(make them more inclusive, and more productive for all students, particularly language learners)

This general question,

how can we increase and improve classroom interactions that foster content learning, language learning, and complex reasoning?

has four distinct dimensions:

How can we improve teachers’ capacity to conduct these interactions?

What resources will help support good conversations in all content areas?

How do we get students to participate most productively?

What resources and strategies are most useful for different language proficiency levels – those needing substantial, moderate, and light scaffolding?

Laura: What caused the fall?Eli: The text said disease and war.Fran: It also said crops and politics.Amy: Let’s write down all of them.

Is this a productive interaction?


Mansur: I think there are different ways to solve it.Lynn: So? Just do what the teacher did.Mansur: But why did she turn the fraction overLynn: Who cares? Just turn it over.Mansur: OK.

3a 9ab

3c - 6 c - 4÷ 2

Samir: What’s your hypothesis?Delia: The feather will fall slower.Noe: I think they will fall the same.Aida: I think the feather’ll land first.


Lisa: I think the theme is being honest.

Edgar: Yeah. That’s a good one.Lisa: What do you think?Edgar: I like yours about being honest.Lisa: So are we done?


A Major Shift

“Why do I have to talk to a partner? I already know the answer.”

Constructive Conversation SkillsGoal: Students independently build an idea

(e.g., knowledge, agreement, solution), using the following skills:

(Mini-teachers)

Negotiate Ideas

Create Idea

ClarifyIdea

Fortify Idea

Build Idea

Formative Assessment Tool for Constructive Conversations

From Zwiers, O’Hara, & Pritchard (2014), Common Core Standards in diverse classrooms: Essential practices for developing academic language and disciplinary literacy. Stenhouse. | ALDNetwork.org

Questions:

• How do we scaffold skills differently in whole class, small group, and paired interactions?

• How do we address ELs’ differing ideas for knowledge shaping in interactions?

• How can we scaffold academic message organization, syntax, and vocabulary for ELs?

A: How Lincoln a hero?B: He stop slavery, the slaves.A: How? B: The war.A: He fighted to stop slavery.B: Muchos (many) died in the war.A: Very bad.B: But slavery is more bad. Lincoln is hero.A: He won the war. They were free.

Conversations at Beginning Levels of Proficiency Learning objective: Use reasons to argue the importance of a historical figure.

Prompt: Talk about what makes Abraham Lincoln a hero.

ACTIVITY FOR SUPPORTING IDEAS:ARGUMENT SCALE

My responses to opposing points

2D-Scale

My position

Reasons & Evidence

Reasons & Evidence

Was Lincoln

a hero?

Comparing and weighing evidence with aArgument Balance Scale

3-D VersionYes

No

Opposing position

This is not a trivial change. Teachers need support— three kinds of support.

So the potential of these academic conversations and productive interactions is great…

Nevertheless—

1) Support in managing interactions

How can we improve teachers’ capacity

to conduct these interactions?

2) Support in planning for productive conversations in their content areas

3) Support through helpful and insightful observation protocols

Because there are many obstacles.

Why do teachers need support in managing academic conversations?

We don’t have time!

What if no one talks?

I don't want to put them on the spot... some of my students are too shy to talk in front of everyone.

“Fear of behavior”

Some of my students are beginning English language learners.

Some of my students have IEPs. I can't call on them…

What if someone says something and it’s totally wrong, because they just totally don’t get what we’re talking about? Won’t that be humiliating for them?

What if Spencer just hogs the floor, as usual?

Getting past these obstacles…

1. Basic goals for academic conversations

3. Classroom norms that support respectful and equitable discussion

2. Basic talk tools to achieve the goals:

talk moves and practices

FOUR GOALS to create productive discussion...

whether in whole group, small group, or pair interactions

If only one or two students can do this, you don’t have a discussion, you have a monologue or a dialogue.

Goal 1. Help individual students to share their reasoning so that it can be heard and understood.

Your ultimate goal involves sharing ideas, agreements and disagreements, arguments and counter-arguments, not simply a series of students giving their own, unconnected opinions.

Goal 2. Help students to orient to others and listen to what others say.

Good discussion keeps a focus on reasoning. The teacher must scaffold this consistently, getting students to dig deeper.

Goal 3. Help students to work on deepening their own reasoning.

Authentic discussion, or productive academic conversations, involves students actually taking up the ideas of other students, responding to them and working with them.

Goal 4. Help students to work with the reasoning of other students.

1. Helping individual students to externalize their thinking– to share their reasoning out loud.

3. Helping students to work on deepening their own reasoning.

2. Helping students to orient to others and listen to what others say.

4. Helping students to work with the reasoning of others.

A supportive but complex relationship

So how do teachers get this to happen?



Goal 3. Help students to dig deeper in their own reasoning.

Goal 4. Help students to work with the reasoning of others.





These things won’t happen consistently just by virtue of a good question, or an

exciting topic.

First, the teachers we studied had set up classroom norms for using talk respectfully, and for ensuring equitable participation.Goal 1. Help individual students to share their

reasoning so that it can be heard and understood.




Second, they used a variety of talk tools that helped them achieve each of the four goals.





Let’s look at a few of these tools in action, from the standpoint of the teacher trying to guide a discussion…

An example from Word Generation 6th grade:

Excerpt:

Global climate statistics suggest that the average temperature of the earth’s surface is increasing….Scientists attribute these changing environmental conditions to human activities like driving cars that use a lot of gas.….

Scientists project that temperatures will keep rising if we continue to ignore the impact of our activities. Should people be allowed to drive SUVs, which use more gas than typical vehicles? Should companies be allowed to make them? ….

The conversation usually starts

when the teacher poses a

question:

“So SUVs, those really big cars, use a lot more gas. Do you think people should be allowed to drive SUVs?”

24 blank faces. 1 or 2 hands up.

What if the response is this:

You think: Gee, I can’t even get to Goal 1. I’m just trying to get them to say what they think. Why won’t they talk?

You realize: They need time to

think! (and maybe time to practice what they want to say!)

Goal 1 Talk

Tools:

•Wait time•Stop and jot (1-2 minutes)•Turn and talk (1-2 minutes) (also

known as Think-Pair-Share, Consider & Commit, etc.)

Then…ask the question again.

So you give them time to think, time to practice, and then you ask the question again…

Javier: Well, the thing is, it’s not… like… yeah. Um…

What if the response is this:

“So SUVs, those really big cars, use a lot more gas. Do you think people should be allowed to drive SUVs?”

You think:

Huh?? I didn’t understand that at all!Still stuck at Goal 1!

Now what do I do? I don’t want to embarrass him, and I don’t want to feel like I’m putting him on the spot…

Another talk tool:

“Say more…” • Can you say more about that?

• Could you say that again?

• Could you give us an example?

So Javier explains, and you start to understand his thinking. And that is a positive thing in several ways.

1. Helping individual students to externalize their thinking– to share their reasoning out loud.

3. Helping students to work on deepening their own reasoning.

2. Helping students to orient to others and listen to what others say.

4. Helping students to work with the reasoning of others.

There are talk move “families” for each of the four goals

Say more…

Can anyone rephrase that?

Why do you think that?

What do others think?

Say more…

Can anyone rephrase that?

Why do you think that?

What do others think?

But it’s not always so clear which

one to choose…

So teachers need examples to work with, to get used to thinking prospectively about what will come up…

Norms: what does it take to get started?









2) Support in planning for productive conversations in their content areas3) Support through helpful and insightful observation protocols






The complexity of talk:

“Talk moves” can turn toxic…

Equity

Intelligibility

ContentCoherence

Student Engagement

Academic conversations are complex, need to be planned, and can be exhausting.

They need to start small—

Even 15 minutes a day will be challenging at first.

If someone comes in to observe with a checklist of “talk moves”—

Enthusiasm and motivation can rapidly turn to toxicity.

Conversations in 5th Gr. Language Arts/ELD

Context• 5th grade Language

Arts/ELD class in San Francisco

• Intermediate and early intermediate speakers.

This Clip• After reading an allegory for the Holocaust, students

discuss what could have happened if the animals had stood together.

• They practice stating opinions, paraphrasing, and clarifying

Conversations in Kindergarten Math

Context• Kindergarten in • A range of ELs and LMs

This Clip• Teacher is working on linking vocabulary and 3 varieties

of mathematical representations in service of number sense. Working with results of survey: how many people are wearing shoelaces?

Website-based Resource Development SFUSD-OUSD.org

Website-based Resource Development



Website-based Resource Development SFUSD-OUSD.org

Video – Practicing Clarification & Elaboration MovesContext: 6th grade History, Westlake, Viet-ly Nguyen; Focus on practicing clarification and elaboration responses; Watch for strengths and skills to work on.

ALDNetwork.org

PD Topics Customized for Distinct Audiences

Talk Moves PD

For Principals

For Central Office Staff

For Instructional Coaches

PD Topics Customized for Distinct Audiences

Talk Moves PD

For Experienced Teachers

For Novice Teachers

For Para-professional

s

Further support by type of classroom

Hetergeneous Classrooms

Bilingual Biliteracy Pathway

Two-way Immersion classrooms

Homogeneous L1 ELLs

SIFE students

Further support by type of classroom

and grade




Homogeneous L1 ELLs

SIFE students




Homogeneous L1 ELLs

SIFE students




Homogeneous L1 ELLs

SIFE students

3-67-12

K-2

Setting norms: classroom artifacts

the "Green Sheet"

Another approach…

Another approach…

Talk Tools Support Materials

PD refresher excerpts(short 2-3 minute powerpoints with voiceovers, turned into movie files that can be played through or stopped and started at will)

Instructional routines: step by step descriptions

Step by step description of ‘one complex sentence at a time’ (LWFillmore)

Analyze Evidence

Reflect & Plan

Act& Assess

How can we _________________________________,

______________________________ evidenced by _____________,

through strategies such as__________

How can we _________________________________,

______________________________ evidenced by _____________,


• Use new & adapted interventions and strategies

• Gather data on student learning and/or teacher practices for fostering interactions during lessons

• Use observations, student work, conversations, video, …

• Find patterns, surprises, gaps • What is evidence showing and

not showing?• Brainstorm factors that caused

the patterns

• Clarify what teaching and learning should look like

• Agree on evidence to bring in that shows changes

• Create & adjust strategies• Make a plan for assessment and data

collection

Action Research Cycle

How can we develop teacher practices for fostering

effective classroom interactions, evidenced by _____________,


How can we develop teacher practices for fostering

effective classroom interactions, evidenced by _____________,


+

Final Word & Appreciations

Documents

December 5, 2013 Angienette Estonina, Nicole Knight Cathy O’Connor, Jeff Zwiers, Gabriela Uro SFUSD-OUSD.org Constructive Classroom Conversations: OUSD-SFUSD