Building Ratio

Through
Discussion
By Natalie and Cory
Learning Target
Students will be able to name and effectively
use new tools to facilitate discussion in a
classroom
What is and isn’t discussion?

-Discussion: “a mutual endeavor by a group of people to develop, refine, or contextualize an

idea or set of ideas.” (pg 315)

-Turn and Talk!

-With a partner, model a 15 second discussion on what season is best: winter or

summer?

-Was this goal achieved in the 30 second time frame?

How can we improve discussions in the
classroom?
-Teachers must normalize a set of “habits” that allow discussion to be more efficiently
cohesive and connected

-Discussion fundamentals:

-Voice, Tracking, Names

-Follow-on, and follow-on prompting

-Sentence Starters

-Managing the Meta

1. Voice, Tracking, Names

-It’s simple: speak loud enough to be heard and encourage your students to do the same

-Encourage your students to show their engagement

-Expect and remind students to use each other’s names

-Teachers can reinforce this idea by saying, “Great idea Layne, turn and explain
that a little more to Hadeel.”
2. Follow-on, and Follow-on Prompting

-Follow-on: The teacher consistently asks one student to respond to something another
student has said, whether or not the second student has volunteered to do so.

-Encourages full engagement and listening

-Example

-Follow-on prompting: Instead of asking a directive question, this style of prompting disrupts
the thread of conversation less and avoids steering the second student’s response

-Holding you students accountable for listening carefully to their pairs

-Non-directive prompts asking students to “develop” and find more “evidence”

3. Sentence Starters

-I understand why you’d say that, but…

-I was thinking of something similar, that… 1 minute discussion, groups

of 3-4. Use at least one of
-And then there was another example that… these sentence starters
discussing the following
-The thing that doesn’t take into account it… prompt:
What quality do you value most
-I want to build on what you said… in a friend?

-That makes sense because…

-I can see your point but…

4. Managing the Meta
-Recognizing the importance of developing and expanding ideas through a series of
connected comments

- “That’s an interesting point, but I’d like to hear someone respond to Tasha’s
comment before we move on to another one.”

-Inside the Box: it’s okay to stay focused on one topic, maintain steady and deep reflection
on an idea

-Don’t always have to move on from a topic, can be more valuable to dive deeper in one
comment than to change the subject

-A way to guide students through the discussion and control the topics
Tools for Efficiency and Accountability

-Setting Pairs: partners should be pre-arranged so students can begin discussion right away

-The In-Cue: use familiar phrases to start the discussion

-The Out-Cue: students need to be aware of when they’re time is ending so the whole-class
discussion can start without delay

-Crest of the Wave: all about the timing, in their Turn and Talk when they are still discussing
ideas, not when talking has died down (want the whole-discussion to still be lively!)

-Precise Time Limits: students need to know how much they will be able to say before their
discussions begin
What happens after Turn and Talk?
-Whole-Class Analysis:

- “Let’s put some ideas on the board and list the evidence that supports this..”

-Whole-Class Discussion:

- “Let’s build on the thinking we’ve started..”

-Whole-Class Note Taking:

-Have pairs share their thoughts and students make a list of ideas in their notebook to
compare

-Whole-Class Guided Discussion, Then Written Processing:

- “Let’s see if we can write a paragraph together that describes the evidence we
found”
Conclusion/Reflection

-Essential Question:

What is the teacher’s role in classroom discussion? What are some tools the
teacher can use to make sure discussions are worthwhile and the class stays engaged with
the material?