"Do you agree or disagree and why?" 9-16-10

The talk move that stood out most to me is the idea of asking students to apply their own reasoning to some else’s reasoning. I think this is a very important tool in the classroom because it encourages the students to build on another student’s response. It gives the students another perspective to the learning and they can hear how other students got their answer. It gives them the opportunity to compare their reasoning to one another’s.

I think the most important part of this is to ask a student if they agree or disagree and why. Whether the student is correct or not, it gives them the opportunity to explain their answer. Asking a student why they agree or disagree gives them the chance to talk about their opinion out loud and to explain how they got to their answer. I think this is a very effective method because you are not concerned with the answer you are concerned with the process of thinking. This is also good for the rest of the class because they can compare their thinking to the thinking of their peers. They can hear how another student thought about the problem. This gives the students that may not have been able to think in the same way the opportunity to hear ways that they can come to an answer. I think it is important also because it is a way of making sure students are listening to one another. By asking them to build on to another students answer will show you that they are thinking critically about what was said and that they were paying attention.

I have been able to see this in my classroom in a small group setting. We asked the students to identify shapes based on their characteristics. Asking students to build on another’s response did not work very well because the students were not listening to each other’s ideas. In order to have a healthy discussion it is important that the students can hear each other and that they are attentive. I hope that eventually this talk move will become much stronger and more useful in my classroom.

Talk Moves 9-16-10

The most natural talk move that I can see myself using the most in my classroom is "asking students to apply their own reasoning to someone else's reasoning." Out of the five suggested talk moves, asking students if they agree or disagree is the most relevant to both my personal teaching views and experience as well as my current group of students. What I really like about this talk move is that in a sense it is never ending. You could ask every single student during a group discussion if they agree or disagree and why, and you would gain new rational and ideas each time. Personally, I have seen teachers use other talk moves such as "would someone like to add on?" and "can you repeat that in your own words?" and the reoccurring issue with those has been repetition. Often students wouldn't take the time to think about their response or idea, instead they would just repeat exactly what they had just heard from their peers.

I have actually seen this happen in my classroom as well already this year. However, I have also noticed that my classroom is full of children who possess a healthy dose of competitiveness and I think that properly facilitating the talk move that asks them to compare their ideas and reasoning with another’s would be much more productive for my particular group of students. Asking if they agree or disagree really makes them take the time to think about their own ideas. In this scenario they can’t respond to the teacher’s prompt without thinking about their own thoughts as well as what they hear around them and isn’t that the ultimate goal of any great discussion? I do realize that all five moves have their benefits, but before deciding which would be the best to use, you have to take into consideration the group of students you are working with which changes from year to year.