The Environment for Group Talk

"Ask questions rather than provide answers: ‘What’s the strength of his or her point?’ ‘How you could check that out?’ "

About. Is there a way to nurture group talk in the class? These five pages of archived advice collect numerous questions for interacting in group talk, such as "‘What do you think?’ ‘What’s the matter with that idea?’ What convinces you that they are right or wrong?’. The document has activities and examples for maintaining constructive group talk, and classroom factors which play a part in such talk.

Pedagogical content. This resource contains a set of activities and examples to discuss and work through based around maintaining group talk^(ta) in whole class^(ta) and group work^(ta) settings, including setting up Ground Rules, and creating appropriate environments (physical and 'class rule' based) for argumentation^(ta) and discussion^(ta)

Resource details
Title	The Environment for Group Talk in Science
Topic	[[Topics/Discussion|Discussion]]
Teaching approach	[[Teaching Approaches/Group talk|Group talk]],  [[Teaching Approaches/Whole class|Whole class]],  [[Teaching Approaches/Group work|Group work]],  [[Teaching Approaches/Argumentation|Argumentation]],  [[Teaching Approaches/Discussion|Discussion]]
Learning Objectives	In working through this you will explore ways to develop discussion in science lessons, and see the practicalities of setting up situations for constructive argumentation engage in practical activities with both pupils and colleagues
Format / structure	.doc
Subject	[[Resources/Teacher Education|Teacher Education]],  [[Resources/Science|Science]]
Age of students / grade	[[Resources/Secondary|Secondary]],  [[Resources/Higher|Higher]]
Useful information	The resource comprises one 5 page DfES document 'harvested' from a larger document (see below).
Related ORBIT Wiki Resources	See other DfEScience(i) resources
Files and resources to view and download	File:The Environment for Group Talk in Science.doc or the WikiText version here

• This resource has been harvested by ORBIT and made into a document that can be edited from the DfES resource "Strengthening teaching and learning in science through using different pedagogies" (ref:0703-2004)
• The original can be downloaded from the 'National Archive' here http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20110809101133/nsonline.org.uk/node/154651.
• We have, in places, edited these resources to remove references to obsolete legislation, guidance, or websites or to otherwise adapt them to our purposes. In particular, we have separated out key elements of the resources into separate 'ideas'.