Appendix 7.5 - Introduction to whole class dialogue and effective questioning
The OER4Schools Professional Learning Resource
Each unit of learning starts with a statement of the learning objectives and success criteria.
Learning intentions and objectives.
In this session you will learn about:
- creating a supportive learning environment for dialogue through body language, emotional support and enthusiasm for pupil learning
- one aspect of whole class dialogue cumulative talk
- classroom management techniques for whole class dialogue such as forming classroom rules in consultation with pupils
- the idea of an assessment portfolio
Success criteria.
To meet the learning intentions you will:
- role play a cumulative talk activity using the magic microphone technique to generate enthusiasm
- plan a cumulative talk activity for use in the classroom and consider using a horseshoe seating arrangement to encourage peer co-operativity
- identify features that illustrate 'a supportive classroom environment' whilst watching videos of whole class dialogue in action
ICT components.
The ICT components you will focus on are
- continuation of Geogebra practice
- planning another slideshow with OpenOffice Impress
Classroom based activities (with your students, after this session):
- another image sequencing activity
- typing practice in the classroom
Reminder about assessment portfolios
Observing, thinking, reflecting (10 min): Read about assessment portfolios together and discuss any issues arising In Unit 1 we learned about the cycle of plan-teach-reflect and the idea of keeping a reflective journal. We would like to extend the idea of a reflecctive journal further now by asking you to select material from it for submission to an assessment portfolio. We would like you to select material for your assessment portfolio that best illustrates how you have made use of the interactive teaching techniques that you have learned about in the workshop sessions. An ideal submission for your portfolio should include:
- an explanation of why you have chosen to do a particular activity with your students
- a completed activity template showing how the activity fits into the rest of the lesson
- a description of how the students responded to the activity
- a reflection on what you would do differently if you did the activity again
- any other important notes
- samples of students' work if possible e.g. a concept map
- 'snapshots' of the activity to show how it went eg a copy of the results of a brainstorm or a copy of the images you used
Submission of an assessment portfolio containing at least one piece of material (with notes) from each unit is a key part of completing the OER4Schools programme. Further assessment portfolio guidance for use during discussion .
The following items are specific to the programme at CBS, and may need to be adapted to local circumstances:
For each piece of work that you submit, do an audio reflection using the dictaphones available. To do this, think about how you would show a teacher in another school what you have been learning through the OER4S programme. What concrete examples would you share with them? How would you show them the range of things you have covered? Suppose then this teacher asked you some questions, e.g. What worked well? What didn’t work so well? What would you say to them?
Ideally you would make a link between the workshop session and your classroom trial. Tell us where the idea came from, and how you applied it. We don’t want or need evidence - we just want to know, if your own words, what you have learned.
Here is a short example of the sort of reflection we would like you to record: “I learned about _________ in session ____. I thought that it could be really useful for my pupils during a lesson on _________, I tried it out with my students. The work I have submitted is an example of ________. I have also submitted an example of what the students did. I had initially written this ______ [for the students], and the students then added ________. Students responded differently. Mary had difficulty with it because ___________. (E.g. some computer did not work - why did it not work?!) I concluded the lesson with a plenary, and they told me these answers. If I was to do this again, I would do it like this: ______. I would also apply this tool to another lesson on ________topic, because ______________“.
Creating a supportive environment for dialogue
We are now moving on to the topic of this unit, and we start with introducing whole class dialogue. We initially focus on
- Creating a supportive environment for dialogue, and
- Cumulative talk - creating a story together.
We start this process by exploring cumulative talk(a).
Proceeding from your own experience
Reflection on:
- What is your classroom environment like?
- Do children talk to each other?
- Are allowed to get up to help others?
- Do you have a ground rule about "no unnecessary movements"?
Introducing cumulative talk - creating a story together
The text given, needs to be explicit and solid enough, for students to be able to this activity with little outside support.
DEFINTION: Cumulative talk is talk in which all participants agree and add to the previous talk (or sentence).
Reading about cumulative talk (30 min): Creating a story together with your family, friends or colleagues Before you try this activity in the classroom, we suggest that you try this with family, friends or colleagues, because this will give you a more controlled environment, and allow for a few false starts. If you have children, you could also try this with your children, as they may find it fun to do!
Seating: Consider the seating. Arrange the group in a horseshoe seating arrangement(a) if there is room. If not choose another arrangement allowing participants to see each other. Facilitator starts a story by saying one sentence. All participants then contribute to the story by adding sentences.
A good story would:
- be contextually appropriate: for example, use common names of characters and a setting familiar to participants.
- have a theme relevant for participants such as education (girl-child receiving schooling later supports family), importance of forests and wild-life (saving a snake later becomes useful for invention of new medicine), treatment of diseases (steps taken by a family to treat an ill person) etc.,
- be short and have few characters, and
- have a problem which is collectively resolved in the end.
For instance, you could create a story about welcoming a new child to the school, perhaps a child with an impairment or some kind. Tthe facilitator starts by saying: "The other day, I heard my neighbours talking about whether their child should be starting school, because their child has difficulty walking, and they were not sure whether children like that should go to school." (Relates to Index for Inclusion, A1.1 Everyone is welcomed.)
Facilitator can introduce the notion of Talk Rules during this activity if needed. Some examples are: “everybody listens when one person talks” because they have to add to that sentence, “respect others’ ideas” by adding to rather than changing their idea, “make sure everyone in the group understands”, “try to reach consensus in the end” – participants don’t need to actually come to agreement but the process of trying gets people to listen to each other. You may want to ask participants to generate their own examples of Talk Rules.
The activity an example of “cumulative talk” where participants build on what the previous person has said (“cumulative talk” is one example of whole class dialogue).
Planning cumulative talk (30 min): Creating a story together with your family, friends or colleagues Now think of a number of topics you could use, and note these down on the 'activity template' (and add this to your assessment portfolio). You will do this activity as part of your 'follow up activities'.
Whole class discussion: Creating a supportive environment
Observing, thinking, reflecting (10 min) Video on classification of vertebrates. Video clips Eness vertebrates 10 ("Is a boy a mammal?") and 11 ("Is a whale a fish or a mammal?"); lively class discussion about classifying these animals, deliberately chosen to create controversy and to challenge the pupils
VIDEO
Is a boy a mammal?
Eness leads a discussion on 'Is a boy a mammal?'
Video/19 Eness 3 vertebrates 10.mp4, https://oer.opendeved.net/wiki/Video/19_Eness_3_vertebrates_10.mp4,This video is available on your memory stick in the video/Eness Vertebrates folder. Duration: 3:51 watch on YouTube, local play / download options / download from dropbox)(Series: Eness Vertebrates, episode 10)
VIDEO
Fish or mammal?
Class explores the question 'Is a whale a fish or a mammal?'
Video/19 Eness 3 vertebrates 11.mp4, https://oer.opendeved.net/wiki/Video/19_Eness_3_vertebrates_11.mp4,This video is available on your memory stick in the video/Eness Vertebrates folder. Duration: 4:31 watch on YouTube, local play / download options / download from dropbox)(Series: Eness Vertebrates, episode 11)
Reflection (10 min) on the learning environment and classroom management.
- Was there a supportive environment for pupil participation and dialogue in this lesson?(Relates to: LfL, 2) If so, how did the teacher achieve this?
- How did she help students to work out whether the boy and the whale were mammals? Did this discussion move their thinking forward?(Relates to: LfL, 1)
- What did you think about teacher control and pupil learning in these video clips? How would a horseshoe seating arrangement have impacted on this?
- How would you manage something similar in your classroom? How would you encourage pupil talk without losing too much control?
Did participants notice the “wait time” after asking a question before teacher made a further contribution or question? Increasing wait time a little increases thinking time and in turn leads to an improvement in the quality of students' responses.
Reflection on what we have learned
Assignment (10 min): Reflectiong on what you have learnt. Reflection on what you have learned from this session about
- Body language for encouraging dialogue
- Cumulative talk
- Encouraging most pupils to talk
- Withholding feedback sometimes to motivate pupils without fear of “wrong” answers: not evaluating pupil responses, just accepting them
- Forming rules for dialogue
- Managing the tension between control and learners’ freedom to contribute
Add your reflections to your learning portfolio, using template 10012.
Activity planning
Activity planning (30 min): Planning cumulative talk in the classroom Now think of some ideas for cumulative talk in the classroom.
- Consider that when this activity is done in the classroom with pupils, themes should be chosen from the curriculum.
- Also consider that the seating arrangement can be modified according to teachers’ classrooms such that pupils see each other. Pupils can leave their tables and just move their chairs (or sit outside if the grounds are suitable).
As you are planning this activity, ask youself the following questions:
- Do your students find it easy to talk?
- How can you encourage students to talk?
- Are some students likely to laugh at other students contributions? How can you create safe environments that enable students to take risks?(Relates to: LfL, 2.4)
You will do this activity as part of the 'follow up activities'.
Option 1: ICT practice: Different-task group work with ICT and activity planning
If within your ADE, ICT use by the students is feasible, an ICT-based activity could be included. It would need to replace a non-ICT activity of the same duration.
Different-tasks group work (20 min) with ICT on various topics.
You will:
- continue Geogebra practice
- plan a slideshow with OpenOffice Impress using your own images that you have downloaded from the internet this time
You can have a look at the introduction to Geogebra here to refresh your mind. You can also look at the introduction to slideshows with Open Office.
Plan to do the following in the classroom with your students:
- another activity using images in a slideshow, it could be a sequencing activity or using/rearranging images to tell a story
- typing practice, see typing practice with students
Option 2: Non-ICT strand: Different-task group work with activity planning
Follow-up activities
Follow up activity A (30 min): Cumulative talk with your family and friends. Try out cumulative talk with your family, friends, etc. (60 minutes)
Follow up activity B (30 min): Cumulative talk in your classroom. Try out cumulative talk by asking pupils to create a class story, contributing one line each whenever they are handed the magic microphone by their peers. Use some of the techniques discussed in this session to create a supportive environment, for example: positive body language, enthusiastic tone, listening to each other before speaking and building on what the previous person has said. Encourage any shy children to have a go, and repeat the activity with another topic on other occasion so they get more used to public speaking. (60 minutes)
Follow up activity C (30 min): Discussion of cumulative talk with another teacher Discuss your activities with another teacher.
Follow up activity D (30 min): Repeat of cumulative talk.
Part E: Your own ICT practice:
- Practise your typing skills.
- Continue practising finding resources and downloading images for a lesson that you can do. When you download images, put them into your lesson_resources folder, and use the slideshow function using a web browser on the netbooks or teacher computers.
Part F: ICT use in the classroom:
- Do another image-based activity
- Do typing practice (carousel)
Review of follow up
- Did you try the magic microphone activity? How did the pupils respond to the activity? Share examples of easy questions that you asked with the other participants.
- Did you try creating a story with the pupils? What were the challenges?
- Which features of creating a supportive learning environment did you try during the week? Did you notice any changes in pupils’ responses as a result of the new features? Remember that creating a supportive environment is not a one-off activity. It should be the norm in an interactive classroom.
- Using ICT: How did the search for resources go? Were you able to download images?
Activity summary
For one credit, this should add up to 10 hours.
At the end of each session, we provide an overview of the activities in this session, together with their suggested timings. Although this appears at the end of the session (for technical reasons), you should keep an eye on this throughout the session, to make sure that you are pacing the workshop session appropriately!
Total time: 270 (min)
Activities in this session:
- Observing, thinking, reflecting (10 min): Read about assessment portfolios together and discuss any issues arising
- Reading about cumulative talk (30 min): Creating a story together with your family, friends or colleagues
- Planning cumulative talk (30 min): Creating a story together with your family, friends or colleagues
- Observing, thinking, reflecting (10 min) Video on classification of vertebrates.
- Reflection (10 min) on the learning environment and classroom management.
- Assignment (10 min): Reflectiong on what you have learnt.
- Activity planning (30 min): Planning cumulative talk in the classroom
- Different-tasks group work (20 min) with ICT on various topics.
- Follow up activity A (30 min): Cumulative talk with your family and friends.
- Follow up activity B (30 min): Cumulative talk in your classroom.
- Follow up activity C (30 min): Discussion of cumulative talk with another teacher
- Follow up activity D (30 min): Repeat of cumulative talk.
If you have printed this session for offline use, you may also need to download the following assets:
- Video/19 Eness 3 vertebrates 10.mp4 (local play / download options / download from dropbox)
- Video/19 Eness 3 vertebrates 11.mp4 (local play / download options / download from dropbox)
