Student Talk vs Teacher Talk

p.167, “If the teacher does all the talking, then the need for students to think or to take responsibility for their own meaning-making, understanding and learning recedes” (Brookfield, 2006)

Objective:

            In the ninth chapter of The Skillful Teacher, Brookfield states that diversity is a perplexing reality in contemporary American higher education. It is reflected in learner’s academic abilities, personalities, learning styles and cultural backgrounds. He suggests several approaches to develop informal measures of students’ diversity using Critical Incident Questionnaire (CIQ). Brookfield also outlines a number of responses teachers can make in a diverse classroom, such as team teaching, mixing student groups and mixing modalities. Switching from teacher talk to student talk is one of the effective approach when we encounter a diverse classroom.

            Teacher talk is necessary in a way to establish credibility and authenticity. Student talk is crucial to deeply engage students in learning. Letting students talk also provides valuable information of how well learners have progressed. It is a democratic need allowing students to express their opinions in the classroom that are respected by the teacher. Students then become more responsible for their own meaning-making, understanding and learning.

Reflective:

            Effective teacher creates a learning environment that engage active learning. I used to start my class from a brief overview of the learning objectives, lab activities and essential questions that they will need to keep in mind for hands-on practice. A couple of students took notes while the most of class were just sitting there, looking at me and listening. Not surprisingly students came up with questions that they could have answered themselves if they “listened”. “Did they pay attention?” I asked myself, “seems like so, but why didn’t they learn?” This quote has answered my question by stating the undeniable importance of student engagement. If it was only me talking and telling students what to do, there is very limited cognitive stimulus to students that urge them to think and take initiatives of learning. Teacher talk may have helped some learners to remember the materials, but not much help of applying and synthesizing new knowledge.

Interpretive:

            Research shows that student engagement is one of the most critical non-cognitive factors correlated with student learning (Week, 2013). The importance of active learning has its root in constructivism theory. Constructivists believe that learner is the center of learning. Learning occurs when learners construct knowledge and new meaning based on their real world experience and prior knowledge. Eventually learners need to use the knowledge and make sense of the world. Although lecturing (teacher talk) has its advantage in terms of information delivery and modeling thinking process, instruction should not exclusively rely on teacher’s monologue.    Speaking permits learners to pay attention to the content, organize their thoughts, summarize main ideas and then translate their direct feeling to new learning (Fisher D. F., 2008). To some extent speech is a representation of thinking – it is how we process information, remember and synthesize new meaning. Student talk is thus an irreplaceable practice in subjects like English, Sociology, History, Arts and many more where personal opinions matter. The ability to express oneself coherently and to communicate clearly and comfortably with others will increase essential skills in reading, writing and comprehension. As communication skills are progressively more crucial in today’s workplace, allowing student to talk is not only a teaching practice but a practical requirement of authentic assessment.

Decisional:  

            Recognizing the significance of student engagement in the classroom, I am going to integrate the following components into my future teaching practice: 1) use visual displays for analyzing 2) create activities where students can have more interaction with the content, and with each other 3) use up-to-date real world examples in teaching. As for student talk although I always encourage student talk in the classroom, it is relatively restricted to the purpose of checking their comprehension instead of critical thinking. My past practice was like: teacher initiates a question – student responds to the question – teacher evaluates learning. This cycle hardly has any dialogue that expands the conversation to a deep level. Another limitation of this cycle is that only a few students have the opportunity to talk with the majority of the class still not involved. In an effort to alter the ratio of teacher and student talk I am going to start from teacher modeling (teachers model behaviors, skills and strategies expected from students). This should be based on pre-established purposes of learning (Fisher, Rothenberg, & Frey, 2008). I will strive to connect the content to issues students are facing outside of the classroom. In my teacher modeling, I will demonstrate how I activate background knowledge and prior learning in order to construct a networked knowledge structure.

            As stated earlier student talk needs to be purposeful and meaningful. It requires full considerations of the learning outcomes in lesson plan when integrating student talk into instructional routines. Once students are comfortable with the approach from teacher’s modeling, I will let students use “student talk time” to ask questions. At this stage students are more comfortable of talking in the classroom to clarify understanding and provide feedback. Student talk doesn’t have to be solo talk. Group tasks are designed to let students work together, discuss tasks, exchange ideas and negotiate meanings. At the same time I will monitor and facilitate group discussions instead of being the dominant speaker. Student talk is critical and reflective at this stage.

            When students use academic language to make their ideas comprehensible to their peers, they are taking responsibility of learning. The last stage of student talk is individual presentation. Individual student works on a project independently and reports learning to the class. I am considering adding a presentation assignment in the assessment plan that each student chooses a relevant topic and shares their research findings and insights in a ten-minute presentation. In larger classroom setting this approach can still be applied as video-taped presentations.

            To conclude, student talk pays a significant role in learning initiatives, ownership, student engagement and deep learning. The integration of student talk should be done step-by-step through purposeful planning based on clear learning outcomes.

Bibliography

Brookfield, S. (2006). The Skillful Teacher: On Technique, Trust, and Responsiveness in the Classroom. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Brown, B. (2015). Teaching style vs learning style, myth and realities. Retrieved from http://www.cete.org/acve

Corno, L. (2008). On teaching adaptively. Educational Psychologist, 43(3).

Fisher, D. F. (2008). Content-Area Conversations: Chapter 1. Why Talk Is Important in Classrooms. Retrieved from ASCD: http://www.ascd.org/publications/books/108035/chapters/Why-Talk-Is-Important-in-Classrooms.aspx

Fisher, D., Rothenberg, C., & Frey, N. (2008). Content-are Conversations: How to Plan Discussion-based lessons for Diverse Language Learners. ASCD.

Gardner, H. (1993). Multiple intelligence: the theory in practice. Basic Books.

Oblinger, D. (2005). Educating the net generation. Retrieved from Educause: http://www.educause.edu/educatingthenetgen

Tapscott, D. (1998). Growing up digital: the rise of the net generation. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Week, E. (2013, Janurary). Student Engagement Drops by Grade. Retrieved from Gallup Poll Report: http://www.gallup.com/