Promoting Student Discourse

Faculty Goal Development: 2017-18

Care

I care about promoting classroom discourse because "the one who talks is the one who learns." Powerful discussion increases depth of knowledge as well as increasing understanding (i.e. mental schema). Communication skills rank just below "leadership" as desireable/necessary attributes of an employee.

Think

Where am I starting on this goal? What will it look like when I reach the goal? What evidence am I collecting?

Goal statement

All students consistently participate in formal discourse. Evidence includes:

  • 100% student participation in seminar settings.
  • 100% of students use second-level conversation skills (i.e. summarizing, pivot questioning, eliciting from peers) in seminar.
  • 100% of students can identify and use listening skills.
  • 100% of students use quality feedback to improve their speaking skills.
  • 100% of students report that they understand the importance of developing good speaking and listening skills.
  • 100% of students report that a formal discourse helps them to learn more about a topic.

Where I am now

I adopted a goal to improve my skills around facilitating classroom scientific discourse (also know as science seminars). I wanted this to translate into increased student learning and higher scores on post-discussion assessments. To this end I received in- and out-of-class support from Ms. Fortune around speaking and listening pedagogy.

I used a unit exit survey to generally assess my goal; in that survey, over the course of last year, an average of 84% of students responded that "the teacher effectively encouraged students to ask questions and give responses" all or almost all of the time.

Closing the gap

80-100% of students participate in seminar settings.

20-30% of students use second-level conversation skills (i.e. summarizing, pivot questioning, eliciting from peers) in seminar.

100% of Students give each other feedback to improve speaking skills.

Students have not be surveyed about either their understanding of the importance of these skills, or how well discourse helps them learn.

Design

What are my action steps? Obstacles to overcome?

Action steps

  1. Use Adrienne as a critical friend and mentor to develop and implement high-quality research-based speaking and listening tools.
  2. Monitor level and quality of student participation in formal discourse.
  3. Survey students after discourse or at the end of the unit about the usefulness of the discourse and the feedback that they receive.

Act

What is my evidence?

Progress report 1 survey data

Progress Report 2 survey data

Progress report 3 survey data

Progress Report 4 survey data

Progress report 5 survey data

Sharing the conclusions


Goal statement

  • 100% student participation in seminar settings.
  • 100% of students use second-level conversation skills (i.e. summarizing, pivot questioning, eliciting from peers) in seminar.
  • 100% of students can identify and use listening skills.
  • 100% of students use quality feedback to improve their speaking skills.
  • 100% of students report that they understand the importance of developing good speaking and listening skills.
  • 100% of students report that a formal discourse helps them to learn more about a topic.

Results

  • > 90% participation in seminars
  • > 90% of students use second-level conversation skills inconsistently in seminar (discussion spiderweb data).
  • 100% of students identify and use listening skills consistently (rubric data)
  • ?% of students use quality feedback to improve speaking skills (exit survey)
  • On average, 96% of students reported that they understand the importance of developing good speaking and listening skills.
  • On average, 74% of students reported that a formal discourse helps them to learn more about a topic.

Additional indicators

classroom posters and notebook inserts identify a soft skill checklist and second-level conversation skill sentence stems

research-based seminar and feedback protocol (MGI + Adrienne + Don + Zwick) consistently used throughout year

Used multiple texts on coaching students to use academic language