Constructive Academic Conversations for ELs

#VirtuEL18

Shaeley Santiago

@HSeslteacher

Q1: Who’s joining in on #AcademicConversations? What & where do you teach? #VirtuEL18

Shaeley Santiago

@HSeslteacher

• Identify 3 critical elements of constructive academic conversations
• Reflect on student conversations as evidence (data) for formative assessment

Objectives

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What are “constructive academic conversations”?

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Constructive Academic Conversations Defined

Academic Conversations

“sustained and purposeful conversations about school topics” (Zwiers & Crawford, 2011, p.1)

Constructive Conversations

taking “turns to negotiate meaning or dig into a topic [via] co-constructed ideas, clarified thoughts..., or supported… opinions” (Zwiers & Crawford, 2011, p. 3)

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“When two or more people converse, their ideas mix and interact to create new knowledge. Talkers walk away from the conversation with much more than they could have thought up on their own. Like flowers that rely on bees to pollinate them, we need the ideas of others for our minds to thrive.” (Zwiers & Crawford, 2011, p. 18)

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Big concept

Negotiation of meaning around authentic topics & tasks to build complex ideas

Q2: Why should teachers ensure ELs engage in constructive #AcademicConversations? #VirtuEL18

• ELs engaged in school talk only 4% of day & only 2% discussing lesson content
• Tony Edwards- Traditional questioning structures (IRE) lead to “unequal communicative rights for those who ‘know’ and those who do not”
• ELs need more oral language practice, not less!

3 Critical Elements of Constructive Academic Conversations

• Effective tasks & discussion prompts
• 4 conversation moves
• Collecting & analyzing student data (formative assessment)

Effective

tasks & discussion prompts

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7 Features of Effective Tasks (Zwiers & Crawford, 2011, p. 59)

1. Require both partners to talk
2. Require critical & creative thinking
3. Take advantage of controversies & conflict
4. Recognize & reduce ambiguity
5. Encourage thinking based on principles, laws, & disciplinary approaches
6. Build in opportunities for transfer of knowledge & skills
7. Provide choice & ownership

“Many students learn to go through the motions of schooling, without even realizing it. The problem is that the language-processing cells in our human minds are made for real communication. Students’ minds can get dulled and lulled over time when solely focused on getting points on quizzes, answering questions for teacher praise, and writing essays for an audience of one for letter grades.”

(Zwiers, O’Hara, & Pritchard, 2014, p. 27)

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4 Bases for Academic Conversation Prompts (Zwiers & Crawford, 2011, p. 63)

1. Deep Question that drives unit or discipline
2. Thinking Skill of the discipline

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3. Task or Product that shows learning
4. Life Experience connected to learning

Sample Prompts

• “Choose one of these topics and discuss it with your partner.”
• “Given the high divorce rate in Western countries, should we go back to arranged marriages (rather than “love” marriages)?
• “Who was more right, the loyalists or patriots? Cocreate a persuasive poster based on your conversation.”

Conversation Moves

to explicitly teach students

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Fishbowl Conversation as a Model

• Models: Coach-teacher, Teacher-student, Student-student
• Assign observers task

Q3: What are some strategies or tools you’ve used to teach students conversation moves? #VirtuEL18 #AcademicConversations

Support Ideas with Examples

• Examples from text, other texts, world & own life
• Supportive Examples Practice

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Collecting & analyzing

data from student conversations for formative assessment

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Big concept

Classroom talk as evidence

of and for student learning!

“Conversations show us students’ communication behaviors, higher-order thinking skills, academic language proficiency, and content understandings. They often provide a better window into students’ thinking than written work

or tests.”

(Zwiers & Crawford, 2011, p. 185)

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Assessing Constructive Academic Conversations

• Pre-assessment
• Formative assessment (of conversation skills and/or content understandings)
• Self-assessment
• Peer feedback

Argument Analysis Rubric

Conversation Transcript:

1. Student A: So, Student B, what do you think about arranged marriage?

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2. Student B: So, before it’s… parents can make, make better choices. They may look at the quality of the other boy or girls and… They can help you. Don’t have to worry about it. Don’t have to go and date something. Dating. No dating. You don’t have to try hard to convince someone to accept you. Be… make you easier.

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3. Student A: Uh huh.

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4. Student B: The bad thing is maybe their choice may not be good. You may not like… not like what they choose. You won’t have any… any courses on dating. You won’t know each other well. You can’t… cannot choice, choose by yourself. It mean also (fake) you if you never have choices.

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5. Student A: Okay. Ummm. I think I disagree about that. Doesn’t make sense. I think we should go love marriage. So if you go to arranged marriage, your life might not happy. So, uh, uh, let’s imagine that you marry with unknown person. Your life might not happy, right?

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6. Student B: Uh huh.

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7. Student A: So, yeah. That’s why I disagree about this topic.

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8. Student B: I don’t know whether to agree or not. If your parents help you with it, it will be good but choice should be… you should have your choice whether to say yes or not. Arranged marriage may not be very good, but if your parents help you and you can also choose by yourself, it will be best.

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9. Student A: Uh huh. Yeah.

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Argument Analysis Rubric

Argumentation Scores

Q4: How might you gather & analyze evidence of student learning from #AcademicConversations? #VirtuEL18

• What are the 3 critical elements of constructive academic conversations?
• How might you use student conversations as evidence for formative assessment?

Revisit Objectives

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Additional Resources

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Thanks!

Any questions?

@HSeslteacher & shaeley.santiago@ames.k12.ia.us

Credits

Special thanks to all the people who made and released these awesome resources for free:

• Presentation template by SlidesCarnival
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