The article “Instructional
conversations: Promoting comprehension through discussion” portrayed a picture
of an active and productive classroom with students learning while thinking and
discussing effectively. When I was reading the article, what related to me the
most is the fact that our TE400 classes are full of these instructional
conversations. Instructional conversations encourages teachers to engage
students in interactions to promote analysis, reflection, and critical thinking
to provide “true education”, which reflects to the article about “real teaching
involves helping students think, reason, comprehend and understand important
ideas”. This has been proved by us that when we were thinking and trying to
answer the teacher’s open-ended questions by relating to the articles we read
or our experiences of teaching, we have been given the opportunities to
interact with each other and learning through inquiry and exploring from
ourselves and the people we were discussing with. It is very important to promote
this in elementary classrooms because that is the crucial stage when the kids
first learn how to communicate with others in an effective discussion and get
something important out of it. Teachers play a very important role in the
instructional conversations because not only do they need to raise the
appropriate open-ended questions, but only they need to make sure the students
have time to think through and prepare for the discussion, and then make sure
to lead the discussion and sum up the discussion appropriately too. Teachers
need to make sure the discussion is proceeding at an appropriate pace and they
also need to pay attention to what the students are discussing and pull out
important ideas while summing up the discussion. IC promotes learning, but
requires a deliberate and self-controlled agenda in the mind of the teacher. In
this case, students can be most productive and learn the most when the
teacher’s leading and taking a good control of the discussion. While reading
the article, it came to my mind that IC could not only be promoted in regular
classrooms, but also could be promoted in ESL classrooms. I remember I had one
of the LLT classes which was talking about the strategies of teaching ESL
students, there’s a strategy called meaning based conversation, which means
when ESL students are learning English through a conversation, the teacher
should convey the meaning of the objects which the students are about to learn
in the target language by discussion and gesture without telling the students what
it is directly. I agree it would make a deeper impression to the students and
while discussing and explaining, the students can learn the target language
more effective and naturally. Of course promoting a strategy like IC is controversial
and its effectiveness could depend on various situations such as the ways that
the teacher leads the discussion, or how preparative the students are. So to implicate
an instructional conversation class needs a lot of planning and controlling,
but I think it is a good way to teach and for the students to learn.
I agree with many of your comments about the importance of true discussions in classrooms with young children as well as with college students. In my classroom I notice a lot of I-R-E patterns of interaction between the students and the teacher. Most of the classrooms that I was in growing up followed this format as well. As you mentioned, discussions need lots of structuring on the teacher's part and require scaffolding and a desired direction. I also believe that teachers must provide their students with examples of effective discussion. I think that the teacher must set the stage for these discussions by making their expectations explicit and providing a safe environment for sharing ideas. I really like the idea of a social contract that is made by the students so that everybody knows what is expected of them and there are guidelines to be followed. I like that you mentioned using these discussions with ESL students, which is not something I usually think of. I think that these discussions could be challenging for shy students to participate in. As a teacher it is important to create a classroom community where students feel comfortable sharing ideas and asking questions to their peers. I think that making a point to hear from everyone, either by drawing sticks or by breaking up into smaller groups, will ensure that even quieter students are heard from. I think it could be challenging to hold these discussions with ESL students especially since they are so student-driven and can move rapidly. I would love to learn more strategies specifically for supporting these students during classroom discussions.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Jia in the fact that I see the connection between the readings for this week about discussion and recitation and our TE 402 class. We participate in discussion rather than recitation. At first I was confused by the difference but now I have a clear understanding between the two. In my placement classroom I always see recitation in the form of I-R-E. I agree with Jia with the fact that it is important for children to learn how to be in a discussion and that this is how children learn about to be active in conversation. However, in Weinstein’s book I see the reasons why my placement teacher does not do it in the classroom. I am thinking she thinks she does not have time. She is morning Kindergarten and needs to get through all the same material as the afternoon kindergarten, which means she has to go at a very fast pace. Also, I can see that it would be very difficult to stimulate a discussion in kindergarten and it would take a lot on the teacher’s part to make it work. I also see a lot of read alouds in my classroom, which was in another reading I read for this week, which Jia did not mention. The author mentioned how a teacher has to ask questions that children can answer without the picture. Most students use the pictures and background knowledge to answer questions. Teachers need to ask appropriate questions about the text that the children need to think more about to answer the question. This is something my teacher does some of the time and something I can tell she is working on. Another thing I would like to add that I see in a lot of classrooms and read about in this article was the way to make sure all students are participating. Growing up I hated to be called on and still do. Weinstein’s article helped me understand the importance of being called on so that the teacher knows where all of the student’s understanding is and who needs more help. The article went through ways teachers can make sure they called on all students. The way I see the most in classroom is names on popsicle sticks in a cup. The teacher pulls the popsicle stick from the cup and calls on the person whose name is on it. I don’t see this in my classroom but there are only 12 students. From experience, I know it is really easy to remember who has been called on.
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