Classroom Discussions Courtney

For my field placement, I am currently in a kindergarten classroom. There is a lot of classroom talk that appears to occur regularly throughout the course of the day. Much of the talk is done as a whole class rather than small groups because of the students young age. My CT mainly implements the use of response centered talks with some discussion and recitation. The response centered talks seem to be the most effective because it keeps the students actively participating rather than just listening. My CT uses various probing questions about the text or illustrations to engage the children and activate their prior knowledge. I notice in her discussions she typically follows the IC model found in the Goldenberg article, to structure her discussions. She will provide the students with both background knowledge as well as connect the text to previous curriculum so the students can make their own connections. When she leads response based discussions, my CT actively involves as many of the students to keep them focused. A specific example was a math discussion my CT lead last week on shapes. She held an active discussion and involved the children by having them come to the board and point out a specific shape in a picture on at a time.
Throughout the course and into my internship next year, I would like to deepen my experiences with various forms of discussions in the classroom. I sometimes find myself nervous or anxious to teach because I am unsure of what to expect from the students in a discussion. I am especially concerned about keeping all of the students actively involved regardless of their ability level. How do you keep more advanced students involved and the less advanced students able to understand?

Classroom Talk- Abby

I am in a first grade classroom and I get to see a lot of classroom talk. My CT reads aloud to the class almost every time that I am there and they always have a discussion. I don't feel like I have seen much I-R-E in the classroom, which is surprising. Throughout reading, students will raise their hands to give their opinions about the book or make predictions. Also, my CT asks questions throughout to help the students to actively listen and participate. 

I have noticed that there are about four students whose hands seem to always be in the air. One of them in particular, who we will call Jamie, is especially active in classroom talk. She will raise her hand before the question is finished being said, just dying to talk to the teacher. Many times she will say off-topic thoughts but my CT does a very good job of keeping the discussion focused on the correct topic. I also notice my CT looking around waiting for more hands to go up rather than just calling on one of the first couple hands. I think that is a good way to allow time for the shyer students to get their thoughts together and be prepared to share.

I really liked the first article we read, "A New View of Discussion" by Janice Almasi. I enjoyed reading the dialogue provided for examples real discussion rather than the recitation style Q&A talk.

I think scaffolding is definitely needed for response-centered talk. If students only talk about what they liked or didn't like about a story, then no meaningful comprehension/interpretation will take place. This is when the scaffolding comes in. The teacher's role is to facilitate discussion, but not overpower it. So if the discussion isn't evolving into what it should, the teacher can throw out a question or idea for the students to think about and re-focus their discussion. In my classroom, there are some students who almost never participate. These students sometimes just need to feel more comfortable in their environment. because when they are asked to answer without raising their hands, they usually have a response right away, it just seems they don't want to share. So maybe these students would do better in smaller groups.

Classroom Talk- Erin

Being in a kindergarten class, I see very little small group talk but rather large group talks with the whole class. I would say that I observe more response-centered talks rather than discussion or recitation. I believe that our CT may use recitation more for assessing which we do not see very often. I have used recitation though when interviewing the students in order to learn about their prior knowledge for a science lesson. In order to do this I would scaffold through using specific language. When asking about summer weather, I was sure to use the word "temperature" in order to help the children think in the right terms. I feel that the way I used recitation was that of the I-R-E process McGee talks about in "Response-Centered Talk: Windows on Children's Thinking". I asked a particular question, listened to their response and then evaluated their understanding on the subject. In terms of our CT talking with the students though, there is definitely more response-centered talk. When McGee talks about this approach, she explains that the teacher asks a question or multiple questions in order to initiate a well thought, rich discussion. Usually when my CT asks a question, I may think she is looking for a particular answer but she is in fact initiating discussion on the topic. For instance, when they were reading a book about thunderstorms, she asked if any of the children had seen a thunderstorm or been in a really scary thunderstorm. At first, I figured this was just a way of getting the children involved but as the discussion went on, I realized they were sharing their ideas with each other. Our CT was able to relate their stories to others and the book in order to help the children come to a new understanding of what thunderstorms are and what they are capable of. I did notice our teacher was able to include those students that are usually shy. She made an effort to stay quiet and just absorb what each child was saying. As for scaffolding, I feel that I saw this throughout the entire discussion. When a child would either get off subject or forget what their story was, our CT was sure to bring them back or reguide them with her questions. She was able to let the students talk with each other without much interference, but at the same time was able to slightly guide their conversation in order to get the most out of their answers. Being kindergartners, the students sometime exaggerate stories. In these cases, the teacher usually interrupts with either a new question or asks for a different story. Sometimes I feel like this could hurt the child's feelings but it has never really seemed to effect the child. I would like to know a new way to scaffold the students in order to reguide a conversation if it does get off topic though. Throughout this next semester or even into my internship year I hope I will be able to observe this. I also hope to observe more discussion and possibly more recitation used for something other than assessment.

Looking Across Your Postings

Dear Abby, Courtney and Erin,
I see a prominent theme of community across your three postings and it seems that being inclusive of a variety of learners is also important to all of you. It's great to see that you have concrete goals for your classroom. As the semester progresses I would like to see you bring more of the readings into your discussion so that you are specifically considering the ideas and suggestions given. Do the seem plausible? feasible? Do they seem like the types of ideas you would want to implement and are they consistent with your own goals? The same will be true as you spend more time in your classroom--where, when, how are you seeing ideas we read about enacted in your classroom, and if not, do you have ideas about how they could be? Making connections like this will deepen your understanding of the readings and help you apply them to 'real life'. Cheryl

Courtney-My Ideal Classroom

My Ideal Classroom
The main priority in forming my ideal classroom would be the classroom’s community along with motivation. In order to best educate your students, I believe that as teachers we must provide the appropriate environment and community. The learning environment is key to the student’s comfort level not only as far as the curriculum goes, but also in forming relationships with other students as well. As far as creating a classroom community, the key point would be to include all aspects of the children’s lives from home to school. It is important to consider and take into account a child’s home life when creating a comfortable learning community for each one of your students. Including the parents in their child’s education is vital to the child’s success in school. If a student receives support from at home from parents and even siblings, they have much more opportunities for success. As Joellen Maples suggests in her article, even going as far as to assigning family homework or homework for the parents can be effective in connecting the students home and school communities. My ideal classroom would also expand upon the notion of community as just the environment of the classroom to the aura of it as well. My classroom will be full of encouragement and motivation both at the intrinsic and extrinsic levels to complete the feeling of unity among the students and myself.
I hope to take away from this course a deeper understanding as to ways to incorporate all aspects of language arts in my classroom. I look forward to a deeper insight into the methods and ways to teach language arts beyond the standard reading books and worksheets. One of my favorite features of language arts is how it incorporates into all other subject areas. I look forward to extending my understandings of ways to expand on these notions.

My Ideal Classroom (Abby)

My ideal classroom consists of a few different aspects: community, opportunity, and open-mindedness. To start, a successful and ideal classroom must have a strong sense of community that includes ALL students, regardless of ability, race, or culture. Students should feel safe, physically and emotionally, in their classroom environment, which is constructed by their peers and their teacher. The students must feel comfortable in asking questions or sharing ideas without the fear of being made fun of or being shot down by their teacher. The community should also be constructed by including and acknowledging everyone's differences and giving appreciation for each other. Next, is opportunity. In my ideal classroom, students will be given ample opportunities to get the help they need to succeed. I hope to offer many different ways to give help to students and also offer many ways to succeed, such as differing assessments, projects, etc. Lastly, open-mindedness is important to my ideal classroom. This is because I, as a leader and role model to students, need to portray a sense of open-mindedness in order to show students that it is okay and welcome in my classroom. Everyone is different and will bring different cultural aspects with them that will all come together to create our community. 

In this class, I hope to learn more ways in which language arts can be used other than the typical grammar worksheets and book reports. Although I really enjoyed this when I was young, I know that this was not a successful route for all students' learning. I think I need to be shown these different strategies in order to better teach students in the future. In the field, I hope to observe these different strategies as well. I also want to observe how my CT addresses ELL students and how she helps them keep up and learn the same information. Although in many TE classes ELLs are discussed, I am not very familiar with techniques as to address these students' special needs.

My Ideal Classroom

My ideal classroom is based solely around the idea of community. I believe that a classroom with a tight community outlook allows children to feel more comfortable in not only expressing themselves, but in learning as well. I think this is true for ESL learners as well. These children feel sometimes as being isolated from the rest of the group, but if the class is more of a whole, it gives them the chance to be more involved and learn. I would also want these children to be comfortable with me. In my ideal classroom, I would be able to understand all of the student's different cultures and backgrounds. I liked the idea Joellen Maples discussed in her article. I think giving parents their own homework will not only allow you to learn more about the children, but also give them the idea that you expect them to be involved. In my ideal classroom everyone, including me, will assess themselves often. It will help us all realize better what we need more work in. The students can share these thoughts in personal notebooks in order for me to understand how and what they are thinking. Included in their responses would also be the subjects they feel strong in. In my ideal classroom, the students will have great confidence in themselves and their ability to learn.
I realize that this classroom may seem only possible in a perfect world, but I believe with the right tools and knowledge, I could make it happen. I would like to learn in this class how to help build strong communities within a classroom. I would like to be exposed to different ideas on how to build student's confidence and how to involve parents and ALL students more. I would like to learn about this not only in the classroom but also observe it first hand in the classroom. I also would like to know more about self assessment. How exactly can we assess ourselves fairly? As it is stated in the syllabus I also expect to be taught how to recognize myself as a learner. I feel that this will help in all areas of my ideal classroom.

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