Catherine E. Snow Harvard Graduate School of Education Beyond Learning Language to Language for Learning: A role for CLASSBANK in promoting Academically Productive Talk through Discussion Catherine E. Snow Harvard Graduate School of Education

What is Academically Productive Talk? Maybe a third grade example would help: https://class.talkbank.org/browser/index.php?url=Curtis/dec01/dec01a.cha Lehrer, R., & Curtis, C. L. (2000). Why are some solids perfect? Teaching Children Mathematics, 6(5), 324. Or maybe an example from adult interactions

Academically Productive Talk emerges during discussion BUT Not all discussion is Academically Productive

Why might classroom discussion be effective? We learn to talk by talking We also learn by talking: internalizing content, comprehending text, building reasoning skills But students get rather little chance to talk in many classrooms And of course not ALL talk works optimally to support the skills we value Academically Productive Talk is what we want

Evidence re Discussion Student collaborative reasoning about dilemmas generates improvements in critical thinking (Anderson et al.) https://education.illinois.edu/docs/default-source/dean%27s-office/collaborative-reasoning-publications-final.pdf?sfvrsn=2 Discussion is key in developing scientific reasoning and conceptual understanding (Andriessen, 2006; Osborne, 2010) Discussion and high academic demand promote literacy skills (Applebee et al, 2003) Justifying one’s approaches and comparing strategies in math promote achievement (Sims, 2008) Team-based learning in history generates higher levels of content knowledge (Wanzek et al., 2014)

How do we provoke Discussion? Engaging topics Weighty questions Dilemmas Student voice Teacher skill in guiding discussion Norms for student participation Collaborative work on authentic tasks

Contributors to Discussion: One example Engaging students in controversial issues

Linking controversial topics to students’ lives

WG activities present material in a meaningful and engaging way that helps students understand how it is of value to them Reader’s Theater: Early on in introducing the topic, students are assigned roles and read a dialogue out loud as if they are the characters. This exercise brings the controversy to life and introduces multiple points of view. Afterwards, they describe the different positions and their points of view on specific issues.

Promoting student talk, especially peer to peer talk (Applebee, Langer, Nystrand, & Gamoran, 2003)

WG units contain several discussion prompts that encourage students share their ideas and opinions New slide

In each WG unit, students work together in teams to prepare for a debate

Students are actively engaged in instructional dialogues with each other Preparing for the WG debates builds depth of knowledge through cumulative, contingent exchanges I used two of the indicators here.

Explicit modeling of discourse practices for discussion and debate https://wordgen.serpmedia.org/

Do Word Gen classes have better discussions? Content-Area Observed Control Schools Word Generation Schools Total Difference (WG - Control Schools) Effect size (Cohen's d) Mean n Math (n = 48) 1.85 25 2.90 23 2.35 48 + 1.05 1.08 (0.80) (0.84) (0.97) Science (n = 47) 27 2.28 20 2.03 47 + 0.43 0.47 (0.85) (0.93) (0.90) Social Studies (n = 54) 2.24 24 2.59 30 2.43 54 + 0.35 0.41 (0.83) (0.86) ELA (n = 63) 2.26 36 2.55 2.39 64 + 0.29 0.35 (0.89) (0.73) (0.82) Total (n = 213 ) 2.07 113 100 2.31 213 + 0.52 0.58  

Do Word Gen classes have better discussions? Content-Area Observed Control Schools Word Generation Schools Total Difference (WG - Control Schools) Effect size (Cohen's d) Mean n Math (n = 48) 1.85 25 2.90 23 2.35 48 + 1.05 1.08 (0.80) (0.84) (0.97) Science (n = 47) 27 2.28 20 2.03 47 + 0.43 0.47 (0.85) (0.93) (0.90) Social Studies (n = 54) 2.24 24 2.59 30 2.43 54 + 0.35 0.41 (0.83) (0.86) ELA (n = 63) 2.26 36 2.55 2.39 64 + 0.29 0.35 (0.89) (0.73) (0.82) Total (n = 213 ) 2.07 113 100 2.31 213 + 0.52 0.58  

Multilevel Mediation Model 𝑫𝒊𝒔𝒄𝒖𝒔𝒔𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝒋 0.396* 0.533 1.633** 𝑻𝑹𝑬𝑨𝑻 𝒋 𝑽𝑶𝑪𝑨𝑩 𝒊𝒋 indirect effect = .396*.533 = .211 total effect = indirect effect + direct effect = 0.211 + 1.28 = 1.48

WG had impacts on vocabulary, perspective taking, academic language, and deep comprehension, but the significance of those impact were greater for the 4th and 5th grades students than for the middle grades students. Impacts were greater for students who completed more of the curriculum. serpinstitute.org

Where are we? We have lots of evidence that classroom discussion relates to desirable academic outcomes We have at least one proven curricular support for discussion and those outcomes But we know that the discussion in Word Gen classrooms is of variable quality And we need to clarify what the active ingredient in classroom discussion is

How do we know for sure if we are promoting the right kind of discussion? Can we agree on what APT is? We need agreement across researchers And then we need agreement across experienced practitioners Or at least generative disagreements And after that we need models that display the key elements of APT to teachers This is where CLASSBANK comes in!

Gaps in the knowledge base Define features and affordances of APT to support convergent research activities Trace developmental trajectories for students’ APT capacities Trace developmental trajectories for teachers’ expertise Evaluate the effectiveness of programs designed to support APT in classrooms Establish the degree of disciplinary specificity of APT and APT-support strategies Identify contents and purposes for which APT is most/least valuable

One modest proposal Video repository with tagged segments reviewed by multiple researchers Agreement on any markers of APT? Identification of any conditions required for APT? Reliability across disciplines in identifying APT?

Modest Proposal, con’t Alignment among the multiple measures of classroom discourse? Science Discourse Instrument (Fishman et al., 2017 Protocol for Language Arts Teaching Observations (Grossman, 2009) Dialogic Inquiry Tool (Reznitskaya, Glina, & Oyler, 2011) Classroom Assessment Scoring System (Pianta, La Paro, & Hamre, 2008) Quality Talk Coding Manual (Murphy, Firetto, Greene, & Butler, 2017 Low Inference Discussion Observation (LIDO) instrument (O’Connor, LaRusso, & Harbaugh, 2016).