Accountable Talk
Talk!
yep our students do that quite well don't they? Give them group work in math and one of two things will happen.
1. Before you know it they are talking about what they ate last night for dinner!
2. Or worse, they say nothing at all.
To be honest 2 occurred more often in my room then 1. When asked to discuss a problem, they had no idea what to say. I knew what I wanted them to talk about but they didn't. After struggling with the dreaded silence, I started learning about accountable talk.
For those of you who don't know what accountable talk is here is my definition: conversation in the classroom where students are required to explain and justify their thinking and respectfully question the thinking of others.
I knew I couldn't just tell my students what I wanted them to discuss, I would have to give them very explicit examples.I searched all over the internet for meaningful conversation starters for math and ela. After trying out many different ones, I found the ones that worked best for my students and typed them on a sheet for my students, one for ELA and one for Math. I laminated them and we started using them EVERYDAY in groups. Their conversations blew me away!! The "talk cards" helped the students get thinking. Before the end of the year, they were questioning each other and explaining their own thinking without any help from me or "talk cards". You can do this too!
Here are my favorite questions/conversation starters for you to use in your room and they are in super cute chalkboard! Click the link to snag them!
