The Problem with "Turn and Talk" And How to Breathe Life Back Into It.

The Problem:

"Turn and Talk." "Round Robin." "Turn to your shoulder partner and discuss." "I say TEACH, you say, OKAY!" There are nearly as many names for it as there are teachers, but some version of "turn and talk" shows up in nearly every classroom.  The idea is that the teacher puts forth a question or discussion topic and students turn to a partner or group and discuss the prompt.  Often the teacher will call a few students to share thoughts or answers. 

The goal is for students to be able to process a topic or question more thoroughly because they have a chance to say it in their own words, hear it in someone else's words, and "teach" it to a peer. In a teacher's mind, Turn and Talk sounds like this:

Teacher: "Now that you've seen the film, turn to your partner and discuss: What made the Nile River Delta a good place for early Egyptians to settle?"

Jordan: Well, one thing that made the Nile good was the black soil.

Alex: Can you explain what the black soil is?

Jordan: It was soil that had a lot of nutrients for crops. The Nile made the soil black.

Alex: How did it make the soil black?

Jordan: I don't know. Do you?

Alex: It's something to do with the floods. Like, the Nile floods and then, uh, whatever's in the water, like, gets added to the soil.

Jordan: Oh, okay. What else?

Alex: Um, they could go down the Nile to trade... 

...etc..

Beautiful. I wish I could say that happened for every student every day in my class. All too often some version of the following problems show up, turning Turn and Talk into Turn and Zone Out:

Problem 1. Students answer the question with the first thing they think of.

Jordan: The Nile River. It had, like, fresh water.

Alex: Yeah, the Nile. They could drink the water. And, like, travel in boats.

Jordan: This is boring. 

Problem 2. The faster-talking/ more confident/ more popular student shares something and the other agrees/ignores/doesn't have time to share. 

Yvette: Well. The Nile brought fresh water, allowed people to travel down the river, protected the tribes from invaders, and provided fertile soil for crops. 

Violet: (Absently): Yeah, what you said. 

Problem 3. Students, covered by the sounds of others talking, do not talk about the topic at all.

Adam: Dude, I totally beat Halo 8 yesterday. 

Gemma: Whatever. You are such a dork.

My knee-jerk response to the distraction problems was to shorten the time allowed for discussion, therefore shortening the amount of time that students sat there wishing they could check their phones for something interesting. This of course, backfired, because then the students legitimately did not have the time to discuss even if they were prepared to. Other strategies were required.

Here are some ways to rejuvenate "Turn and Zone Out" so it becomes "Turn and Talk About THE TOPIC"..

Refresher #1: Give silent think time. Before you ask students to turn to each other, make 20-30 silent seconds of personal thought a requirement. Say: "Take 30 seconds of think time to come up with an idea of your own. Put a thumb up on your desk (index finger to your forehead, pencil in the air, foot in your mouth, whatever) when you are thinking of an idea. Get to the point where you don't move to "turn and talk" until all the students are thinking of an answer.

Refresher #2: Stop and Jot, Turn and Talk: A version of the first solution, have students take out scratch paper, notebook, iPad, or a Post-it to write their answer first. Then students share what they wrote before any discussion happens. 

Refresher #3: Create an environment where a thoughtful answer (but not necessarily a correct answer!) is absolutely required. I became so frustrated when students, who CLEARLY had not even attempted to talk about the prompt, were called with random cards and shrugged, "I dunno, we didn't come up with anything."  From the very first day, make sure students know that they MUST give an on-topic response when called on, even if they don't know the answer. That is, the response, "We know that people need food to live, but we're not sure how the Nile provides that," is a perfectly acceptable jumping-off point and is appreciated in the class.

Refresher #4: Ask good questions! If you want students to discuss, make your questions evaluative or ask students to list ideas or debate. If you want them to collect facts or reasons, have them take turns to make a list.

Bad questions: 

How did the Egyptians end up in the Nile Valley? 

How did the Nile make the soil fertile? 

Good questions: 

Which benefit of the Nile River was MOST important for the tribes' survival? Discuss and agree on ONE.

List at least six ways the Nile benefited early settlers. Take turns adding to the list.

Refresher #5: Give a challenge. Students love a challenge. Ask them to work together to summarize the main idea in exactly 21 words, or have their entire conversation silently by writing notes on paper. Short-form challenges for five minutes or less:

-Write an acrostic with a key word: DELTA, NILE, EGYPT

-Write a haiku or tanka about the topic.

-Summarize in exactly ____ words. Add a challenge by making the number smaller: "Turn to the person across from you and summarize in 21 words... Now turn to the person behind you and summarize it in exactly nine words."

-Pyramid: Have students write an answer. Then turn to a partner and combine their answer with their partner's answer. Then turn to another pair and combine the two pair answers into a single answer. So forth and so on. 

Add more ideas in the comments!

Refresher #6: Give sentence stems or discussion cards. Academic Conversations is an excellent book and has a "placemat" with conversational moves on it. These can increase students' options, giving stems like "Could you say more about..." "One example of this is..." etc. I've also had success with creating cards with sentence stems. Students draw cards and discuss using the stems they draw. 

Refresher #7: Online discussions. Discussion threads are an excellent way to get quieter students to share. Although this takes more time and effort, it is well worth it.  Schoology has a great option in their student discussion feature that prevents students from seeing other people's responses until they have made their own first response. This prevents everyone from jumping on the bandwagon with the most popular kid. 

Refresher #8: Digital crowd-sourcing.  Use Socrative (image below) to poll answers from the class. Project the question, and students join your virtual "room" with their phones, tablets, or laptops. Answers spring up in real time as students submit them, and then you can have students discuss what came up or vote on the best answers.

5 Free Digital Tools to Increase Family-School Communication

1. I love Schoology.  It's got everything in one place: Grades, assignments, discussions, and a messaging system. Parents and students can join courses and groups. We have nested groups: Whole school, parents by grade, and then parent interest groups. In the smaller groups, parents have control of their own discussions. There's also a calendar, event invites, and RSVP functions for school events, as well as a built-in simple poll tool to ask questions. You can embed Google Forms, Twitter, Facebook, and Google Drive, You can create albums of pictures, send home forms and reminders, and embed links like Google Forms or Youtube videos. It's truly awesome, and everything I've described is part of the amazingly powerful free version.  iOS and Android apps connect parents who use a smartphone as their primary means of access.

2. Remind 101 is great! Many families at our school don't have internet at home and Remind101 sends one-way texts to cell phones.  The service, which is free, gives you a special phone number and code when you sign up. Parents send a single text with that code to the number, and they're "subscribed" to your class. You don't have to give them your number, they don't have to give you theirs. Then you can send reminders and suggestions. Parents cannot text back with this service, but it's an awesome one-way system.

3. Google Forms. Oh my goodness. Survey away.  I love survey data and I can get parent opinions on all kinds of things with a simple Google Form.  Tips: Remember how you might want to sort this data and add questions that will allow you to sort, like "I have another child who attended this school before/ My family is new to this school this year" or whatever. I just post the survey link on Schoology! Also, create a shortened URL with TinyURL and print little paper slips to pass out to get more participation.

4. You-Log Reading is an awesome free reading log app that lets students or parents log the pages and time they read at home. Students can text or email reports to their teacher, as well as classify books by genre and take notes on their books.

5. Jooners and Sign-Up Genius are fabulous tools for figuring out who's bringing things to the bake sale or coming to help at the car wash.  I've also used it to make the standard beginning-of-the-year plea for class supplies from parents.

What tools do you use to keep in touch with families?

Ten Ideas for Managing Blended Learning in Middle School

I work with middle school students in huge classes of 32-35 with 1:1 laptops. I want them to be as independent as possible. I also DON'T want them to spend the whole day Googling new Nikes. So... I present a list of ten things that worked for me.


1. NO FREE TIME. EVER.  Give students a range of awesome choices that they can do with extra time. 
Seriously, this one is quite misunderstood but so important.  "No free time" does NOT mean that students can't do independent research, Genius Hour, SOLEs, or independent work.  It doesn't even mean that my students don't play the occasional brainless game.
It means that I never announce, "You can have ten minutes of free time on the computer!" and I never give free time as a reward for good behavior or strong work or when someone is finished.
Having the expectation that school computers are used for school stuff will make for better projects, less re-direction, and happier students and teachers. Take suggestions frequently and be flexible when it's necessary.

Make a list of "when you're finished" sites that you're comfortable with and post them on the wall or the class website. Let them generate ideas and vote. Better yet, have continuing projects that kids come back to when they have a bit of extra time, like personal blogs, research, reading, or art.

2. Similarly, don't offer a computer activity just to soak up time. Be intentional with every project/program you give students.

3. Of course, then you have to actually know the program. Take the time to learn, use, and play with the apps you give your students. If you don't have time to look at things before you assign them, you're doing too much.

4. Don't use computers to think critically for you.  Computers are great at lots of things but so far, they are not good at: editing writing, making higher-quality resources more obvious than poor ones, judging the efficacy of an argument, providing great conversation, feedback, and critical thinking in general. Don't try to save time by having a computer do these things for you.

5. Use computers to give quieter students a voice. Online discussions, blogs, and portfolios are great ways to encourage students who don't love to speak up to add their voice to the class. Online discussions don't move as fast as oral ones, so students have more time to think and revise their thoughts before participating.  ELL students have the benefit of spell-check and translation functions. Social response apps, like Socrative or Exit Ticket or even Twitter, can really engage adolescents, who focus on their peers above all else.

6. Use programs that allow kids to be creative. In middle school, you can use a lot of the apps that most of us are using already: Wordpress, Piktochart (infographics) Vine (short looping video), LucidChart (mind-mapping), Google Slides and Drawing, and Prezi (animated presentations) are some examples of programs that really set the 6th graders on fire. Use "plug-and-play" programs that teach pre-loaded skills and content sparingly.

7. Let students explore to learn new programs. Most programs like the ones mentioned above are pretty user-friendly and intuitive to the student generation.  I like to introduce programs using a "sandbox" method:  They open a blank doc and I project a list of things I want them to know how to do with it.  An example with Google Slides was simple but useful:
-Add/delete slides
-Change the slide layout
-Change theme and font
-Insert an image three different ways
-Move images and text around
-Go to presentation mode.
-Use spell check.
-Use the research tab
I give the kids 10-15 minutes to figure all that stuff out. They can talk to each other, but not to me.  Then I call volunteers to present their findings to the class on the projector. After each presentation, other kids can ask questions or present alternative ways of reaching the goal.

8. Give access, not exceptions. Give choices, not changes.  Many teachers worry that because not all students have computers/internet at home, digital projects are not equitable. This is an important thing to consider, but learning where resources are available is a good skill for everyone to have. Tell students where they can access free computers (library, school labs, your room at lunch). Check to see if your community has resources for student computers or low-cost internet and provide these resources to students.  For those of you in Oakland, CA, please check out the Oakland Technology Exchange. If you have a project that cannot be completed with class time only, provide a range of options for projects at the beginning rather than saying something like "Those of you without computers at home are free to hand-write the essay."

9. Listen to your students. They know a lot about what's out there. Have a "parking lot" poster on the wall where kids can write suggestions for new programs or how to use the programs you've introduced. Take suggestions during class occasionally. Then follow rule #3.

10: Get your students to listen to each other. "Ask three before me!" is the rule in my classroom. I almost never have to troubleshoot because of all the little hackers in my room that help each other out. It's great for building communication and learning to solve problems together. It also often highlights the skills of quieter gamer kids.

10 Tips for Creating a Culture of Respect in Your Classroom

When I was just starting out in Oakland Unified, there was this consultant that they paid to come around to the schools and roll out a management system. His system consisted of a fairly straightforward consequence chain liberally sprinkled with character building posters and a mystifying hand gesture.  This was the Teacher Creed poster that every classroom at my school had posted on the wall:

Yikes.

The consultant came to my classroom one day after school. I was alone, and a little uncomfortable when he kicked out the doorstop and let the door close behind him.

"You know," he said, "you're infringing on the rights of students when you don't use my system."

He was referring to the way my colleague and I made our expectations known to the class. Our system was flexible and predicated on the idea that different situations call for different measures and a child always has a right to know why you want them to change their behavior.

"When you change consequences for each situation, you're getting into legal hot water," he said. "You WILL be sued someday."

Maybe he's right.  But I haven't been sued yet.  I can count my annual referrals on one hand. And that poster is gone from my wall.

Tips for Creating a Respectful Classroom

1. Make lessons worthwhile. The best defense is a good offense, and 90% of your problems will go away if students are engaged and productive. Give clear expectations of what should be done when work is completed early. 
2. Maintain a sense of urgency. Many teachers tell students, "I won't let you waste the class's time!"  So practice what you preach, and don't waste their time yourself. Put handouts where you'll need them. Make sure technology is working. Give students jobs like collecting and passing out so those things get done around you. Similar to the first tip, make students feel like there is no time to waste!
3. Don't call kids out in front of others.  Perhaps it's a simple human failing to want to shame people that bug us. Perhaps we think shame will work for that kid who always wants other kids' attention. It doesn't work. Have a quiet conversation to the side. Always. 
• "How do I have a quiet conversation on the side when I'm lecturing?" Good question. Stop lecturing so much. Re-frame your lessons so it's less of you talking and more of you moving around. Everything will get better.
4. Ask, don't tell. Telling=power struggles. Asking=no power struggle. Simple as that. If you say, "Do your work without talking!" the kid will say (say it with me) "But I wasn't talking!" Then you are in the stupidest of all teacher conversations, the "I know you were and I will waste time making you admit it" conversation. Avoid this like the plague. "Hey, do you know what we're supposed to be doing?" is my go-to and it is UNSTOPPABLE. Think about it. The student can say, "Yes." Then you can say, "Oh, great, is there anything you or I can do to help you get started?" Or the student can say, "No," and you can say, "Oh, can you show me where you got stuck?"  Both ways are graceful and avoid struggles.
• The best way I've found to approach a middle schooler causing a lot of trouble is to ask them how they are doing. "Hey, how was your morning?" is both a little disarming and gives you valuable information. Often a kid will tell you exactly why they are acting up: "Grrr I didn't have breakfast and my mom's all mad because I lost my jacket and she yelled at me." Now you can offer a little support: "Oh, that's too bad. After class you should check the lost and found. What can you or I do to help you get started?" You see where this is going. 
5. Recognize when you have a juvenile relationship with a juvenile (don't take students' shenanigans personally). If you find yourself continually going head-to-head with a particular student, take some time outside of class, preferably when you're relaxed, to examine that. What buttons are being pushed by the student? More importantly, where are YOU pushing buttons? I realized that a certain student I had was always late and never brought materials, and this kid's first interaction with me, every day, was my disappointment and frustration over his tardiness. I stopped meeting him at the door when he was tardy, just had him sign in on a slip of paper and go to his seat. I was still frustrated, but avoided going near him until he was working. Then I could walk by and say, "Hey, thanks for getting started."  Our relationship improved.  If you're stuck in a juvenile relationship with a kid, talk yourself out of it.  Use a yoga trick, perhaps known better to westerners as "fake it to make it."  Ask yourself, "How would I treat this person if I were GLAD to see them every day?  Then do that. It works, really.
6. "We-statements," not "I statements" or "You-statements." The book Nonviolent Communication suggests "I-statements" instead of "You-statements." The popular idea says that instead of making assumptions like, "You never get any work done," good communicators put it in personal terms: "I worry when you don't finish your work because I want you to be successful."  Well, great, but middle schoolers only care about you up to a point, and you risk a teenage, "So?" Instead, use who really matters: their peers and community, and be honest. Then it's clear that you have the expectation for everyone. "We don't treat each other like that here." "Oh, everyone has to help put this stuff away. Don't worry about it."
7. In that vein, reminders should be reminders. I've seen so many teachers (Mr. Consultant was one) who have turned the "reminder" into a consequence.  If it's on the consequence chain, it's not a reminder.  "Fiona, this is your reminder!" is kind of silly. ACTUALLY REMIND THEM. Never assume a kid knows that what they're doing is wrong and you won't actually infringe on rights. "Hey, Fiona, we don't take other people's stuff," lets her know you saw her snatch that pencil. You avoid a moralizing lecture and she knows your eye is on her (and her partner's pencil box). 
8. Provide a "graceful out." If you want a respectful classroom, you need to treat kids like you expect them to be good people. My biggest problem with the Teacher Creed above isn't actually the "I will not allow you to stop me from teaching for any reason," although that inspires strange hypothetical situations involving fire and mayhem, but rather the stern, context-less "No manipulations." That part is so insulting because it just ASSUMES that kids will try to manipulate you. I mean, they will, but don't put that assumption ON THE WALL. Everyone hates to feel like a failure, and no one likes to be in trouble. Kids given what I call a "graceful out" will usually take it. I've watched a colleague use this technique for many years, and I still marvel at how quickly and sweetly he can get a kid to turn behavior around by saying, "Oh, hey, it's really not like you to break rules. You probably didn't know that we don't eat snacks in class because we've had a mouse problem before. You'll know next time! Please put it away." He says these things completely free of sarcasm and 99% of kids will gratefully get on board.
9. Smile. In the morning, when you see them. In the afternoon, when they leave. When they tell you something interesting. When they need support. Tell them you care. Show them you care.
10. Be yourself, and let them be themselves. Share, partake, commiserate. "I see you're really into the Oregon Ducks!" "Hey, can I borrow that book when you finish?" "I've felt that way, too..." go a long way with kids who are trying to figure themselves out. You don't have to (nor should you) share sensitive personal information, but kids need to know that we have good days and bad days, likes and dislikes, and personal lives. Model for them what it looks like to be a good person and they will respect you for it and give it back.