About This Course

Do you want to deepen your instructional practice and set up more effective contexts to support your students’ learning?  

Join RBT Consultant and talk expert Dr. Evelyn Ford-Connors in this series of workshops. Together, we’ll explore the roles of teacher talk and classroom discourse as tools to strengthen instruction and actively engage students in learning. We’ll examine ways to use our talk more strategically and analyze a range of teacher “talk moves,” including questioning, wait time and pacing, feedback and “feed forward,” revoicing, and more. We’ll investigate what research has to say about the effects of well-planned classroom discourse on students’ reasoning and learning and look at some grouping options and types of student interaction that deepen students’ thinking and engagement with texts, content, and each other. In addition to lecture and discussion, we’ll use relevant articles, videos, and transcript analysis as resources to help us make more effective use of talk in our own classrooms. Participants will be encouraged to try out some of these ideas, and we’ll meet again in October to share our insights, consider our challenges, and celebrate our successes.

Do you want to deepen your instructional practice and set up more effective contexts to support your students’ learning?

Goals

Participants will:

  • learn specific teacher talk moves that support students’ thinking
  • investigate what research has to say about the effects of well-planned classroom discourse on students’ reasoning and learning
  • look at some grouping options and types of student interaction that deepen students’ thinking and engagement with texts, content, and each other
  • apply strategies and reflect on their impact

Language provides both the context and the vehicle for learning, making classroom discussions a powerful tool available to teachers for promoting student learning.

Ford-Connors & Robertson, 2017

Course Format

This course begins with two in-person sessions followed by two virtual follow-up sessions.

Resources

There are always opportunities…to reflect on one’s pedagogical practices and to work with students to establish or shift classroom culture.

Murphy et al, 2022

Course Information

Groups of 25 or more: Submit a Service Request to discuss how this workshop could benefit educators in your school or district.

Individuals or less than 25: Fill out our Open Enrollment Interest Form to be notified of the next open enrollment opportunity.