After viewing today’s video, reflect on the following:

• What has worked in the past when you’ve asked students to work together?
• What hasn’t worked for you?
• How comfortable are you with collaborative conversations in your classroom?
• What do you need to know to create opportunities for students to talk to each other?

This journal can be used to reflect on what you have learned as you develop strategies for engaging your students in collaborative conversations.

After viewing today’s video, reflect on the following:

• What did the teacher do to create that classroom environment?
• What actions should she have taken?
• What actions did she take?
• How did she create opportunities for students to interact with their peers

This journal can be used to reflect on what you have learned as you develop strategies for engaging your students in collaborative conversations.

Think about your reasons for not implementing collaborative conversations. Make a list of all the concerns you have about implementing collaborative conversations with your students. What do you think is the barrier for your students and their success with learning from collaborative conversations?

This journal can be used to reflect on what you have learned as you develop strategies for engaging your students in collaborative conversations.

Try out one of the two partner experiences in your classroom by adding it to a lesson. Explain the experience to your students in advance. Once they participate in it, watch how the students respond.

This journal can be used to reflect on what you have learned as you develop strategies for engaging your students in collaborative conversations.

Try out the opposite partner experience from yesterday’s task in your classroom by adding it to a lesson. Let your students know what to expect ahead of time. Once they participate in it, watch how the students respond. If you used Response Cards yesterday, then use the Silent Interview today. If you implemented the Silent Interview yesterday, then today use the Response Cards.

Reflect on the experience and jot down your thoughts in the Professional Reflection Journal or elsewhere. Did you use any language supports? Reflect on whether those supports helped your students express themselves.

This journal can be used to reflect on what you have learned as you develop strategies for engaging your students in collaborative conversations.

These sentence frames can be used to improve student language during the interactive process.

Select a piece of text and identify 3 stopping points. Explain the ReQuest strategy to your students. Have your students engage in the reciprocal questioning activity. The questions will most likely be literal. After practicing this activity a few times, introduce inferential questions to your students.
Jot down your reflections about this experience in your Professional Reflection Journal or elsewhere.

This journal can be used to reflect on what you have learned as you develop strategies for engaging your students in collaborative conversations.

Conduct a Think-Pair-Share with your students. Pair up your students and ask them a question. Give students think time and then have them talk with their partners about the question and their responses. After their partner time, bring them back together whole-class and have them share out.

Jot down your reflections about this experience in your Professional Reflection Journal or elsewhere.

This journal can be used to reflect on what you have learned as you develop strategies for engaging your students in collaborative conversations.

This chart can be used to analyze a class set of annotations and identify trends and instructional needs.

Practice a strategy you’ve been using with your students to get them talking to each other using academic language. You can do a ReQuest, Think-Pair-Share, or a variation on that, or any other strategy we’ve explored thus far.
Watch how your students respond. Reflect on how they respond to having increased time to talk to each other.

This journal can be used to reflect on what you have learned as you develop strategies for engaging your students in collaborative conversations.

Create a Noise Meter to use to teach your students the appropriate levels of noise for different activities. Teach a lesson that includes one of the strategies for collaborative conversations and use the Noise Meter to provide feedback on the noise level in the room.

Watch how your students respond. Reflect on their response to using the Noise Meter during their conversations.

This journal can be used to reflect on what you have learned as you develop strategies for engaging your students in collaborative conversations.

Try out either Four Corners or Novel Ideas Only with your students.
Watch how your students respond. Reflect on their response to this newer approach to having collaborative conversations with their peers.

This journal can be used to reflect on what you have learned as you develop strategies for engaging your students in collaborative conversations.

Try out the variation to either Four Corners or Novel Ideas, adding the seated students or splitting or folding the line. If you’d like you can practice the activity that you didn’t use yesterday.
Watch how your students respond. Reflect on their response to the variation or the new activity.

This journal can be used to reflect on what you have learned as you develop strategies for engaging your students in collaborative conversations.

Intentionally form groups based on your assessment information. You can use Lexile reading levels, or any other current information you have on student performance. List them by name, cut the list in half, and form the groups across.
Try out any strategy we’ve used in the past with groups formed using Alternate Ranking to assess the impact of creating student groups with intention.

This journal can be used to reflect on what you have learned as you develop strategies for engaging your students in collaborative conversations.

Practice any of the strategies for including collaborative conversations in your instruction that we’ve been learning about in this series.
Reflect on your practice. As your repertoire grows, how are you feeling about making collaborative conversations a regular part of your instructional day?

This journal can be used to reflect on what you have learned as you develop strategies for engaging your students in collaborative conversations.

Introduce Conversation Roundtable to your students and model how to fold the paper. Select a piece of text, such as a Stretch Article, and have students read the article in their groups. Then have them take notes and have a conversation with their peers for which they are accountable.
Reflect on this new strategy and how it added accountability in their collaborative conversations.

This journal can be used to reflect on what you have learned as you develop strategies for engaging your students in collaborative conversations.

Introduce Collaborative Poster to your students. Give each group of students, created with the Alternate Ranking method, a large sheet of paper and give each student a marker, assigning them the color that you want them to use. Assign the task and then survey the room, encouraging students to clarify their thinking.
Reflect on this new instructional activity and how it helped make students accountable for their conversations.

This journal can be used to reflect on what you have learned as you develop strategies for engaging your students in collaborative conversations.

Create a T-Chart and identify the collaborative conversation strategies that are working for you and the strategies that are not working for you.

Reflect on whether you will practice the ones that you are currently not using and eventually move them over to the “To Use” category.

This journal can be used to reflect on what you have learned as you develop strategies for engaging your students in collaborative conversations.

Use this template instead of creating your own.

Plan the stations to use with your students. What are familiar tasks and activities that your students can engage in? You can plan some stations where the activities are independent tasks, and others that include collaborative tasks.

Reflect on your thoughts about implementing Station Teaching in your classroom. Do you have any concerns?

This journal can be used to reflect on what you have learned as you develop strategies for engaging your students in collaborative conversations.

This overview presents a model for implementing the Rotation Model and instructional guidelines.

Use this planning tool to help your implementation of the Rotation Model.

Analyze what you saw in the video. What did you notice about the students and their ability to work together? What did you notice about the teacher and his time with a small group of students? Finalize your plans for Station Teaching in your classroom.

This journal can be used to reflect on what you have learned as you develop strategies for engaging your students in collaborative conversations.

Practice Station Teaching with your students. Make sure that the students know what the expectations are. Move the students through at least one rotation and have them complete two different tasks. Reflect about how it worked, and about the changes you need to make.

This journal can be used to reflect on what you have learned as you develop strategies for engaging your students in collaborative conversations.

This overview presents a model for implementing the Rotation Model and instructional guidelines.

Use this planning tool to help your implementation of the Rotation Model.

Select a text, such as an article from Achieve3000. Then identify sections for the groups of students to read. Have the “expert groups” independently read and discuss their part of the text. Then, the students will meet with their “home groups” to discuss each part of the text. The students then return to their expert groups so they can reflect on how their part of the text fit in with the rest of the text.

Watch your students and reflect on the process. Did your students enjoy the Jigsaw activity? If so, this may be a strategy you want to use in your classroom regularly.

This journal can be used to reflect on what you have learned as you develop strategies for engaging your students in collaborative conversations.

Select a text, such as an article from Achieve3000. Identify the stopping points in the text. Model or teach summarizing, clarifying, predicting and questioning. Assign roles and have your students engage in a reciprocal teaching conversation.

Watch your students and reflect on this strategy. Did it work for your students?

This journal can be used to reflect on what you have learned as you develop strategies for engaging your students in collaborative conversations.

Reciprocal Teaching works best with informational text. You can use the search feature in My Lessons to find lessons with articles aligned to topics that you’re already teaching in your classroom.

Today’s task has several parts. Update the T-chart of the “Useful” and “Not So Useful” strategies. Revisit your first reflection, your “Yes, But” reflection. Are there things you thought about earlier that weren’t going to work for you that are now working? Are there still areas that are concerns for you? Reflect on that and think about where you need to take your students. Thirdly, continue practicing collaborative strategies with your students.

This journal can be used to reflect on what you have learned as you develop strategies for engaging your students in collaborative conversations.

Using the first indicator on task complexity, observe your students and think about the complexity of the task you’ve assigned them. Do they need each other in order to succeed? Do they have to interact to be successful?

Reflect on this and the steps you can take to plan lessons where students make mistakes and learn from them.

This journal can be used to reflect on what you have learned as you develop strategies for engaging your students in collaborative conversations.

Use this rubric over the next 6 days to learn about the indicators of success and then assess your students’ group work.

Using the rubric and focusing on the joint attention to the task materials indicator, observe your students. How are the groups performing? Do they understand what joint attention looks like? Are they a 4, 3, 2 or 1 on the rubric?

Reflect on this and the steps you can take to take your students to the next level.

This journal can be used to reflect on what you have learned as you develop strategies for engaging your students in collaborative conversations.

Use this rubric to learn about the indicators of success, and to assess your students’ productive group work.

Use the rubric and focus on Argumentation, Not Arguing. Do your student engage in this type of conversation or do they simply give each other information? Look for deeper conversations that use argumentation. You can use any strategy you choose for collaborative conversations as you observe your students.

Reflect on this and the steps you can take to facilitate conversations where your students agree and disagree.

This journal can be used to reflect on what you have learned as you develop strategies for engaging your students in collaborative conversations.

Use this rubric to learn about the indicators of success, and to assess your students’ productive group work.

Use this debate graphic organizer to help your students construct their argumentation conversation.

Using any strategy that you’ve learned so far, observe your students at work. Use the 4, 3, 2, 1, rating system of the rubric and determine the type of support your students currently have.

Reflect on the kind of language support your students may benefit from as they continue practicing their collaborative conversations.

This journal can be used to reflect on what you have learned as you develop strategies for engaging your students in collaborative conversations.

Use this rubric to learn about the indicators of success, and to assess your students’ productive group work.

Engage your students in a collaborative learning opportunity and think about group size and composition. Use the indicators 4, 3, 2, and 1 to determine the success your students are having in their groups. How did you form the groups? Are they working?

Reflect on that and think of ways to take your students to the next level.

This journal can be used to reflect on what you have learned as you develop strategies for engaging your students in collaborative conversations.

Use this rubric to learn about the indicators of success, and to assess your students’ productive group work

In this video, Dr. Fisher explains in detail how to intentionally form student groups with Alternate Ranking.

Analyze your own behavior and consider your role in the classroom while students work productively with their peers. Take a look at the indicators 4, 3, 2 and 1 and determine the level of support you currently provide for students while the others work productively.

Reflect on areas of growth. Where can you improve your instruction as your students engage in collaborative conversations with their peers?

This journal can be used to reflect on what you have learned as you develop strategies for engaging your students in collaborative conversations.

Use this rubric to learn about the indicators of success, and to assess your students’ productive group work.

Have a conversation with a colleague to introduce them to the Productive Group Work rubric and review each of the indicators. Then, follow through with your plan and complete your observation session.

Reflect on this experience and how you will continue to grow in the collaborative conversations work you are doing with your students.

This journal can be used to reflect on what you have learned as you develop strategies for engaging your students in collaborative conversations.

Use this rubric to learn about the indicators of success, and to assess your students’ productive group work.

Review the reflections in your Reflection Journal for all sessions. Then, focus on these final reflection questions:

• Revisit your “Yes, But” list. Have they been resolved? Are there things you still need to learn?
• Look at your T-Chart of “Useful” and “Not So Useful” strategies. Which ones do your students regularly engage in? Which ones are still not so useful to you?
• Reflect on your original goal about the percentage of minutes in your classroom where your students talk to each other using academic language.

Make a commitment to including time for collaborative conversation in your daily lesson plans. Continue to invite colleagues into your classroom to give you updates on how you’re progressing in meeting the quality indicators for productive group work.

This journal can be used to reflect on what you have learned as you develop strategies for engaging your students in collaborative conversations.