CPD Film Club Reflection

Dialogic talk CPD session

The lesson that we watched was a fourth grade Maths lesson. The teacher wrote an equation on the board asked the students to decide whether the equation was true or false. They had to give reasons for their answers. I have broken my reflection down into various parts.

Task

The teacher chose a task which was the correct level of difficulty for her (presumably mixed ability) class. This was important as it was crucial that there were a mixture of responses. It needed to have the right level of difficulty to facilitate the students working out amongst themselves with minimal teacher prompts.

Teacher intervention

Throughout the lesson, the time that the teacher was talking was minimal compared to the time that the students were talking. When setting up the task, the teacher used very precise and succinct instructions and reminded the students only of what was crucial (‘you need to have reasons for your decision’). The clarity and simplicity of the instruction was very effective as it allowed the students to take ownership of the problem themselves after she had posed it.

When taking responses from the students, the teacher passed no judgement of their answers, often replying with a simple ‘ok’ and asking others ‘do you agree?’. This meant that the students couldn’t derive any clues from the teacher for the correct answer. This made them much more independent and gave them more responsibility for coming to the answer. They had to rely on themselves and each other rather than the teacher. This is by the far the biggest thing that I will take away from this CDP session. I find that often students look to the teacher for validation of their ideas. On reflection, I think it is often clear from my body language and tone of voice if I think their answer is ‘correct’. I have reflected that this approach could be limiting the range of answers that are generated in my classroom and reinforcing the idea that the teacher is the ‘fountain of all knowledge’ and ultimately gives the approval to what is right or wrong. When considering the move to a more neutral and objective response style, I think that my students would find it quite a shift to receive a simple ‘ok’ in response to their ideas, as they are used to receiving praise and validation.

Paired talk

Much of the lesson consisted of the students talking through their ideas. This was done first in pairs and then as a whole class. The teacher had clearly cultivated an environment where all students felt comfortable sharing their ideas at length.

Personal reflection

I have tried the techniques used in this video in my own classroom to positive effect. I have been pleased with how the students develop their answers far more and build on what other students say. I have found that it works especially well with broad, opinion based questions, for example, ‘Shakespeare wants his audience to like Macbeth. Do you agree/disagree and why? Give reasons for your answer.’