Academic discourse

http://www.edutopia.org/blog/sammamish-6-academic-discourse-PBL-danielle-lynch

I read the above article on academic discourse.  As I read the article, I thought about the many conversations I've had with teachers about student retention and how their learning seems to dissipate from year to year...even month to month..., or day to day... and I was also reminded of the student discourse component of our problem of practice for instructional rounds. 

I feel that this article offered a few key pieces that may help us with these two issues.  

The article defines academic discourse as "encompassing the idea of dialogue, the language used, and a format that facilitates a high level of communication in the classroom."  It also states "the discourse can range from peer-to-peer discussion to whole-class discussion and can take on many forms: metacognition, presentations, debate, listening, writing, and critiquing others' work."  Not only are students communicating, but they must also be given opportunities to process and interact using academic vocabulary (which reinforces the importance of anchor charts).

If you know me at all, you know that I am BIG on modeling for students.  so the next part of the article was key for me.  It stated, "academic discourse is not something that comes easily to most students; rather, it is something that needs to be taught, modeled and recognized by both teachers and students. With strategic instruction around what academic discourse sounds, looks and feels like, it can be a useful tool that enriches all classroom interactions and facilitates deeper learning and retention." 

The following were the most important components of academic discourse within a math classroom (identified by this group of people) and they developed an approach to implementing the components.

1. They set the expectation that students will present problems and explain how they reached their answer.
2. They emphasized the importance of using correct vocabulary. For example, math students often confuse an expression and an equation. Making that distinction is important for students. To retain the difference between the two words, they must practice using those words.
3. They made writing in math a norm. Students will be expected to write about the process of how they reached an answer. This serves as another way of seeing how students are processing the material and how they are applying vocabulary words.

As I read this article I thought of how this could be applied in our district to help with our student verbal discourse, while using the academic vocabulary.  I feel this would help increase classroom engagement, increase their understanding of skills and concepts (and help them fossilize that learning in their brain-retention), encourage collaboration, and create a learning community where students take ownership of their learning and truly grow and develop into life-long learners. 

Until next time...