Instructional Conversations

     When I first heard about instructional conversation, I thought it sounded like an easy task that involves having a conversations with students where you provide the information needed but that's not quite it. After completely my own instructional conversation I saw that it was so much more than what I originally thought. I recently did an instructional conversation with a small group of my 6th graders that went above and beyond my expectations.     Instructional conversations is such an important tool to have in your teaching toolbox because it has so many uses. One use that I find particularly important is building a sense of community. When having a conversation with students ideas are flowing and there is no right or wrong; instead we are listening to our peers and encouraging everyone to share. By creating a classroom where everyone's opinion matters, students will be more likely to want to share. Not only will my students learn from each other but I will too. I will get to hear my students ideas and theories in open environment. I want to make sure my students know that their ideas have value and that they can learn so much from their peers by listening to their ideas. Peter Johnson in Opening Minds brings up the idea of a dialogic classroom. . "A dialogic classroom is one in which there are lots of open questions and extended exchanges among students.  These are not classrooms based on the delivery of facts. They are classrooms in which there are multiple interpretations and perspectives-classrooms in which facts are considered in different contexts and in which people challenge each other's views and conclusions" (Johnston, 52). Students in the type of classroom setting will not have the pressure of simply learning and memorizing facts but they will instead engage in conversations that lead to learning, which in turn will create a community of knowledge explorers. This sense of community will help students feel safe when they share their ideas. I never want my students to feel like they cannot share their ideas or have fear that they will be rejected. By having the confidence and the comfort-ability to share their idea students are empowered- they realize they truly have a voice in the classroom. Another reason the instructional conversation is helpful particularly with language arts is it helps students use high order thinking skills to explore texts. Students will quickly see if they stop at the surface meaning of the text then their conversation will be dull but if they dig past that meaning they will have an incredibly enriched experiences. In the beginning a teacher will probably be needed to help further the conversation but as time goes on students will (hopefully) be able to prompt themselves and challenge each other to be critical of the books they are reading. Students are building confidence in their voice as well as learning to be able to support their thoughts.
 

    When I did my first instructional conversation I was very nervous; there are still things that I can improve on but I think that my student did benefit for the experience. We did a discussion about Esperanza Rising. Students used the questions from the previous night as a base of their conversation. The students were very excited to voice their opinions and that was wonderful however they seemed to only voice their opinions at me instead of bouncing off at each other. I hope the next time I do this to have students talk more to each other as opposed to just me; I may have to explain the idea of a book discussion to students. Students were passionate about the chapter and I was excited that they were empathising with the main character (something that we struggled with before). Their answers to the questions (both the ones they had worked on the night before and other questions I asked) showed the students were being critical of the text while making sure to included evidence for their thoughts. I want to help my students make more personal connections to the text during the next conversation (and perhaps this will help with students bouncing ideas off each other) and one way I can help students do this is to model it myself. My experience with the instructional conversation should me how it can help students build their voice but it did show me that I have to be very careful of my presence so I don’t take away from the empowering nature that students can benefit from.