Talk, Talk, Talk

This classroom-based resource explores how both teachers and students learn the skills of discussion in content areas across the disciplines. Student reflections and teacher talk provide lively examples of how discussion plays a pivotal role in inquiry-based classrooms, developing students’ basic skills of critical analysis and helping them become lifelong learners, able to confront and research any topic.

Contents

Introduction

1.;What Do We Mean by Discussion?

2.;Why This Film?

3.;What is the Difference Between Information-Based and Discussion-Based Teaching?

4.;How Are Classes Organized Around Discussion

5.;What Techniques and Tools Develop and Support Discussion?

6.;How Can Students Be Prepared for Discussion?

7.;How Can Teachers Be Prepared to Lead Discussion?

8.;What Are the Particular Difficulties of Teaching a Discussion-Based Class?

Ann Cook, Series Editor

Co-chair, New York Performance Standards Consortium

Finally, an inside view of what’s possible in school if teenagers are invited into discussions that matter. In both the film and book, Talk, Talk, Talk shows us lively, engaged students, thoughtful educators, and a persuasive argument for the centrality of “talk” in the classroom.
—Deborah Meier, Principal, Mission Hill School
MacArthur Fellow

Talk, Talk, Talk demonstrates how a school that is a professional community can produce intellectual challenge and the powerful learning for all students. Repeatedly we see images of urban high school students passionately engaged in intellectual discussions that are at a level we expect only from private and suburban schools. Clearly when teachers have the freedom to construct rigorous curricula, students can perform to high standards.
—Jacqueline Ancess, Co-Director, National Center for Restructuring Education, Schools and Teaching (NCREST)
Teachers College, Columbia University