Opening Up Talk for Learning

in Subject Classrooms

A Resource Guide for

Enabling Productive Academic Discussion

Introduction A productive academic discussion enables students to extend their thinking and build on one another’s ideas.

What is in the Resource Package? In this package, you will find the following:

Resource 1: Guidelines for Productive Academic Discussion (Poster)

Resource 2: Talk Moves for Productive Academic Discussion (Poster)

Resource 3: How to Participate in a Discussion (Student Placemat)

Studies on classroom talk have shown that it is important

to provide opportunities for students to talk in

classrooms to promote engagement and deepen

learning (Alexander, 2005; Zwiers & Crawford, 2011).

When conducting a productive academic discussion, the

teacher can extend students’ thinking to help them build

on one another’s ideas.

This resource guide is intended to facilitate the use of talk

moves in your classroom and to enable productive

academic discussion. We hope that you will find it useful

in opening up talk and promoting student engagement.

Resource 1 Resource 2 Resource 3

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Resource 1: Guidelines for Productive Academic Discussion (Poster)

STP Link

Positive Classroom Culture

Setting expectations and routines

Maintaining positive discipline

Quick Tip Reinforce the guidelines regularly to help students acquire the expected

behaviour.

Setting clear expectations for

classroom talk helps to establish a

classroom environment that is

conducive for productive academic

discussion. Students need to have a

shared understanding of how they

should interact with the teacher

and one another. This poster could

be used to set clear expectations

for discussions at the beginning of

the year.

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Resource 2: Talk Moves for Productive Academic Discussion (Poster)

This poster lists the talk moves and

talk frames you could use when

facilitating classroom discussions.

Refer to these frames when planning

classroom discussions or use them to

help your students participate more

actively during classroom

discussions.

STP Link

Lesson Preparation

Planning key questions

Lesson Enactment

Facilitating collaborative learning

Encouraging learner engagement

Using questions to deepen learning

Assessment and Feedback

Checking for understanding and providing feedback.

Quick Tip Place this poster in a prominent position in the classroom so that you

and your students can refer to it readily.

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Resource 3: How to Participate in a Discussion (Student Placemat)

This placemat is designed to guide students during a discussion. It contains sentence

frames that can be used to prompt students for more information, clarify what they had

said, check for understanding, etc.

Quick Tip Familiarise students with the use of the placemat before you conduct a

productive academic discussion.

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Feedback

If you would like to provide any feedback on the resources, please contact us at:

Access to the resources

If you wish to download and print these resources for

your school, you can access the resources through this

QR code or link: www.tinyurl.com/padresources.

Resources

References:

Alexander, R. J. (2005, July). Culture, dialogue and learning: Notes on an emerging pedagogy. Keynote

presentation to the 10th international conference of the international association for cognitive education

and psychology (IACEP) on education, culture and cognition: intervening for growth, Durham, UK.

Zwiers, J., & Crawford, M. (2011). Academic conversations: classroom talk that fosters critical thinking and

content understandings. Portland, Me: Stenhouse Publishers.

moe_elis_academy@moe.gov.sg

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