Website: Instructional Strategies

How Can I Foster Curiosity and Learning in My Classroom? Through Talk!

UW Institute for Science + Math Education

Lynn’s Recommendation
While direct instruction has an important role in the classroom, many instructors don't realize that learning goals such as critical thinking and engaging in discourse rely on students’ production of language. This overview is helpful for seeing student-student and student-instructor possibilities.

In many classrooms, teacher talk takes up the majority of class time, and student talk is primarily used for correctly answering teacher questions. In this 'guess what the teacher is thinking' approach, teachers know the answers to most of their own questions, and student talk is only used to verify they know the "right answer."