Talk Moves

Students Responding to the Teacher When facilitating a whole class discussion, some questions are posed to individual students. After teaching a lesson on proportions, the teacher may ask an individual student to help set up the problem for the class. The teacher uses a strategy such as cold calling to select students to respond directly to the teacher, while other students observe the interaction. A teacher may ask a student for a solution, to clarify their own thinking or to dive deeper into their own reasoning. When teachers communicate with individual students, it is a valuable way to check for one individual student's understanding. When students respond to individual questions, it can also guide the class through mathematical processes and help students adopt the reasoning of other students.

Students Respond to Peers Sometimes the purpose of questioning is to get students to respond to each other. A teacher may ask students to add on to a peer's thinking, explain a peer's thought process or agree/disagree with an idea presented by a peer. When students engage with their peers, student engagement naturally increases. If the teacher intentionally structures peer to peer conversation, students will be actively listening to other students responses. To respond to a peer, students have to understand, interpret and internalize what they are hearing. Utilizing these talk moves will raise the level of thinking for all students in the classroom.

Revoicing While facilitating a whole class discussion, this move can be used to clarify a student's thinking. The teacher re-voices student expressions to elicit further responses.

• So, let me see if I've got your thinking right. You're saying _____?
• I think what you are trying to say is_____. Is that correct?

Press for Reasoning Ask a student to explain their reasoning.

• Why do you think that?
• What is your evidence?
• How did you arrive at that conclusion?

Challenge The teacher challenges a student's idea.

• Is this always true?
• Can you think of any examples that would not work?
• What if _____ happened instead?

Say More The teacher asks a student for further elaboration.

• How did you arrive at that answer?
• Say more about that, please.
• What do you mean by that?
• Can you give me an example?

Add On The teacher prompts students for further participation based on what another student said.

• Who can add onto the idea that Anna is building?
• Can anyone take that suggestion and push it a little further?

Agree/Disagree Ask students to state their standpoint. This is more than just saying "Does anyone agree or disagree?" This strategy is best done when the teacher follows up by asking students to present their reasoning.

• Do you agree or disagree with what Jamie said? Why?
• What do people think about what Leslie said?
• Who would like to respond to that idea?

Restate This strategy is very similar to the "revoice" strategy, except instead of the teacher clarifying, the teacher asks another student to restate someone else's reasoning.

• Can you repeat what he just said in your own words?
• What did your partner have to say?

Explain Another's Reasoning The teacher asks students to apply their own reasoning to someone else's reasoning.

• Why do you think he said that?
• Who can explain what Hala means when she says that?
• Who thinks they could explain how Klarissa came up with that answer?

When implementing talk moves, consideration must be given to the classroom culture and how students and teachers think about mathematical discourse. No matter what context or which talk moves are being utilized, students need adequate think time to construct a response. The think time strategies hold all students accountable prior to soliciting a verbal response. When providing students time to think, the teacher assigns value to a student's voice and encourages more students to communicate. Think time should be intentional and have a stated purpose. The teacher might say, "I would like you to take a minute to think about the following question. After giving you time to think, I'll ask a few students to share." The following ideas could be used to give students a chance to think before responding verbally. These need to happen before the talk moves in order for the class conversation to reach it's highest potential. Think of these strategies as a rough draft of what the student wants to say in front of the whole class. These provide students with the opportunity to refine and craft better quality responses.

• Wait Time - With the expectation of a response, providing time for students to think in their heads could be as simple as giving 30 seconds to all students before asking your question.
• Writing as Think Time - Allowing students time to write out a response to a question could formalize their thinking and help them organize thoughts to present. The quick write strategy could be used here.
• Partner Talk - Some students need to talk in order to thoroughly think through their responses. For verbal processors, talking about their thoughts is important. This also allows students to add to their own thinking by speaking with a partner.