Instructional Conversations

Despite being in a classroom of 1^st graders I had high hopes for my instructional conversation. Many portions of it proved to be effective however for next time I would like to work on getting the students to respond to each other more. Aside from a few occasions the students were mostly responding to my prompts or me. Some of the students really got it and were contributing excellent higher order thinking responses while others were sticking to surface level themes or summaries of the text we focused on.  As I dive into the thorough analysis this week I will explore what led up to moments that showed great instructional conversing amongst the students, what did not work so well, and what I can improve on for next time!

I chose to do my instructional conversation about the picture book Peter’s Chair. In this picture book Peter’s baby sister has just been born and his parents are paying more attention to her than him. They paint all of his baby things pink and he gets jealous and attempts to run away. In the end Peter decides to help his dad paint his chair for his little sister. So despite the somewhat basic plot line this book has several talking points that could be focused on that reveal the theme of the story. The ones I chose to focus on with my students were Why did Peter decide to run away, why was he grumpy throughout the story, and why did Peter change his mind at the end of the story. These talking points deal with Peter’s jealous and anger throughout the story. And the last one deals with his overall care and love for his sister that he was able to realize at the end of the story.

I taught my lesson with an instructional conversation focus last week and I do have some good data to analyze however the biggest mistake I think I made was making the group aware of the tape recorder. With other groups I have worked with the tape recorder did not change their interactions with me at all, but this group could not handle it as well as the other groups. During the lesson they were obsessed with the recorder and would try to say things into it.

As Goldenberg specifies I followed the elements of an instructional conversation by establishing a focus (Peter’s reaction to his sister), activating schema (asking the students about their own siblings and feelings they may have had), and provided starting points for thoughtful conversation (the talking points I listed above). Backed up in Johnston’s text, this idea of collaboration and building on peers ideas will promote critical thinking and HOTS among the students. So in my first attempt at an instructional conversation I think my content and focus was there, however student interaction with the conversation could be improved.

After I construct my Instructional Conversation essay I will be keeping in mind things that went well, not so well, and what I learned about this process that I can use for next time I have one in my own classroom.