Student Talk > Teacher Talk

Student Talk > Teacher Talk

An instructional goal at Wide Hollow STEAM Elementary is for student talk to be greater than teacher talk. Language acquisition has a huge impact on academic growth and students acquire language best when using language.

Teachers at Wide Hollow have worked hard to have students talking more and more in their classrooms. A classroom that is always quiet does not have strong language acquisition occurring. Principal Rick Ferguson noted, “In our student growth data, we noticed the classrooms with the highest student growth had more student talk occurring. Wide Hollow STEAM teachers are increasing the use of strategies like turn-and-talk, writing and solving the room, seats-up and heads-together, partner work, group work, walk-and-talk, collaborative games, and jigsaw groups. These are just a few of the strategies our staff has identified.”

Principal Ferguson continued, “Teachers have also worked hard to scaffold student talk with the use of sentence stems, word banks, and strategies for Guided Language Acquisition Design. It is always a joy to be in a classroom where there is productive noise happening with student talk and we hear students using academic vocabulary, question each other, and help each other deepen their understanding of a concept.”

“This work also aligns with our focus on the Four C’s of 21st Century Learning: collaboration, communication, complex problem-solving, and creativity,” Ferguson continued. “These skills are essential to any future career our students will pursue. Wide Hollow STEAM teachers continue to harvest new and more ideas to have our students talking more and more. We are so proud of our teachers’ efforts in this area!”

With a learning community sharing best practices to increase student talk, Wide Hollow STEAM Elementary is laser-focused on improving student growth in all content areas.