Module 3: Text-Based Discussion

1. Module 3:Text-Based Discussion This module will support you in understanding: • the importance of text analysis and setting learning goals as part of planning for a text-based discussion • the kinds of questions and responses to students that support students in building a robust mental representation of a text • how to apply a scheme for planning, enacting, and evaluating text-based discussions • how to develop assessments of student learning related to learning goals Kucan & Palincsar 2009-2010

2. The Architecture ofText-Based Discussions • Planning • Selecting the text • Analyzing the text • Identifying learning goals • Segmenting the text • Initiating questions • Launching • Question/activity/comment • Use of time • Use of voice/gesture/text • Supporting student interactions with the text • Use of plan • Question asking • Responding to students • Exiting • Assessment • Transitioning Kucan & Palincsar IES 2009-2010

3. Quality Questioning • Asking questions that lead students to make connections • So what’s this about pheromones, food, and a chemical trail? • Focusing student thinking on specific information in a text • So now we start to find out more about the dance. What do we find out? • The author told us a lot about pheromones here. What did we find out about them? • “The males can’t help themselves.” What does that mean? • There’s a lot of information in that long section, but what do you think the most important ideas are? What do you think the author wants us to understand from this part? Kucan & Palincsar IES 2009-2010

4. Quality Questioning • Asking questions that elicit explanation • How would that work? • Asking questions that support students’ inferencing • Why do you think Lee is acting this way? What is she trying to do? • Asking questions that get at the big ideas • Why did scientists invent a robot bee? Kucan & Palincsar IES 2009-2010

5. Quality Responding • Connecting student ideas, weaving them together • You have given us such good examples of how the ants release the pheromone. Putting them together lets us understand how that works very well now. • Listening to student comments and then revoicing them, or picking the important ideas in the comments and suggesting what students were trying to say • It seems as if you’re talking about the robot as if it were a little bee. Is that what you mean? • Bringing students back into the text to reread and talk about what that part of the text is about Kucan & Palincsar IES 2009-2010

6. Quality Responding • Bringing students back into the text to reread and talk about what that part of the text is about • Acknowledging and using important student comments and ideas • That’s a very important idea. Let’s remember that. • Encouraging students to explain, elaborate, and provide reasons for their thinking • Tell us more about that. What makes you think that way? • Providing additional information that is not in the text, but could help students in comprehending the text • There’s no information in the text that explains how this works, so I had to look up some facts about how the dance is really done. Kucan & Palincsar IES 2009-2010

7. Unproductive Moves • Asking students about personal experiences related to the text • Asking students to predict • Repeating verbatim student contributions • Collecting a series of student responses to one question without building connections • Over-relying on questions that ask students to retrieve or remember information in the text • Asking students to guess at the meaning of a word, instead of providing a quick definition Kucan & Palincsar IES 2009-2010