Do you have a goal of shifting the balance from teacher talk time in class to student talk time? Are you curious about strategies you can "use now" in your classroom to get your students talking? Are you wanting to increase student-led discussions to allow students to be owners of the learning? This class will take you all the way from how to create a positive classroom culture, where student talk is welcome, all the way to the ultimate in student-led discussion: the Socratic seminar. Join me to pick up some practical strategies and skills that will make your teaching transform from "my class" to "our class."

Upon completion of this course, the student will be able to:

• Construct a welcoming classroom community where all students feel comfortable sharing thoughts and ideas with the teacher and with peers.
• Define the “why” behind teacher talk vs student talk and the truth in the phrase: “The one who does the talking does the learning.”
• Incorporate high-leverage strategies towards student-generated questions, such as QFT and Bloom’s Taxonomy.
• Incorporate “softball” talk strategies and routines in the classroom on a daily basis.
• Curate and justify texts to differentiate for the varying levels of learners in the classroom.
• Provide strategies to help students better understand text sources and be equipped to analyze text.
• Conduct a Socratic seminar in whole-class, inside-outside partners circle, fishbowl, hotseat, and more.
• Collect and analyze data from a Socratic seminar, in order to analyze student talk patterns in the classroom.