6 Practices for Building on Student Contributions
This article is a guest post contributed by Dora Demszky, a PhD candidate in the Linguistics Department at Stanford University.
Dora’s research focuses on building and deploying natural language processing methods to support equitable and student centered education. She combines machine learning with linguistic theory and input from practitioners to develop interpretable and scalable education measures. By deploying these measures, she aims to improve educational interventions, teachers' professional development and the equity of curricular materials.
Building on student contributions (also known as “uptake”) is an effective teaching tool, one that research has linked positively to student learning and achievement.
This practice, which can include reframing what a student has said or asking follow-up questions, builds a dynamic that signals to students that they are essential to the classroom learning community.
Students feel heard when their contributions are used. They form connections to the content, their teacher, and their peers.
In this post, I’ll introduce you to six strategies for building on student contributions -- acknowledgement, revoicing, reformulation, clarification, follow-up, and guiding.
And, I’ll share how you can leverage these strategies to strengthen student talk in line with your own instructional goals.
Bear in mind, there are many possible approaches to building on student contributions. These six practices are both highly effective and simple to measure. So they’re a great place to start.
Plus, these strategies are not mutually exclusive. In fact, they build on each other!
Powering teacher practices to build on student contributions
Our hope is that, when teachers are empowered with data like this about their instructional practice, they will gain new insights into their teaching practice. And that these insights will support their growth and mastery of their craft, and deepen student learning in their classrooms
Researchers at Stanford have built an algorithm to surface moments in a lesson when a teacher built on a student contribution.
To that end, when you TeachFX your lessons, TeachFX will surface moments when you build on student contributions. You can readily listen back to these moments, reflect on what worked or what didn’t, and use this powerful data to direct your own growth in your teaching practice.
With each of the six strategies for building on student contributions below, you’ll see examples of how TeachFX can provide actionable insights to help teachers continue to grow their practice.
Building on Student Contributions
Acknowledging
Acknowledging a student’s contributions is the simplest way to show that you’ve heard them.
Generally, this practice is effective when accompanied by one of the other five strategies listed here.
However, acknowledgment alone can sometimes be effective as well. For example, when you want to encourage a student to keep talking. Or, when you want to collect ideas from multiple students before summarizing and building on those ideas.
TeachFX transcripts help teachers find the moments in their classrooms when they’ve acknowledged student contributions, and see how students respond.
Here’s how TeachFX can surface a moment like this for you in your class report and transcript.
Revoicing
Revoicing happens when you repeat all or a part of what the student has said.
You can use revoicing to clarify, elaborate, or correct what students say when it is not clear or incorrect.
Or, you can emphasize and elevate their contribution to make sure the entire class has heard it. You then can use the contribution as a building block for the class discussion.
Here’s how TeachFX can surface a moment like this for you in your class report and transcript.
Reformulating
Reformulation is similar to revoicing, except that it involves more substantial rephrasing of what the student has said.
For instance, you might use a student’s contribution but add more subject-specific (e.g. mathematical) language. You might clarify the student's point. Or, you might highlight the correct and incorrect parts of a student contribution, to both affirm and challenge the student's thinking.
Reformulating communicates to students that you understand where they’re coming from and see the value of their contribution, rather than leaving the student feeling you’ve rejected what they’ve said.
Here’s how TeachFX can surface a moment like this for you in your class report and transcript.
Clarifying to help the students refine their thinking
Clarifying questions lets the students do the work of refining their thinking, which can benefit their learning and the learning of the whole class.
In addition, clarifying questions can signal that you want students to guide the discussion, showing your openness and care for students’ ideas.
Here’s how TeachFX can surface a moment like this for you in your class report and transcript.
Follow up and add something new to what the student has said
Follow-ups tend to involve some new information or next step that you’d like the student(s) to take or think about.
The key to follow-up moves is to explicitly connect this new information to the students’ contribution, as opposed to asking a disjointed question or shifting to a new topic.
This not only makes the discussion more coherent and dynamic, but it also makes students feel that they have a role in shaping the trajectory of the discussion.
Here’s how TeachFX can surface a moment like this for you in your class report and transcript.
Guide it forward
When students verbalize their thinking process, guide them gently by providing scaffolding for them to step on -- while letting them be the ones who take that step.
For example, provide a missing piece of information and ask a follow-up question.
Sometimes, students explicitly invite you to guide them. For example, when they hesitate or ask you a question. These moments are precious, as they indicate the student’s trust. Show your appreciation by thanking them for their question.
Gentle guidance can support and encourage students while allowing them to still be in charge of their own learning.
Here’s how TeachFX can surface a moment like this for you in your class report and transcript.
Ready to start building on your students’ contributions?
I encourage you to pick one strategy to focus on and try it out in your next class. You can continue to layer in each additional strategy, and experiment with how they complement each other.
And, be sure to TeachFX it so you can get visible evidence of the strategy you tried!
If you’d like some help getting started with TeachFX, schedule a time to talk with us.
