Turn and Talk is a technique many teachers use, but often with flaws that undercut its

effectiveness. By studying teachers who employ Turn and Talk deliberately and skillfully, we
have identified a set of tools to maximize efficiency, promote accountability, and drive rigor.

Through analysis of master teachers’ techniques and deep practice, participants in the session
will develop understanding and strengthen skills with:

 Three purposes of Turn and Talk

 Tools for Efficiency and Accountability
 Designing for breadth of participation and depth of thinking

Designing Turn and Talk for Rigor

 Recently I watched a lesson from a middle school science class. The topic of the lesson
was friction and the teacher asked his students to Turn and Talk to discuss ways friction
might affect what happened during a basketball game. The teacher’s in-cue was crisp and
he had established a culture of positive accountability so students buzzed into action,
sharing their energy, their excitement and, as it turned out afterwards, a great deal of
misinformation. When the teacher asked students to share the ideas they’d discussed in
pairs, three out of four shared ideas that misapplied or misunderstood how friction
worked. There are times, in other words, when even with efficient and accountable
systems, Turn and Talks can be predominated by the spread of low quality ideas- or
erroneous ones. In the class I watched, the teacher stumbled on this fact via good fortune
of answers that revealed the problems and the wise decision to process the Turn and Talk
via a broader, teacher-lead discussion afterwards. But let’s pause here to consider all of
the Turn and Talks where misinformation has blithely and earnestly been spread among
participating students who did not know that what they were hearing (or saying and
driving into memory) was dead wrong, all without the teacher’s being aware of it. Some
certainly are not that way; but some surely are. And for the most part the Turn and Talk
itself makes it all but impossible to determine which is happening in your classroom at a
given time.
 Turn and Talk, then, is an outstanding activity for building Participation Ratio and
initiating Think Ratio. It can allow students to rehearse ideas and refine their thinking,
inscribing it in memory and preparing them for discussion. It can allow students to listen
to the ideas of classmates and compare them to their own. That’s a lot of upside. But
Turn and Talk is also a time when students can engage on the most simplistic level, or
where they can inscribe, apply, and instill into memory flawed information and
ideas. And whether this is happening in any given Turn and Talk is very difficult to
track. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use Turn and Talk – just that you should use it in
a way that considers the challenges, and the best way to do that, I think, is to pair your
Turn and Talk with a subsequent activity that allows you to reinforce rigor and check for
understanding.
 Another way to think about Turn and Talk is as a prelude, a catalyst to some other
activity: a whole-class discussion, written synthesis, a charting and comparison of ideas
 generated. The Turn and Talk’s purpose is generative—let’s get a lot of ideas going—the
next activity’s purpose is analytical—now let’s figure out what makes sense and why.
 So after a Turn and Talk it’s important to take the ideas that were generated and analyze
them in a public way, editing, revising, and prioritizing ideas so students see what was
good, what was better and what, possibly, was wrong. And then, if you want, consider
asking for some further processing, ideally in writing, to ensure that rigor and clarity
emerge from the investment you’ve made.
 Post Turn and Talk: Pushing for Greater Rigor
 Here, then, are four key “after” activities to make sure that Turn and Talk brings rigor
and high standards to your classroom.
 Whole Class Analysis. Teach students that the first idea is not always the best idea, that
selecting the best ideas often require applying criteria carefully. This might sound like,
“Let’s look at some of the ideas we came up with and see which ones make the most
sense.”
 Whole Class Discussion. Use the Turn and Talk as the starting point for a deeper whole
class discussion that builds upon and stretches students’ initial thinking. This might
sound like, “As we talk, feel free to add to what you already wrote down,” or, “Let’s
build on the thinking we’ve started—”
 Whole Class Note Taking after Turn and Talk. Follow up the Turn and Talk by
processing those initial thoughts—by having students share, improve and prioritize the
contents of their collective “pair” discussions. The expectation here is that you take what
you talked about in your Turn and Talk, develop it by listening and comparing to what
others took from the discussion and track a wide array of thoughts on the topic, not just
your own. This might sound like, “Add two sentences to the bullets on page three…”
 Whole Class Guided Discussion then Written Processing. Close the pair and whole
group discussion about the topic by having students synthesize the most important
insights into writing, perhaps via a single, well-crafted sentence. For example, following
a whole class discussion about what’s counter-intuitive about the earth’s proximity to the
sun in January: “Okay, everyone take 90 seconds right now and capture what’s counter-
intuitive about the Sun’s proximity to the Earth in January in a single well-written
complete sentence that starts with the phrase ‘Despite the fact that…’ Go. Another
example might sound like, “To close, we’re each going to capture in a single, well-
written sentence that starts with, “Despite…”
 Each of these four approaches, or adaptations or combinations of them, can help you
make sure that your Turn and Talk is a productive tool that leads to a lesson of the
highest standards.