The Future of Education

Student engagement in classrooms, as indicated by student talk, is a vital component of student learning and achievement (Cohen & Lotan, 2014; Fisher, Frey, & Rothenberg, 2008; Hattie, 2012; Martinez, 2010). Many teachers will claim increased student talk as a goal, but they rarely know how much their students are actually talking. Student talk in US classrooms is infrequent and decreases as students grow older. We implemented TeachFX as a pedagogical intervention on computers, tablets, and smart phones to record classrooms and differentiate among teacher talk, student talk, group work, and wait time. Data were reported to teachers shortly after completion of a lesson, allowing them to make immediate adjustments and learn what helps to increase the ratio and quality of student talk. Using TeachFX we created an opportunity for teachers to know the extent to which their students were talking and to take action to increase the proportion of student talk. Such actions include analyzing their classrooms individually and with colleagues, planning lessons and units that encourage more student talk, and asking more questions that are open ended and stimulate genuine discussion. Over the past year, TeachFX has been used in thousands of classrooms across the US. Abundant meta-data is captured as teachers use the tool. Additionally, TeachFX’s capacity to share recordings among teachers gives it potential to fuel teacher collaborative teams with data they have not been able to use previously. Early results indicate substantial increases in student talk in classrooms where TeachFX was used once or twice a week, and these increases occurred in just a few weeks. This paper reports on the results from meta-data collected in the first year of TeachFX implementation along with interview data that help explain changes in teachers’ behavior. TeachFX enhances student talk and therefore student learning (Cohen & Lotan, 2014) and has high potential to boost teacher learning when used in collaborative settings (Van Lare, Brazer, Bauer, & Smith, 2013). Findings include aggregate quantitative results and qualitative effects on one-to-one coaching and teacher collaborative teams of three or more. The paper presents results of interest to teachers, school leaders, and scholars interested in classroom interventions that help change teacher and student behavior.

Keywords: Student engagement, student discourse, teacher learning;

References:
[1] Cohen, E., & Lotan, R.. (2014). Designing groupwork. New York: Teachers College Press.
[2] Fisher, D., Frey, N., & Rothenberg, C. (2008). Content-area conversations. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.
[3] Hattie, J. (2012). Visible learning for teachers. New York: Taylor and Francis.
[4] Martinez., R. (2010). Spanglish as literacy tool. Research in the Teaching of English, 45, 124 – 129.
[5] Van Lare, M., Brazer, S.D., Bauer, S.C., & Smith, R.G. (2013). Professional learning communities using evidence. In S. Conley and B. Cooper (Eds.) Moving from teacher isolation to teacher collaboration: Enhancing professionalism and school quality (pp. 157 – 182). Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.