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Substantive Communication

Coding Checklist:

1 Almost no substantive communication occurs during the lesson.

2 Substantive communication among students and/or between teacher and students occurs briefly.

3 Substantive communication among students and/or between teacher and students occurs occasionally and involves at least two sustained interactions.

4 Substantive communication, with sustained interactions, occurs over approximately half the lesson with teacher and/or students scaffolding the conversation.

5 Substantive communication, with sustained interactions, occurs throughout the lesson, with teachers and/or students scaffolding the communication.

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Example

Substantive feedback – noticing students’ thinking – feedforward eg. ‘Have you considered …?’

Asking facilitating questions eg. "What makes you say that?"

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What is substantive communication?

Substantive communication refers to regular student engagement in sustained conversations about the concepts and ideas they are encountering; manifested in oral, written or artistic form (adapted from Quality Teaching in NSW – Discussion Paper, DET Professional Support and Curriculum Directorate, 2003).

 

In classes with high levels of substantive communication there is sustained interaction about the substance of the lesson.

Classes high in substantive communication have three characteristics:

• there is sustained interaction

• the communication is focused on the substance of the lesson

• the interaction is reciprocal.

This element identifies the quality of communication (oral, written or symbolic) required to promote coherent shared understanding.

 

Substantive communication can facilitate, stimulate and illuminate metacognition and combined with metalaguage can be an avenue for making thinking visible (creatively, visually or verbally).

 

“When we make thinking that happens in classrooms visible, it becomes more concrete and real. It becomes something we can talk about (substantive communication) and explore, push around, challenge and learn from” (Ritchart et al., 2011 p.30).

 

“switching the paradigm of teaching from trying to transmit what is in our heads and toward trying to get what is inside students’ heads into our own so that we can provided responsive instruction that will advance learning” (Ritchart et al., 2011 p. 35).

 

 

 

Substantive Communication in the Classroom

As teachers we need to:

  • model active listening promotes effective group interactions in students; the group’s ability to listen and respond to one another’s ideas is paramount – engaging with ideas of group members – echoing back ideas presented, asking clarifying and probing questions – allowing them to build on one another’s ideas

  • provide learning activities and structures that foster substantive communication eg., in pairs, small group discussion and cooperative learning activities to allow students to share substantive ideas

  • create opportunities for students to demonstrate an elaborated communication about subjects that is clear and coherent, rich in detail, qualification and argument

  • ensure that students are regularly involved in sustained conversations about the ideas and concepts they are addressing

  • frame questions to facilitate reciprocal communication and require depth of response from students

  • scaffold classroom discussion to produce reciprocal and sustained interactions that focus on the substance of the lesson

  • teach and model skills such as philosophical enquiry, active listening, turn-taking, using wait time, open-ended questioning and giving constructive feedback

  • make thinking valued and visible

  • ask questions that 1) model our interest in the ideas being explored; 2) help students to construct understanding, and 3) facilitate the illumination of students’ own thinking to themselves

  • ask authentic, generative and constructive questions

  • ask questions that facilitate and clarify thinking

  • establish essential questions eg. What’s the story? What’s the other story? How do you know the story? Why know/tell the story? Where’s the power in the story?

  • be attentive to the quality/depth of student questioning

  • take students’ comments and ideas as the starting point for dialogue

  • listen to students’ answers

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“Listening is not merely not talking, though even that is beyond most of our powers; it means taking a vigorous, human interest in what is being told us” (Alice Duer Miller, 1915, as cited in Ritchart et al., 2011 p.37).

 

  • be vigilant observers and listeners

  • encourage sharing of tentative ideas

  • encourage conversation focused on personal thoughts rather than definitive knowledge – promoting the message that learning begins with one’s own ideas and truth is built over time

  • guide students towards investigation rather than stockpiling of facts

  • promote a learning rather than a work focus

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