FAQ

Improving the Teaching and Learning of English Language Learners:

The Instructional Conversational Model

Frequently Asked Questions

• What is the Instructional Conversation?
• Questions for Teachers
• Questions for Principals and Superintendents

What is Instructional Conversation?

Instructional Conversation (IC) is the most advanced of a set of 5 pedagogical standards for good teaching for diverse students developed by the Center for Research on Education, Diversity and Excellence at the University of California at Berkeley. These 5 standards involve: (1) making connections between school and students’ lives; (2) developing language and literacy across the curriculum; (3) joint productive activity between teachers and students; (4) teaching complex thinking, and; (5) teaching through instructional conversation.

IC is defined as a regularly-scheduled teacher-led event with small groups of students with a clear instructional goal. This pedagogy provides intensive, differentiated experiences for students in key areas for second language acquisition and academic development by increasing the rate and intensity of vigorous interactions with peers and expert teachers. As such Instructional Conversation includes and builds upon the 4 standards preceding it.

The Instructional Conversation pedagogy is in line with current best educational practices. It will increase metacognitive skills as well as language development by enhancing and/or supporting:

• direct instruction (will be embedded in conversation)
• guided practice
• checking for understanding and correcting misconceptions
• higher order thinking skills
• problem solving
• risk free learning environment

These increases in metacognitve skills, and language development, as well as improvements in terms of the student’s sense of belonging and self-esteem, should result in higher scores on academic assessments for English language learners.

Questions for Teachers:

1. What does IC professional development entail?The professional development regimen will include a one-week training institute offered in the summer of 2011 and a series of follow-up workshops over the course of the 2011-2012 school year. Each teacher in the treatment group will be assigned a coach/partner whose goal it will be to support the teacher in mastering the IC pedagogy. After consultation with the teacher, each coach/partner will regularly observe the teachers and offer targeted feed back. This support will be provided throughout the first year. It will also be available for “as needed” observation and support for a second year.
2. How many teachers will be receiving professional development regarding IC?Approximately 150 teachers will be involved in the study, however 80 teachers will be randomly selected to participate in the “treatment group” and receive the IC professional development (PD). The other 70 teachers will be in the control group and will only receive the PD offered by their schools or districts.
3. How many teachers per school or district need to participate?We would prefer for every 3rd and 5th grade teacher in the participating schools to participate in the study. This will help us to facilitate coaching and ensure better fidelity with regard to results (as the student groups will be more consistent across classes). However this is a logistical concern rather than a substantive one, so it is fine for a small number of teachers in a school to opt out.
4. What if I want to participate, but none of my fellow teachers at my school do?We understand that it may be difficult to obtain buy-in from all teachers in a school or district. We will not dissuade a teacher from participating even if his or her peers do not wish to. It may be that there are teachers at a neighboring school who are participating, which will mitigate some logistical concerns for the coaches and research team. Along these same lines, it is important to note that we will not discount a school that has partial teacher participation.
5. If they choose to participate, what is expected of teachers in the experimental group have to do?The 80 teachers randomly selected for the treatment group will attend the summer workshop and they will commit to integrating the IC as a regular part of their classroom pedagogy for two years. They will also agree to meet with their assigned coach, answer questionnaires regarding their beliefs about teaching practices, be observed, and be interviewed. Participating teachers will also complete regular reflective “logs” about their teaching practices and use of the IC. Participating experimental group teachers will receive a $1000 stipend for completing the summer training workshop, $500 for completing the interviews, questionnaires and logging, and $500 for the extra time that may be required of them to implement IC such as for after school meetings. Participating teachers will agree to have their practice and their student outcomes analyzed.
6. What is expected of the control group teachers and what do they get out of the study?The control group will only receive the “business as usual” PD offered by their districts and will not attend the IC PD. However, they will also be observed and will participate in questionnaires, logs, and interviews. For their participation, control group teachers will receive $500 compensation.
7. If I choose to participate, how much time will be required of me?The treatment teachers will be required to attend the week-long summer training program, as well as several extra meetings during the three study years. The schools/districts of those teachers will be compensated for substitutes so that those teachers may be released during regular school hours. Some time will be required to complete the questionnaires, interviews and regular logging. In addition, because this will be a new pedagogy for most teachers, lesson planning will certainly require additional time.
8. Can any teacher participate or are there requirements for the participants?The only requirement for participation is that the teacher be a 3rd or 5th grade classroom teacher with a clear and renewable teaching certificate. Teachers should also be willing to make a two-year commitment to the study.
9. What if I decide that I no longer want to participate?Teachers can opt out at any time, however they should be aware that dropping out of the project creates a hardship for the research team.
10. Who are the “coaches” and what is their role? The coaches are veteran teachers recommended to us by the districts they will coach in. Each coach will work with 6-8 teachers and will visit the treatment teachers’ class once a week (during weeks that do not include testing or holidays) for the first study year and then on an “as needed” basis during the second study year. The role of the coaches will not be to act as “experts” to “novice” teachers; instead their role will be to collaborate with the teachers to identify how to implement the IC and what needs to be done in the classroom to ensure effective implementation of IC.

Questions for Principals and Superintendents

1. What do I tell parents who are concerned that their children are receiving experimental pedagogies rather than established pedagogies? Dozens of qualitative, quasi-experimental, and longitudinal studies conducted over the last 30 years offer convincing evidence that this pedagogy works well for all learners, and particularly diverse learners. This study will test the large-scale efficacy and replicability of IC.
2. How can I explain to a parent that not all my teachers will receive this training?We are trying to build capacity and test the validity of this pedagogy on a large scale. In order to test this well, we are using a randomized controlled trial, which is the most scientific method to test treatment efficacy. If the study shows that this pedagogy can be replicated and transferred on a large scale, we will discuss with the participating districts different possibilities for making the pedagogy training and coaching available to more teachers.
3. What is the length of the study?The grant runs for four years, but teachers will participate in the project for only two years beginning in the second year of the grant, which will be dedicated to training and implementation. The third year will be for observation and analysis (we will be going into the teacher classrooms, videotaping and analyzing the tapes). In the fourth year (when teachers will no longer be actively participating) the researchers will analyze and write up the results.
4. Why should teachers and districts participate? We understand that teachers and schools are under a lot of pressure to meet AYP and raise student test scores; this is particularly challenging in diverse classrooms with ELLs. We also understand that the demands of “getting through” the curriculum often leave teachers feeling like there is little time for “one more thing” to do. However, multiple studies show that Instructional Conversation pedagogy increases student learning and improves teacher performance and student outcomes as measured on standard metrics (like test scores). IC will benefit not only the students, but you and your schools. Plus, unlike many professional development regimens that give you the strategies and then “cut you loose” we will provide an unprecedented amount of support including “coaches” who will consult with and support you as you implement these new strategies. This will give you more tools in your toolbox for years to come.
5. What is the purpose of the study?Although there has been much qualitative research supporting the IC as having positive impacts on teacher teaching practices and student learning outcomes, this is the first large-scale efficacy study to examine the IC in empirical research. This is a randomized controlled trial, which is considered to be the “gold standard” for investigating a treatment regime. The results will be important as a means by which to substantiate claims that the IC can be taught, implemented and replicated on a large scale in diverse classrooms and that the use of the pedagogy results in gains in student achievement.
6. What is a randomized controlled trial?The randomized controlled trial is one of the simplest but most powerful tools of research. In essence, the randomized controlled trial is a study in which a group of participants (in this case teachers) are allocated at random to receive or not receive a treatment or intervention, (in this case, a professional development program). Randomized controlled trials are used to examine the effect of interventions on particular outcomes such as student test scores or other measurable outcomes.Most consider randomized controlled trials to be the best of all research designs because the act of randomizing participants to receive or not receive the intervention helps to ensure that, on average, all other possible causes are equal between the two groups. Thus, any significant differences between groups in the outcome event can be attributed to the intervention and not to some other unidentified factor.
7. How will the study show the IC’s impacts?In order to measure the impacts of the IC, the study will compare the reading test scores of students in the control and treatment groups. Additionally information regarding self-esteem, sense of school belonging, higher-order thinking will be obtained for these two groups. Finally, we will examine the teaching practices of the participating teachers.