Conversation Classrooms

Book excerpt: Conversation Classrooms: A Profound Shift from Delivery of Information to Partnership invites teachers to let go of dispensing knowledge and information to be given back on quizzes and tests. In creating partnerships with students through conversation, teachers see themselves on a bridge where they bring information to share that invites thinking, questioning, ideas and respect. Where mutual understanding is intrinsic, everyone is free to express ideas and have the right to speak, and everyone listens. Teachers shift away from one-way teaching and invoke two-way teaching where teachers and students can learn together. In a conversation classroom, thinking becomes more important than absorbing. Experiencing liveliness in learning leads to reflection and builds retention.