An advocate for reciprocal teaching – or hearing student voice in your classroom.

When I first listened to this address by 12 yo Adora I was rather skeptical and amazed. Her use of language is amazing but her message is simply.

We need to hear student voice in curriculum development – so if you plan your inquiry learning unit without seeking student background knowledge and wonderings – your not hearing student voice.

The leaders of tomorrow need to be heard today.

Reciprocal teaching was another phase used which I certainly favour in years 2 -10 – the link here goes to a reading session.

Interested in other reactions.

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2 Responses to An advocate for reciprocal teaching – or hearing student voice in your classroom.

  1. Hi Mark

    Very interested in this – but it goes way beyond ‘simply’ hearing students’ voices (or the voice of an articulate student with whom we easily agree), to working out ways that we can actively involve students in decisions about their world, including about their own learning and that of others.

    Do you see the magazine ‘Connect’ that I publish? Been putting it out 6 times a year for over 30 years now, with stories about active student participation in primary and secondary schools – in school governance, but more importantly in curriculum approaches and programs. Lately I’ve been concentrating on the ideas of Student Action Teams, where students investigate real issues of concern in their communities (school or wider) and then take action to make changes. I’ve been working with schools and clusters of schools around issues such as safety, values, transition, student voice and so on.

    It’d be great to catch up to talk about these ideas further. My e-mail is r.holdsworth@unimelb.edu.au

    Best wishes

    Roger Holdsworth

    • mwalker says:

      Roger,
      I’ll email you with some thoughts on this point of student voice for authentic purposes. I often hear about student voice but it can appear either tokenistic or giving in to students unless it results in change that is negotiated with subsequent discussions about the change and if it met both student and teacher purposes.
      A case in point is with teachers thinking they are hearing student voice when they “allow or even encourage” students projects in a inquiry framework. So its possible to see all these wonderful, often random student projects that have little or no connection to the main understandings of the inquiry.

      So yes I’m interested in student voice that meets engagement , connection and relevance. This is particularly important as we try and personalise learning for students with authentic purposes.

      Look forward to a conversation.
      Mark

Interested in your thoughts