175. Behind the Scenes: Planning a Discussion-Based Professional Learning Experience with Kara Pranikoff

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In this episode, you’ll experience a behind the scenes planning conversation between Kara Pranikoff and I as we develop an agenda for the first day of professional learning for 3rd and 4th grade teachers across the state of Massachusetts to engage with and prepare to implement a pilot of these two new grade levels in the state’s Investigatory History curriculum. Specifically, this segment of our conversation is focused on designing a 45-minute discussion-based activity that involves the core pedagogical principles that underlie this curriculum and will take place on Day 1 of the professional learning series. 

Here’s Some Context 

DESE’s Investigating History curriculum is designed around 4 core pedagogical principles: Historical Inquiry and Investigation; Historical Empathy and Human Connections; Civic Engagement and Current World Relevance; and Culturally Affirming Pedagogies. The conversation in this episode is designing a discussion-based activity to highlight the latter 3 of the 4 principles.   

Our team of coaches—Kara, Eric Soto-Shed, and I—support the development of Westheimer & Kahne’s (2004) justice-oriented citizens. This type of citizen “know[s] how to examine social, political, and economic structures and explore strategies for change that address root causes of the problem.” There’s a critique of systems of oppression and action to fix them vs. “participatory citizenship” which is more volunteerism (Martell and Stevens, authors of Teaching History for Justice, say It’s the difference between holding a food drive and asking “Why are people hungry?”) We try to keep this in mind as we design the question and the experience of this activity. 


What did we design?

Here’s what we came up with…

Step 1: Set agreements and a baseline assumption.  

We’d like to co-construct the baseline assumption with the group. Given the time constraint, we’ll suggest using discussion agreements from Glenn Singleton’s Courageous Conversations about Race and Cobb & Krownapple’s Belonging Through a Culture of Dignity. We’ll ask if anyone has anything to add, ensure we also have an agreement about how to hold each other accountable, and link additional resources for how to co-create agreements with students in the agenda. 

Step 2: Share a compelling Discussion Question and the relevant texts. 

Our draft is: How can we heal from the impact of white settler colonialism on indigenous peoples and the enslavement of African and African-descended peoples in the United States? 

Texts: Excerpts from Stamped: Racism, Antiracism and You (this is the version of Ibram X. Kendi’s book written for young people) and An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States for Young People by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz.  

*Note: We ultimately decided we won’t bring the texts in until the next conversation about this question on Day 2 in order to make this first conversation (on the first day we meet participants) less high-stakes and more about sharing initial ideas in community.  

Step 3: Introduce the format or protocol. 

Educators will participate in a human barometer activity with a scaffolded version of the Discussion Question: Is it possible to heal from the impact of white settler colonialism on indigenous peoples and the enslavement of African and African-descended peoples in the United States? (Participants who think “Yes” will move to one side of the room. Participants who think “No” will move to the other side.) We expect lots of complexity in participant answers when we ask “Why did you choose Yes or No?” We’ll give participants a chance to converse with a partner about their reasons, and we’ll have facilitators note some big ideas.  

Note: For the next discussion (on Day 2), we’ll have the large group (approximately 150 people!) break into 6 smaller groups with 25 participants and 1 facilitator per group. They will engage in a Socratic Seminar protocol on the full question: How can we heal from the impact of white settler colonialism on indigenous peoples and the enslavement of African and African-descended peoples in the United States? using the texts listed above as evidence to utilize in conversation. 


Step 4: Reflect. 

As a whole group or in a smaller—25-person—pod, we can share trends in our conversations and identify similarities and differences across the large group based on the Singleton’s Courageous Conversations compass. (i.e., Where were/are you on the compass?) 

We can introduce a post-discussion reflection prompt teachers can use with students: 

• Where are you now? (emotion/compass check-in) 
• Now I’m thinking (content ideas, i.e., Did your idea about the question change or grow?) 

We’ll also invite participants to reflect on our facilitation and design of the discussion: 

• What did we do? 
• What could we do better? 
• How can we as facilitators provide space for learners to get support based on how they're experiencing the discussion? 
• Which core IH principles did you experience in this activity? 

Final Tip

I’m still growing in terms of making adult professional learning truly aligned to the experiences I coach teachers to facilitate for their students. This conversation stretched me, and I highly encourage you to find a thought partner who will stretch you as well! We plan learning experiences SO much better when we have someone that we can bounce ideas off of. 


To help you get some thought partnership, Kara and I are inviting you to one week on our Slack-based coaching platform, EduBoost, for free! 

Interested? Sign up here. It starts on Monday, August 12, 2024. 

And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 175 of the Time for Teachership podcast. If you’re unable to listen or you prefer to read the full episode, you can find the transcript below.

Wondering who Kara is? 

Kara Pranikoff is an educator in New York City. She has worked as a classroom teacher; reading interventionist; Instructional Coach; curriculum designer; and an adjunct instructor at Bank Street College of Education. As a consultant Kara partners with school to nurture independent thinking, voice and a sense of belonging for all members of the community. She supports educators in deepening their practice of inquiry-based teaching of social studies and writing. Kara’s book, Teaching Talk: A Practical Guide to Fostering Student Thinking and Conversation (Heinemann, 2017) shares ways to foster productive and independent student discussions in elementary and middle school classrooms.    

You can contact Kara at www.eyesopeneducation.com, LinkedIn, or Instagram.  

TRANSCRIPT
​0:00:00 - Lindsay Lyons
We are going to do something a little bit different for this Time, for Teachership episode. So in this episode you're going to hear a behind the scenes of my fellow coach, cara Pernikoff and I co-creating and really thinking through an agenda for a PD series we are doing in conjunction with Eric Soto-Shedd and our amazing administrative assistant, gianna Martin shout out to the team for investigating history as a pilot of the grade three and four curriculum written by Educurious. So we are very excited for this opportunity to work statewide with amazing, phenomenal teachers. And we are in this clip that you're going to hear discussing our day one agenda where we really give folks an orientation to the curriculum and primarily the pedagogy is behind great teaching and how it is embedded in this curriculum. So what you're going to hear is really just us diving into this section on the core principles that underlie the investigating history curriculum historical inquiry and investigation, historical empathy and human connections, civic engagement and current world relevance and culturally affirming pedagogies. As you jump in, we're really thinking about a discussion-based activity that's going to last about 45 minutes where we're focusing on primarily the last three principles, so historical empathy, human connection, civic engagement, current world relevance and culturally affirming pedagogies. So you'll really hear us think through what exactly is happening in those 45 minutes and we have, as we're starting, really a general question in mind, which is how can we heal and we are thinking about texts that are not actually from the curriculum but maybe for adult learners, using Stanford in the beginning for young people. So, yes, adult learners, but also we like to use the young people text so people could use it in their classroom if they wanted, as well as an indigenous people's history of the United States for young people. So that's kind of where we're at and you're going to hear the rest. 

I'm excited for this. Here we go. I'm educational justice coach, lindsay Lyons, and here on the Time for Teachership podcast, we learn how to inspire educational innovation for racial and gender justice, design curricula grounded in student voice and build capacity for shared leadership. I'm a former teacher leader turned instructional coach. I'm striving to live a life full of learning, running, baking, traveling and parenting, because we can be rockstar educators and be full human beings. If you're a principal assistant, superintendent, curriculum director, instructional coach or teacher who enjoys nerding out about co-created curriculum with students. I made this show for you. Here we go, all right, so we have the discussion in general idea, but then to start with setting agreements, how do you want to do? You want to? 

0:02:52 - Kara Pranikoff
give them a baseline assumption. Do you want them to co-create a baseline? 

0:02:55 - Lindsay Lyons
assumption we have an hour. Yeah, I do think we could probably borrow from other times, but we have. I was thinking if the reflection on the core principles is like 15 minutes, then we'd have 45 left for the actual discussion activity. 

0:03:09 - Kara Pranikoff
So I think the best case scenario is for us to co-construct a baseline assumption because ultimately, we want them to be able to do that in their classroom, right? We want a model that you want your kids involved in the co-creation of those agreements. So I feel like we want to do that here. 

0:03:27 - Lindsay Lyons
And I think maybe have one in mind, just in case they're like, I don't even know what that means. Maybe we share a couple. Yeah, okay, great. I like the authors of the book that I learned that from. They said everyone deserves food, water and shelter, or something like. That was like a sample one. Yeah, so if we believe this, then how do we proceed? Yeah, yeah, okay, great. And then are we co-creating? Are we taking the time from the 45 minutes to co-create agreements, which would probably take 25, 30 minutes out of that that, or do we want to? 

0:04:05 - Kara Pranikoff
I think we offer those four. I also like the ones from um what is belonging with dignity. So I sometimes share both of those and say is there anything that you have to add Right? 

0:04:19 - Lindsay Lyons
But I don't think, I'm not familiar with belonging with dignity. What are those? Hold on? 

0:04:25 - Kara Pranikoff
I'm going to pull, pull it off because I can't do it off the top of my head. 

0:04:28 - Lindsay Lyons
I do love the title. It infers like a lot of the things that we regularly talk about belonging through a culture of dignity. Wow, I need to read it okay you know what you've seen. 

0:04:37 - Kara Pranikoff
One of the um, you know the, the visualization, or the visual representation of integration, where it's like colored dots and then like full integration is everybody's got another. So that comes from this book. 

0:04:59 - Lindsay Lyons
Got it Okay. Oh, that's fun. Yeah Right, there's a little I wish I didn't read. 

0:05:05 - Kara Pranikoff
I wrote it until I read like I'd seen that and actually used that before, and then I was like oh, that's where it comes from. I'm not going to find them here, but I've used them in the past. I'll link them. I've got them perfect. 

0:05:17 - Lindsay Lyons
Who is the author of that book? I'm going to make sure I look it up Lloyd Cobb and John John John Crown, apple. Okay, amazing, it's a good one. Okay, perfect, so okay, awesome. And I think, too, we can link, um like a couple I think I have a resource for how to co-create norms that we could just link it Like. If you're interested in doing this, yeah yeah, explore this in your choice activity later or something you know we could. 

0:05:43 - Kara Pranikoff
Yeah, great, great this in your choice activity later or something you know we could. Yeah, great, great, I mean. And then, because we've got this out, when we gather again at our whenever our next one is October I think we can have a conversation about how are you using the agreements? Have you had to add agreements? Is there a time you've called them into discussion, like, how are those? How is it a living, breathing document in your classroom? So yeah, I think we should do that Amazing. 

0:06:14 - Lindsay Lyons
I love that idea. Okay, because I do think there's a tendency, even for people who do this well, to just like I'm done and it's static, and we're never returning to it, we're never losing it. Yeah. 

0:06:26 - Kara Pranikoff
I'm done and it's static and we're never returning to it. We're never using it. Yeah, and I think when discussions go awry, it's so powerful to pull them out and talk to your kids about you know where, what. What happened here, and is there another agreement that we need so that X, y and Z doesn't happen again? Like, how are we going to caretake our community? Is there something that needs to be added? 

0:06:44 - Lindsay Lyons
I love that. I also was just thinking I don't know if the belonging through a culture of dignity has an accountability agreement, but I do think that was another thing I learned from this other book. That was like make sure, one of the agreements is how do we hold each other accountable? So I mean, I like the one that's just like if you number the agreements you hold up the number of fingers that's being violated. So it's like two point to the poster, whatever, something simple we can offer that if we're stuck. Yeah, I think that's great. 

Um, okay, so the question I don't know if we want to like wordsmith the question a little bit, or if it's just like how can we heal from harm in general? But I'm wondering about the how we can heal and maybe it's like a little bit more history, specific, because it is a history thing, like how do we heal from like white settler colonialist influence on indigenous people and like the enslavement of Africans, like I just I wonder if we just like put it all out there in the question or how much is general, and then we kind of facilitate through the primary sources, like let those speak for themselves, kind of, and then have teachers bring it up what's your? Where do you lean on that? 

0:07:59 - Kara Pranikoff
So my instinct is to be really specific, because I feel like one of the growth edges of teachers in general is just like say the thing and say the thing a lot, and we're not used to saying the thing right, we're not used to talking about, you know, the harm of, of white colonists, so necessarily, so I I kind of feel like we front load it okay. 

0:08:27 - Lindsay Lyons
So how do we want to word it? I just kind of riffed there. But how can we heal from like the impact of white settler colonialism on? Is that? So let's maybe pause there. What's the language we want to use around? Is it white settler colonialism? Is it like from the impact of colonization, imperialism, trying? 

0:08:55 - Kara Pranikoff
to think of the language colonization, because I think that that's the language that investigating history uses, more than imperialism. The thing that I'm playing around with is do we want to say so? If we're saying impact, do we want to say ongoing impact? Is it implied that the impact is ongoing? Do we want to say historical impact, or do we want that to come up in discussion? You know what I mean. 

0:09:22 - Lindsay Lyons
Yep, that one that's such a good question, that one one, my, my leaning and I can be swayed is to leave it as impact and then encourage people to bring it up and, if they don't, to actually highlight that inner reflection portion of like. You actually avoided any connections to the present. Interesting, why were you avoiding Like kind of digging into, maybe using those four quadrants of like? We didn't actively avoid the question from a historical perspective maybe, but we totally avoided the modern connections, I wonder. I don't know. 

0:09:59 - Kara Pranikoff
Great, I'm all for it. I'm all for it, I just want to have our radar. It also dawns on me that in a conversation, I think one of the pieces of debrief has to be what did we as facilitators do to nudge the conversation but not take it over, introduce other ideas? And so I could imagine somebody making a comment about you know that impact being long ago, or whatever the language is, and asking the question of was the impact only in that thing, or was it, you know, is that the only moment of impact? Or whatever it might be Like. I think we could play around with nudging. 

0:10:38 - Lindsay Lyons
Yep, I do love that idea because I also my brain is also starting to go to where, how, how do we, what protocol do we use? Like how do we enable the discussion to flourish? And so sometimes, if we choose, for example, Socratic seminar, I am very much like a sit back and let it happen, Like encourage the students to ask each other questions and in this case, adults to ask each other questions, and like there is a moment where, if the discussion is totally not fruitful or bringing in misinformation or something like there could be a moment that we do interject. So that'll be really interesting to think about how all of this fits within the protocol itself too that we just choose to use For sure For sure. 

0:11:20 - Kara Pranikoff
I also, just logistically I am curious about so we've got a lot of people in one room, or are we going to break up even into thirds? Like maybe a fellow doesn't necessarily lead this, but maybe we break up into thirds, and I think it would be interesting to record the conversation, even just with notes, and then see the similarities and differences in the three charts. Like could we, could we envision something like that? 

0:11:57 - Lindsay Lyons
oh, I love that right and just if we have three. So I'm just thinking that's about what 20, 22, per good, that's a. That's a good chunk of people, but not overwhelming in terms of numbers. Maybe 25 max. I think that's comfortable. I mean, it's not everyone's probably going to speak in this time, but that's real. 

0:12:21 - Kara Pranikoff
Except, like everybody, isn't it more than that, isn't it a hundred? And oh, it's? 

0:12:27 - Lindsay Lyons
yes, it is, it's like 125 you're right, okay, so I'm wondering if we do six, we do the pods with six groups, pods of about 25 each to simulate the classroom size. Yep, but that we do still. Do you think that's feasible to still do similarities and differences across, like if we use a protocol that's going to be, for example, collect and display where the facilitator or we could do more, but, thinking for time's sake, the facilitator highlights some trends, puts it on a sticky note, brings it to the front of the room, and then we can kind of collect the sticky notes and organize them into larger trends quickly, yep yeah, I think we would have to do some front loading of organization and then the trends. 

0:13:13 - Kara Pranikoff
I think we would have to. I think I guess we just have to make sure that the fellows are cool with that. 

0:13:21 - Lindsay Lyons
Yep I also think if we do have a framework. So, for example, maybe we reflect as a group before we do the reflection section, individually or with partners, whatever it's like, okay, we're reflecting as a group with whatever framework we're using. We're using the compass, the courageous conversation compass, great, like what were the trends in our group, based on the framework. Or if we're using the discussion quadrants, where did we fall? So maybe that's helpful to just pick the framework. Or, if it's two frameworks, to be really clear about how we're condensing the information shared in that reflection. 

0:13:59 - Kara Pranikoff
Yeah, yeah my instinct is to use one framework as a way in, because even in that we'll start to get a sense of trends, and then it there's a clear line of thinking for that reflection. Yep, right, I do think it's hard to have a big conversation and then be metacognitive about it. So like I always suggest to teachers if you're doing it in the classroom, like be metacognitive about it. So like I always suggest to teachers if you're doing it in the classroom, like be metacognitive to the next day. You know what I mean. Like have a quick thumbs up, thumbs down. How do we do? But like really unpack the conversation the next day, cause I think it's hard, I think it's hard for adults also, so do you think that actually that reflection using the framework like, for example, we use the compass that actually that does live in the reflection section. 

0:14:45 - Lindsay Lyons
After they have gotten out of the circle or whatever like space that they're in for conversation, and now they're back at their desk, they took two minutes to walk around and think. Then we ask the question there. 

0:14:58 - Kara Pranikoff
And then share out. Yeah, I think we need a break. I think we need I mean, I think we could stay in the circle, but I do think we need to have a discussion and then have the circle close. I'm imagining a circle but like have the circle close, take five minutes. You could come back to the circle and do the compass, or we could do it individually, like back in our regular place, but I think we do need a minute. 

0:15:23 - Lindsay Lyons
Perfect, okay, and that way we could have like kind of fellow. We can identify what we're actually sharing out whole group, whether it's like fellows analysis of how the conversation went or like trends of ideas. Conceptually maybe they're. They focus on like one thing, like each of us who's facilitating focuses on maybe content and then the courageous conversations. Compass is an individual reflection that's focused on how I experience it. Right, because that's what that is. 

0:15:47 - Kara Pranikoff
Yes, great, I love that. And then that's really clear because also, if we're modeling for teachers, teachers need to have clarity that students may or may not are going to have a emotional reaction, whatever that emotional reaction is, and we've got to have some kind of way as an educator to tune into that or or provide space for that Right. Like one thing that comes to mind is you know, in a classroom you're in an intense conversation and about history or current events or whatever it is, and at some point in the conversation like seven kids are done, yep, but seven still need to talk Like how do you handle that? Because both things are both. You have to acknowledge both things. You know what I mean. 

0:16:36 - Lindsay Lyons
Yep. So I'm just writing like how can we as facilitators and this is like a reflection question, I think, for everyone, not just us in the space, but we as the collective educators provide space for learners to get support based on their how they're experiencing the discussion? Yep, great, okay, I just want to make sure that aligns with what you're thinking. What do you think? Maybe we go to protocol now, so we have the six groups. What is the format for the discussion in terms of like, is it Socratic, seminar style? Is it circle style? I also have in the back of my head that this lingering question of this is like a long-term, like arc. I want to like get to all these things long-term, but I just want to kind of slot them depending on where they fit best. Okay, so, yeah, so my thought is there are several discussion protocols I have in my head. Some of them are great, for I'm opening the question we're going to do human barometer and you're going to just take a side of the room and then you're going to talk in small groups and share out a couple like way lower touch, way lower intensity. The experience is a little bit easier. 

We're not citing sources. Yeah, circle is very like right, like everyone is listened to, everyone has the talking to use their hands. I often feel like that's like the personal connections come out best there, like here's my personal story or whatever I don't. Sometimes I center text in those, sometimes they don't, and then Socratic feels very much like a cumulative end of the unit. We have several texts to pull from and because we're pulling from two texts, I'm wondering like I'm leaning a bit towards that. But I also value the other pieces and I'm wondering if, because we're going to have them like this day, this is day one and the next day is day two and we're opening a unit, and so I'm wondering if one of those others like, for example, if we did Socratic today does circle or human barometer work as kind of a beginning of a unit, like that's a more common protocol for the beginning of the unit. And since we're unit centered in that way, I'm just yeah, those are my thoughts. What do you think? 

0:18:48 - Kara Pranikoff
those are my thoughts. What do you think? Oh so, my pedagogical instinct is always to do socratic like it's. It's there and I also really think that you know. So, at the beginning of third grade or beginning of fourth grade you might not be fully socratic, but certainly in week two the teacher doesn't need to be calling on anyone. I can, somebody can put their thumbs up and I can call somebody up, like there's immediate ways to center students from the second week of school. You know what I mean, even if it's not fully Socratic. My concern is we've just met everybody. It's 11 o'clock in the morning and this is heavy. Are we? Is this too much? Do we like? We just like, dump them in this? Yep. All of it's heavy and hard, yep. So if I hold on to that and we know they're coming back, is there a way we maybe we look at the documents, whatever they are right? I'm imagining some kind of visual document and two pieces of text. Do you want to say something? 

0:19:54 - Lindsay Lyons
No, I'm with you, keep going. 

0:19:56 - Kara Pranikoff
Is there a way that we like look at the text I have my own experience I gather some ideas or some things that I might want to say in discussion. I turn and talk to the person next to me. There's like a very low level, like I'm in the work but I'm not publicly in the work, really big, and then we can go back the next day maybe and have a conversation. Or like when people like we go back and have the larger discussion the next day. 

0:20:31 - Lindsay Lyons
Okay, I love this, I love this, love this. Yes, let's keep the same question for today. And I so, yes, so I'm with you and I'm wondering what the? I just wrote a bunch of things on our collective doc, so, like one iteration of that could be just, yeah, simple, turn and talk. One could be like what did you call it? A museum walk? Earlier? I liked that Same thing. Yeah, um, the. 

The human barometer I would envision is like we do a entry, entry level instead of it's how do we heal, it's is it possible to heal? And so that's like the agree, disagree and we start surfacing those ideas, or it could be a circle, and we, we model, like what we would do with students, where it's like is it possible to heal from harm, and it's, it's general, um, and it's like, okay, I'm thinking maybe about my relationship with my parents or my siblings, or like a personal thing, and it's like how does healing happen? And so we take it from the personal to the content and model how that I think there's a lot of options. Yes, I love that. Do you feel like you're gravitating towards one form at over? 

0:21:41 - Kara Pranikoff
another, so my the top two. If I like, contextualize this first day and all of that I kind of want to do, turn and talk, and human barometer, I think we could probably do. Yeah, and we can have a more public ideas conversation discussion the next day. 

0:22:03 - Lindsay Lyons
Yep, I wonder oh, go ahead, no, no, go ahead. What if we did human barometer and then sit down and turn and talk? Or even in your groups, turn and talk, Great, great. I love this because it's so excited. It's yeah, it's so exciting Cause it's like really modeling. Right, we did just meet you. You will meet your children and immediately dive into all of this content. That is hard. And what is the way? Like sure we set agreements, sure we, you know, validate and comfort and do all the things that we do as teachers to build relationship with people. And like we cannot expect, I don't like when people are like this is a safe space, I have declared it, it is so. And it's like you can't do like that kid's perception of the safety is like not there yet, and so I get that we're basically doing that because we're like, okay, we've spent like seven hours with you and then tomorrow we're going there, but like you're also adults and we're trying to model quickly. So I think that's. 

0:23:04 - Kara Pranikoff
I also want to make sure that we don't tell them we're coming back, because I also think there's a real strength in modeling the power of returning to documents after you've had a conversation and some separation. I'm a different person, right? Even if I've just talked to one person, I return to those documents in a different space. Also, we will have been thinking about those four core values for the rest of the day, so I'm entering those documents in a different place than I did the day before at 11. So I think the kids do that also. 

I think sometimes one of the challenges for educators is to look at a primary source and get it quickly and forget that there's layers and you're talking to eight-year-olds and they haven't seen as many things, and I need to process what my classmate said and it's great to come back to it, right, or even the pedagogical practice of like, if there's a source that's really important, leave it up at your board and have it there for two weeks, whether or not you're talking about it, like kids are returning to it, and I think that we can model that also. That was a lot. 

0:24:24 - Lindsay Lyons
No, that was awesome and I just want to clarify. So you were saying we would tell them that we're coming back to a day two. I wouldn't tell them, you would not tell them. Okay, I think I'm missing that part. Why would? 

0:24:35 - Kara Pranikoff
because why wouldn't I tell them? 

0:24:41 - Lindsay Lyons
Cause I agree with everything you said in terms of like we're in a different space when we need the time and reflection. 

0:24:48 - Kara Pranikoff
So I think I wouldn't tell them because I want them to be fully engaged in that experience. And I think the debrief the next day of, like we're coming back here. How is it different this time? Why would it be different? I don't want to know that I'm coming back. I don't know why am I having this sense? There's some kind of sense of I want to be my fullest self on day one and not wonder about why we're coming back or know that I'm coming back. I want to say the things that I need to say. And then I want a bit of the disequilibrium the next day when we say, okay, we're going to have a Socratic seminar, these things probably look familiar. Why might we talk about these things? Like I'm wanting the disequilibrium so that we can kind of construct why we would come back. But I can be veered Like what's the benefit of letting them know? Let me ask you that. 

0:25:47 - Lindsay Lyons
Yeah, I think that's so interesting to hear that, and so I am acknowledging that. That is totally how a lot of people probably feel. It's like I and I do want them to be their their full self. So a couple of one possibility that's like maybe, uh, together, maybe, I'm not sure One idea was okay, I let them have the conversation. Then, after the conversation, say like we'll be returning tomorrow because this is why because I usually will do this opener with the same question. 

That happens for a month or two months, however long the unit is yeah, yeah, to say like I think it takes the pressure off from I'm thinking of Matthew Kay, who talked about like you can't just have one conversation on race, like and that's it, like that's that puts too much pressure on the students and the teacher to have the conversation, and so I wonder if some students might be like, well, if I don't have any other opportunity, I want to say all these things and I have to get it right and I have to be perfect and I there's so much pressure on, this is the one time because maybe we've never talked about it in any other grade before, and this is like I have things to say and you know, I, whatever, yeah, and so I wonder if it is like this is not the conversation, we will be back and we want you to be fully present in today, so we have no expectation of you pulling from Any sort of documents at this moment. 

Yes, and then just kind of lower the pressure that way. I don't know if you feel like that checks the box, though, or if that somehow takes away from the presence that you were describing. 

0:27:20 - Kara Pranikoff
No, I mean, I think, at the end of the day, we're agreeing that anything that's in the classroom, you want to, you want it to have its fullest life, right? You want and we want teachers to know that it's important to go back to things that kids have seen right, especially if we're thinking about the inquiry cycle. We want students, ultimately, we want students to say in the middle of a conversation remember the map we talked about last week? Or like, I'm going to grab that map we talked about last week because it's relevant to this conversation, right? So, but I agree with you and I remember that bit from Matthew K. I think you're right, it's not just, it's not everything in this conversation. So let's, let's let them know we're coming back, okay. 

0:28:04 - Lindsay Lyons
And we can do that. Do you think the best place for that is after they have the conversations, day one like not prior or prior, I think no, I think. 

0:28:15 - Kara Pranikoff
I think after they have the conversation right, I think. 

0:28:18 - Lindsay Lyons
I think that will be like. So we had the conversation. I think I'm like going back a little bit on what some of the reasons that I said, but I I do think it still works because it's like someone may be sitting and like but I had more to say, or I said that wrong, or like actually I would may be sitting and like but I had more to say, or I said that wrong, or like actually I would change my answer and like that can be eliminated. When we say hey, we're coming back tomorrow. Like more time, wait a second, wait a second. 

0:28:38 - Kara Pranikoff
Here's an idea, okay. So something that I often do in the classroom when discussion is established and I think you and I've talked about this is in preparation for a conversation, we'll like decide on what the question is, whatever, and then I'll have kids write like what are my first ideas about this question, and then at the end of the conversation, like draw a line Now I'm thinking, whatever it is that I'm thinking, or now I'm wondering, or tomorrow when we come back, here's what I want to talk about. So I wonder if we introduce some kind of in the reflection, some kind of like where are you now, you know, like what's something that you're wondering after this conversation, or where's, like, the place that your head is? Or is there something that a colleague said Like you know some kind of reflection on the conversation and how the conversation, even the turn and talk and barometer, push their own um, their own thinking about the documents. Could we? 

0:29:42 - Lindsay Lyons
do something like that. I love that and I actually so the socratic seminar template that I usually share, which credit to all of the people who like co-created this. They have a section. Page three is to be to be completed in the last five minutes of a class, or like a discussion, like we've ended the discussion formally and yeah, it's like there's three questions. It's like what? I think it's something like what ideas are remaining with you, or kind of sticking with you, what have you changed your mind? Or how has your, how's your thinking evolved, and also a process question of how did we do with our community agreements? Like would you add a new one? Did you know? Yeah, so we can use something like that, but like maybe tailor it down to third grade as opposed to like this was a high school created thing right, yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean, and I think that that is like now, I'm thinking like what you know? 

0:30:37 - Kara Pranikoff
or, or, uh, sometimes I use the language of did your idea like grow or change? Oh, I like it. Yeah, it's the same. 

0:30:48 - Lindsay Lyons
It's just third grade language yep, great, great, awesome, I think. I think that's good for the discussion part. Okay, cool, okay. I hope you truly enjoyed that conversation between Cara and myself. I am so excited to learn and collaborate with folks. I am totally still growing in terms of making, for example, adult professional learning truly aligned to the experiences that I coach teachers to facilitate for their students. 

Sometimes, when we're facilitating PD or when we're designing learning experiences in general, it's just really hard to take yourself out of the content you want to deliver and think really thoughtfully about the pedagogy, and so this conversation really stretched me. I highly encourage you to find a thought partner who's going to stretch you as well. So we plan learning experiences a ton like way, way, way, way, way better when we have someone that we can bounce ideas off of. So to help you get some thought partnership, cara and I are inviting you to one week on our Slack-based coaching platform, eduboost, for free. It starts, if you're listening to this, as soon as it airs next week, on Monday, august 12th 2024. You can sign up at the blog post for this episode at lindsaybethlyonscom slash blog, slash 175. And if you're listening later on, don't worry, you can still head there. Click on the form on the blog post and you'll be entered into our wait list. We will do these again in the future. We are dedicated to this coaching model and we are so excited to work with you. If you like this episode, I bet you'll be just as jazzed as I am about my coaching program for increasing student-led discussions in your school. 

Shane Safir and Jamila Dugan talk about a pedagogy of student voice in their book Street Data. They say students should be talking for 75% of class time. Do students in your school talk for 75% of each class period? I would love for you to walk into any classroom in your community and see this in action. If you're smiling at yourself as you listen right now, grab 20 minutes on my calendar to brainstorm how I can help you make this big dream a reality. To brainstorm how I can help you make this big dream a reality. I'll help you build a comprehensive plan, from full-day trainings and discussion protocols like Circle and Socratic Seminar to follow-up classroom visits where I can plan, witness and debrief discussion-based lessons with your teachers. Sign up for a nerdy, no-strings-attached brainstorm call at lindsaybethlyonscom contact. Until next time, leaders, think big, act brave and be your best self. This podcast is a proud member of the Teach Better Podcast Network. 

0:33:14 - Kara Pranikoff
Better today, better tomorrow, and the podcast to get you there. Explore more podcasts at teachbettercom slash podcasts and we'll see you at the next episode. 
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