Jeff Zwiers: He said to a friend on the way out the door said, oh man, I’ve never used my brain so much in my life. And I thought initially it didn’t hit me. But then later on it hit me that sometimes talk is not appreciated. Or some teachers think it’s a waste. It’s too loud, it’s too messy. I don’t know what’s going on back there.

But in this case, it was like, if you do it enough and if you structure it and you value and you set it up well enough, students can really learn and and get a lot out of it. 

Mandi Morris: Hi, welcome to the ML Chat podcast. I’m Mandi Morris, your host Andrew, tell our listeners today the story of how we landed Jeff Zwiers on the podcast. 

Andrew Brandt: So this is a fun story for me. We were at WIDA in Seattle a couple months ago, and I was. Hall and I saw Jeff walking down the hall and I thought, that’s Jeff Zwiers.

And so I did the same thing any super fan would do. He started talking to somebody, and so I just stood near him and at that point, some friends from Everett stopped by, [00:01:00] so we were chatting with them, just stalling, waiting for Jeff to have a moment. As soon as he wrapped up this conversation, I started talking to Jeff and I was amazed at just how approachable he was and just how real he was.

And at that time just said, Hey, we’d love to have you on the podcast. And he was super gracious. It was fun to see as we went into the conversation today, how just that continue, like Jeff’s approach to both teaching and how he does his work is so both authentic and humble and dedicated to finding what’s gonna make a difference for kids and not just the difference that’s gonna result in higher test scores, but the difference that’s really gonna help them be the best expression, the best them they can be.

To really open doors of opportunity for their life and the use of being able to master English. And so it’s, it was, it was fun to see ’em there. It was really fun to have this conversation that really continued that. I’m excited for this episode. I think you’re really gonna love it. 

Mandi Morris: Yeah, me too. And Jeff also, the way he talks about education is energizing for [00:02:00] an educator as much as it is about the students in the classroom.

There’s so much of the work that he’s doing, and what he talked about in our conversation today is just about the teacher also practicing new techniques and feeling excited and energized about what they’re doing in their classroom with students. This is such an incredible conversation. Let’s go listen to this episode now. 

Jeff Weers is an educator, researcher, and consultant who focuses on improving instruction for all students, especially linguistically and culturally diverse learners. He spent 14 years as a senior researcher at the Stanford Graduate School of Education, and now works with schools and districts around the world on language development, lesson design, and formative assessment.

Jeff is the author of Overhauling Learning for Multilingual Students, and his work today centers on building student agency. Idea building and fostering rich, productive academic conversations across classrooms and content areas. Jeff, welcome to the NL Chat podcast. 

Jeff Zwiers: Thanks for having me. 

Mandi Morris: [00:03:00] We are really looking forward to our conversation here today.

We just can’t wait to get to know you and your work. It’s had a huge impact on academic discourse and how we think about student engagement in the classroom. We’re so excited to dive into these big ideas and to what productive academic discourse looks and feels like in a classroom and all of the work that you are doing right now.

Jeff Zwiers: Looking forward to it as well. 

Mandi Morris: To get started though, I would really love to take a trip back with you and just learn a little bit about you, Jeff, and what brought you here into the education space. How did you get where you are today? 

Jeff Zwiers: That is a great question. I’m wondering how far back to go because I can go quite a, quite a ways.

Lemme just start with, I started off teaching in a high school and I was teaching students with, um. They had, they had interruptions in their education and they, [00:04:00] most of ’em came from Mexico and Central America, and, and that really got me excited. But also I saw the challenges of both building language and content at the same time, and not just English.

It was also building Spanish language skills, Spanish academic language, abilities, skills, just their sense of what it means to learn. A lot, all in one year, and so I, I worked with a lot of students on their literacy in starting off in Spanish and then also moving into English. And then little by little I got very, very interested in just interactions.

I saw some interactions that were good and saw some interactions. This is between students that were not as productive or they just stopped really quickly. And so later on I got interested in how does language develop through interaction and how does learning develop through? Interaction between students because as we know, it’s not just magic.

You [00:05:00] don’t just put two students together and say, here, talk and teach each other this. Right? There’s a lot of skill building, conversation skills and also content and even how knowledge is put together. And so that’s eventually what led me to, I’d work a lot with students and teachers on. Their interactions and we would say, Hey, talk about this, or talk about that.

And the prompts just weren’t doing it for them. It was, okay, we answered this question, what more do you want? Like you think of a typical pair share, right? So we were, I did a lot of analyzing and a lot of just observing of students in their talk and that’s what eventually kinda led me to, okay, they need something to talk about.

They need something to build while they’re talking instead of just saying answers. A lot of ’em had been used to just, okay, what’s the answer? And then students, and even adults, if you ask for an answer, I’m gonna probably tell you as quickly as possible whether it’s a yes, no thumbs up, a grunt or something.

So what [00:06:00] we were trying to do was the opposite of that. We were trying to expand the use of language. Both. Both listening and speaking, especially when we were focus on oral language, but also reading and writing, right? Reading and writing there, but also do the bare minimum as well. So we were really looking at what can inspire kids rather than the the stick, the, Hey, you need to get these points up, you need to pass this test.

You’re gonna flunk, you’re gonna rather inspire them to talk to one another about the content. So that’s what led me into it over time. And then eventually it’s still. Solidifying. I wouldn’t say it’s solid by any means, but it’s still this notion of what we need to do to overhaul what I call.

Accumulation based learning rather than idea building. 

Mandi Morris: Something you said really stood out to me. When students are involved in a back and forth conversation where they feel like there’s a right or wrong, there’s a right answer they’re supposed to come up with. That conversation is very limiting and I.

Seen [00:07:00] scaffolds or supports that are used in the classroom for OSC, but they’re very much so the, there is a right answer that fits on this blank and your job now as a student is to figure that out. I think it’s really interesting the way that you’re talking about it. It. Really thinking about, yes, having a structure around student discourse, but it’s allowing students to build more independently on their own thinking versus just finding a right or wrong for that blank.

So you’re in the classroom and you’re in high school. You’re seeing students who are SIFE and sife and. What That is a tough education space, right? Even now, even today, like it is really a challenge, like you pointed out language and content at the same time you’re in the classroom, you’re grappling with these really urgent needs and how, how does that get you to Stanford?

Like where’s the jump between your experience in the classroom and then how does this start to turn into research for you? 

Jeff Zwiers: And again, my, I ended up working as a, in a professional development [00:08:00] center at Stanford. I worked for a while with Kenji Hakuta and just learned a lot about the. Both the strengths and weaknesses of educational research, and so I leaned toward more of the qualitative in the classroom.

I call it a little bit more messy types of research, which really included a lot of observation of classroom discourse. Even though you can, you can code for quite a few things in class. It’s really a lengthy process and some of the. So sometimes it just got a little bit too crazy or messy for, for practicality.

So as I was at Stanford and doing this, I, I leaned into, okay, what’s the most practical, and I’m gonna use, I’m gonna use the quotation marks. What’s the most practical research for teachers to use on a daily basis? And so I started heading in that direction. That’s what got me into kind of more on the professional development side of things and even doing some research on professional development, but most of it was focused on [00:09:00] how, how do we improve classroom, especially paired conversations.

You can look at whole class conversations or large group or small group, but I focused on. Paired interactions just because they interested me and because I felt you got more language per minute, like you got more listening and more talking from each student per minute. And that’s when I, that’s when I think, I don’t know when I wrote the book, academic Conversations, but that book helped focus me on that work and what it takes to have a really good, excuse me, a good paired conversation.

And that’s where I’m still at right now. Even though this last book that you mentioned zooms out a little bit into what can we do to, to, with, for curriculums to help support both learning all that stuff. Learning, learning of content, learning of language, social relationships, interacting with each other, and [00:10:00] student agency.

One of the big things that I’ve seen, at least in the last five years is in doing this work is when students. They start to communicate their ideas, they feel the sense of student agency. So that’s kinda where I might have skipped over a few things, but I’ve landed in that space of, hey, what are we doing for students to value them, not just doing it for points in the schools.

It’s what are we doing for individual students, these very brilliant, unique students that they deserve more than just being funneled into being test takers. 

Andrew Brandt: Jeff, it’s so cool to hear your story. It also feels like you were born to do this work, and as you talked about even your start in high school teaching high school, it feels like you’ve been doing this work like from the very beginning.

Like it is just, it’s just in you. I’m curious. Tell me about a time where there was maybe like an aha, like an aha moment, like an experience you had that really shaped or reshaped how you thought about either student learning or you speak of the PD space, [00:11:00] how teachers can best teach. 

Jeff Zwiers: Yeah, I mean, there’s probably several in terms of.

Students look at looking at when I was working with students, but there was one time that, that we did mostly, it was probably 45 to 50 minutes of oral language work, a few, several strategies in a row. It was mostly talking and it was in a, I think it was a very diverse high school setting. And on the way out, I heard one of the students that I had been filming.

On the way out. I, no, actually don’t, I don’t think it was someone I had even been filming. There was someone else inside other side of the room, but, but they said, he said to a friend on the way out the door, said, oh man, I’ve never used my brain so much in my life. And I thought initially it didn’t hit me.

But then later on it hit me that that. Sometimes talk is not appreciated. Or they think it’s a, some teachers think it’s a waste. It’s too loud, it’s too messy. I don’t know what’s going on back there. And, but in this case it was like, if you do it enough and if you structure it and [00:12:00] you value and you set it up well enough, students can really learn and, and get a lot out of it.

I’ve done. Professional development sessions where I say, what are some of the advantages of students talking to one another about academic stuff? And we’ll come up with 25 advantages. Okay, so that’s another, that’s another example. And the 25, it is like, so with all these advantages, why isn’t it happening more?

Why aren’t we? What’s happened to our teaching, our curriculum? That limits the talk because as we all know, most people listening here know you can either shadow a student or observe classrooms and see very little, very few, whatever, a minute and a half of talk in a day or something. There’s just these.

Statistics in most studies that do this, that show that there’s very little talk. And when, whenever I am with kids and hearing this talk, like that example or other examples where I’m just listening to a pair and they’re, they’re doing the i, I tend to focus on two main [00:13:00] skills. Clarify and support. So I just have these hand motions where, you know, they, if anyone’s watching this, you can see the hand motion.

So clarify is one and then supports the other. And in almost every lesson that I model, when I do model lessons, I’ll teach these skills and it’s just beautiful when a kid, he or she will almost like, I’ll say, if the conversation stops, try one of these prompts for this is, what do you mean by, or can you give an example of, and when they do that.

It’s a little bit clunky. It’s not authentic. But the other student, and this is what’s amazing, the other student doesn’t treat it as inauthentic. The other student was waiting for it in a way. And almost always when I, I’ll hear, I’ll get a kid say, what do you mean by that? As a, in a, like a fakey way. But the other kid will go on for 3, 4, 5 more sentences almost like the other kid was waiting for it in a way.

And so when you see that, it’s kinda like these kids, a lot of them are waiting for that question from a partner or a peer. And they’re [00:14:00] in a sense, not all of ’em, but some of ’em are just waiting or bursting. Some are bursting at the seams for chances to share their thoughts or their ideas. That’s what’s exciting.

Andrew Brandt: I love that. And it’s, and to your point about the 25 advantages of speaking is I think it’s oftentimes overlooked because we’re too so focused on the teacher delivering the content, getting what Mandi was talking about of Okay, let’s just get you to the right answer so we can go to the next lesson. And that’s part of what I mean, a shameless plug here.

Part of what we love so much about the work we’re doing with flashlight is just creating a, a safe place. It’s asset base for students to just talk, just get ’em talking, expressing with authentic content line prompts and, um, there’s so much learning that happens in just them having that loose free expression of language.

Jeff Zwiers: Exactly. 

Mandi Morris: For as much conversation as we, as professionals in the space of ELD. Have been having around student conversation in class and academic discourse in class, you pointed out that it’s still [00:15:00] really not happening that much. And you noted that in your newest book you talk about curriculum and the impact or the connection there.

I would love to hear you unpack that a little bit more, and when I’m, I think about it from two levers. We have the ELD classroom, right? Thinking about secondary and maybe you’ve got an ELD class period, and then you have everything else happening in that student’s day. All of those other six periods of the day that are content classes.

And then of course in the elementary school experience, the model can vary. Quite a bit bit. I just wonder what is your perspective there about that lever that is ELD curriculum and then also that other lever that is content curriculum that our students are sitting in those classes. What does conversation look like in those spaces as well?

Jeff Zwiers: Yeah, one of the, one of the, let’s see, most powerful slash beautiful things that happens in content classrooms. I’ll start there, is when you get. Appropriately set up or prepared [00:16:00] conversations between kids, English only kids, and also multilingual students. Since one of the, one of the ways in which we develop language, and I would, I argue the most powerful way is through daily conversations.

And often it’s with parents, right? Or family members. And so you think about all the stu, all the five-year-olds that show up at school, they haven’t had grammar. Activities. They have not had vocabulary exercises or quizzes and they yet, they’re speaking pretty well. And why is that? Is because they’ve been immersed in practical, Hey, get things done.

Language and also some idea building. How does the world work at home? Often and in some cases it’s preschool, but preschool often has a lot of talk as well, right? It’s not all this grammar. And so one of the, one of the reasons I love content area classes for language development. Is, there’s such a high potential for building ideas with others and, and more fluent speakers, right?

So if you have that mix of kids, and [00:17:00] like you said, you’ll have some multilingual students in these classrooms and, and if it’s a safe space and it’s properly set up and there’s a lot of clarifying and supporting and idea building, a lot of multilingual students bring with them some amazing building blocks, right?

And I use the term building blocks, which other people use. Connections or background knowledge. I tend to like the term building blocks. It’s more solid and lasting. Some people use assets, but Stu students bring with them so many fascinating building blocks that are useful not only to them, but are useful for the whole class.

They’re useful for others, and through talk is a great way to share those. And one of the things that’s exciting in those content area classes is that they, you can share some of those with and to get everyone valuing those blocks. Actually produces more talk. So you’ve got the information gap there where, I don’t know what, let’s say if you came from Mexico and you’re sharing an [00:18:00] experience that relates to this, that I’m gonna ask you questions about that.

I have no idea. I wasn’t there. I don’t know you. If it’s something from the text that we both read, there isn’t as much information gap, right? Maybe there’s a, something I don’t know or I didn’t understand from that I might ask you, but for the most part, we both read it. We both have the information, but if it’s a personal building block, there’s more.

There’s more likelihood that you’re gonna share, and I’m gonna ask you and vice versa. And so the more we can leverage those information gaps and the filling of those, the better. And that can happen in every classroom. Now in ELD. Oftentimes, and I’ve looked at a lot of curriculums as probably many people listening it, there tends to be a little more focus on grammar and vocab that takes away from the engagement often.

Now, I’m not saying that for every curriculum, and I haven’t seen ’em all, but a lot of times there is a progression that they go through of, particularly for older kids, they just aren’t as interested in the topics. And so I’m always looking for curriculums that [00:19:00] are highly engaging, that promote a lot of oral language.

But also do a lot of idea building also in addition to the kind of the focus on language. 

Mandi Morris: I wonder if you have thoughts around our students today, and it’s been this way for years now and I’m sure in your career. I’m curious to see if you’ve seen a shift. You talk about students needing to have real world language, right?

So whether you call that like language in context or authentic language, and I think about how. Much students, and I’m thinking really specifically about secondary students, how much engagement for students now is happening between them and a phone, and how different that peer-to-peer. Community communication looks today in the middle school and high school, even compared to when I started my career 19 years ago as a middle school teacher.

I think it’s more important than ever before for teachers to be [00:20:00] engaging their students with this is what communication looks like, peer to peer. We make eye contact, we build on each other’s thoughts, we add value. We ask for clarification when we don’t Underst. Do you have any thoughts about in your classroom observations or in your professional development?

Are you hearing this from other teachers or are you observing it in classrooms? 

Jeff Zwiers: Yes, and I’ll try to elaborate. I think there’s a little bit of COVID in there. Spending a whole year or so, literally away from others, that makes a difference. I’m not gonna blame everything on COVID or even phones because even before this there it wasn’t that great.

Partly because I think when I might get in trouble, but I think partly it’s the way we have been so focused on the testing because the tests often shape the curriculum, and especially if you’re. Not doing well on tests, you’re gonna spend more time on those tests. And so what has happened is that oral language, like you said, gets squeezed out.[00:21:00] 

In fact, even a lot of content science and social studies, and at least several years ago and maybe even today, have been squeezed out of a lot of, because they want an hour and a half of language arts and then an hour and a half of math because of the tests. And I’m not saying take away the tests, I’m just saying that.

Either we improve the tests would be one thing, but also shaping the curriculum so it still educates without limiting and zooming in on the right answer and the point getting, because if you ask many students, and I’ve done this, I asked students, so what’s education all about? What’s school all about?

What is it? A lot of ’em will say. It’s memorizing stuff, it’s building up skills so I can choose the right answer or write the right way to get enough points for the test, and I need to improve that every year. And that’s a lot of language, even if I ask that question from some kids. So it’s really shifting a major shift, and I call it an overhaul, but it’s a major shift toward, like you said, authentic idea building.

Which [00:22:00] is very hard to test because if I say, oh yeah, half of this kid’s idea is his personal experiences, his personal building blocks, you can’t, they’re not gonna give you, that’s not gonna be on a multiple choice test, and yet here’s this kid building up an amazing idea that might be valuable to the world.

But being said, being told, okay, sorry. All that half of it is no good. I want only the stuff that’s in the text that we just read. Right. And so in terms of authentic language, it becomes a lot less authentic for kids when you take that away, when you take away the personal assets, when you take away the personal building blocks and also, again, the time you take away the time of talk, it’s.

It’s, uh, like I said before, and I have a little quote here, sometimes kids need that talk time, just like people need steps. I see all these, these watches that count steps during the day, and we need kids to rack up their minutes, their talk minutes, uh, even seconds if I can get ’em, but rack up. It’s kinda like [00:23:00] talk exercise.

You need to be talking every day to different people. In the classroom and I can’t just say if a kid like looking down the whole time while they’re talking and not using those good, I can’t just say, okay, tomorrow I want you to do all these skills well with No, it’s like over time it’s like an apprenticeship, right?

It’s a, it’s kind of a oral language apprenticeship over time and it takes years right to get, and we know a lot of adults that. Aren’t that good. Right? And so we really want our kids, and I always say this to be better than we are for the future of humanity. 

Mandi Morris: What I hear from you, Jeff, is really a long view for education.

And I think what happens a lot of time in the classroom, especially at the secondary level, you have these students for, I’m a 10th grade. Bio teacher or ninth grade bio teacher, and no, I mean, I’ve got this semester or I have this year, and you have to master this content. You have to pass this, and there’s so much pressure on the [00:24:00] teacher and the students in order to perform in a very specific way with very specific content, specific by a clearly stated deadline.

And what I’m hearing from you is really a long view approach to education. Which at the secondary level has a lot of impact on programming, on graduation timelines. I wonder what advice would you have, and I’m thinking specifically for high school, where that pressure, you just feel it so much more. What advice do you have for.

For ELD specialists, for counselors who are building out schedules for students, how should they be thinking about what does success look like for a high school student taking more of this long view approach. 

Jeff Zwiers: Yeah. One thing I would recommend is, and this is a little fuzzier than scheduling, but one is to take a look at either your state if it has a profile of a graduate, because some states, I know Utah does, has, has a really nice [00:25:00] profile of a graduate, what they want in a graduate.

Right. And that would be kinda like backward planning from there, then you also have to figure out how radically, because a lot of. Schedules in high schools, they’re hard to change. They’re set for, so it’s, the long view would be little by little. How do we, how do we make this class two semesters? ’cause we think it’s more needed than one.

We think it’s really important. And then I also realize that playing Tetris a lot with these classes, because you’re moving things around, you have schedules. So I don’t have a, I don’t have a. Small paragraph piece of advice for the scheduling. But I do, I would say, and this is I’m working with secondary schools, take some units that you, instructional units that you have and start to think about what would be a big idea.

And it doesn’t have to be just be one, a big idea or an argument that, that you could work toward in this particular unit. Now this works a little bit better in some classes than others. ’cause I know for example, biology has a lot of things to, I’ll just say it. [00:26:00] Directly to memorize, but there are some systems that work together that would fit under the kind of big idea level that you could fit some of the, the many facts under.

So that’s what I would be looking at. I still want them to, there’s the standards are still good and we want students to learn these standards, but a lot of standards can fit within a big idea. They don’t have to be just spread out and random, right? It doesn’t have to be, okay, I gotta memorize these 10 things.

Many of, most of ’em, if not all of them, might fit within a larger idea in the discipline. So this example of animals adapt to survive. For example, in a third grade classroom, we did something called a, an activity called a Stronger and Clearer, which is essentially three pair shares in a row. And. The nice thing about this particular activity is that you get a chance to share an oral rough draft.

So the first time you share is not a big deal. It’s not the stressor that it might be if you were asked to share. Okay, yeah. One time to share. Here’s your pair share, and that’s it for the day. [00:27:00] You get to say what you wanna say and then have your partner ask you any questions, clarify or support questions.

And then also you can use some of the. Content from your partner. So you share for a minute, your partner shares for a minute, and then you go to a next partner and you, ideally you make it stronger and clear. You add content from your first partner and then, and you probably will add some clarity as well, because you might’ve realized, Hey, I said something that my first partner didn’t really get and my first partner asked about.

I’m not gonna share it that same way. I’m gonna share it the new way. The way that when she started nodding her head, I’m gonna share it that way with my next partner, and some of this is subconscious, but a lot of times what you’ll see is you’ll see this powerful growth even in the span of 15 minutes.

You’ll see this powerful growth of oral language. They’ll share more and they’ll share it more clearly, and often they’ll even borrow vocabulary from. Partners and sometimes even grammar. It’s hard to notice that, but so it’s, it’s a nice little activity [00:28:00] that, especially for larger questions, kind of idea level questions that, that shows kids, Hey, I can build up ideas.

I started this idea building concept and I, it wasn’t really me that started it. There’s big ideas have been around forever, but, and that, and I noticed that a lot of, like in masters and doctoral, their final test is an oral defense and I thought that was very interesting. Why don’t we do that in younger?

Grade levels. Maybe there’s too many people or too many students, but the idea of an oral defense is really fascinating. I’ve done this a little bit with kids, like when they volunteered, I’ve said, Hey, here’s this idea of animals adapt to survive. Tell me about it. Build it up for me. Communicate that idea to me.

And they might stop a little bit. I might ask ’em a clarify question or a support. Oh wait, can you give it another example? Is there any other type of adaptation that they have? Oh, they also adapt to escape from Predators. Oh. Can you gimme an example of that? In, in a way. And so I’m working with some school districts now.

On this [00:29:00] notion of an oral defense, I, I don’t know if we’re gonna call it that, but this oral exam where you’re actually testing for an idea, I’m also working on a conversation that does the same thing where two kids are conversing so that the assessment is okay, you’re gonna talk, you’re gonna have a, you’re gonna have a collaborative argument.

At the end of the semester about a topic that you will have read about. You’ll be prepared, but I want you to, and I’m just gonna assign students and we’re gonna record it, and that’s gonna be the assessment. So it’s a way to show the value of assessing both kind of the one way communication, but also the two way.

Andrew Brandt: That reminds me a lot of something you shared in your session at WIDA that just this idea of students being able to share unique ideas and that. When you can give them a space to create ideas, it’s no longer, okay, what should I be saying and what shouldn’t I be saying and what’s right and what’s wrong.

It’s, I can contribute something that’s authentic and personal and real, [00:30:00] and it’s valid just because I’m sharing it. And that’s, I think the beauty of language is, it’s not right or wrong, it’s, I’m contributing to the greater space with an idea and it produces like a real interaction with somebody else.

That I think just excites learning. It’s a lot of. Kind of that love of just I I can add to this space. 

Jeff Zwiers: Yeah. 

Andrew Brandt: I’m curious. It’s when you look at it that way, it’s so beautiful. And then you also step back and you look at the challenge that our teachers face, which is. You got this test coming up that is gonna reflect on them in the school district.

You’ve got, of course, the students who are wanting to exit. You’ve got this list of standards and the things, how do you, it’s almost feels like you’re trying to help shift the focus from not just the things you gotta teach to, to get an exit, to just like that excitement and that growth of producing language.

But as you’re working with teachers, how do you help them make that shift away from. All the list of things they gotta do to get the Cade exit to just helping put language in the air, make language come to life for [00:31:00] students. 

Jeff Zwiers: Yeah. I wish I knew. I’ve been doing that quite a bit. But then if you’re talking about spreading it out, disseminating, it’s a cha it’s a challenge because we’ve been doing things a certain way for a long time and curriculums have been doing things a certain way for a long time.

And so to that, to move that to, to redirect that ship. The huge ship is tough. So what I tend to do is I tend to start off with just the strategies like the one I just mentioned, the stronger and clearer. That’s often a good foot in the door. Because a lot of teachers, and I say try it five times because the first four times might not go well at all.

Try it five times. Ask your students about it. Observe your students. See if you see if it’s a good use of time for your students. It might not be. Most of the time it is. Also do a pre and post write. So if you’re into writing. Have them do a pre-write and then have them do a stronger and clearer, and then have a post write on the same prompt.

See the difference. And then some teachers aren’t convinced until they see [00:32:00] that and they do the pre-post. They’re like, okay, I’m sold. Others are just enhancing your pair shares. For example, a lot of pair shares, like I said before, are just one sentence here, one sentence there, or one sentence, and you stole my idea.

But if you enhance them a little bit, not a big deal, okay? I’m still doing a pair share, but if I say, you’re building up an idea, you’re helping your partner build up idea. I want at least one clarify or one support. Question from if you’re listening and, and then maybe something a little bit of post, a little bit of writing afterwards.

Not a big deal, but most of the time it’s, I have to make sure there’s an information gap, there’s a reason to talk. You’re building up an idea and you’re clarifying and supporting. That’s often enough to get kids to speak to three, four, or five sentences or more. Right. So getting that, those activities there.

There’s also an activity that I do called pro con, right, which is a structured activity. You’re talking about pros and cons of something. Then after that, after you get them hooked, hopefully hooked with some of [00:33:00] these oral language activities, then you start, I start talking about, okay, let’s start, talk more about idea building if you like this.

Then let’s also talk about how do we make, how do we. Shape our units, the instructional units to help build up ideas. Then that’s when it becomes, that’s when it becomes a major, the the overhaul piece. 

Andrew Brandt: I really like that and it reminds me of a quote that a mentor of mine shared years ago and has really stuck and makes more and more sense.

The more I live my life is you don’t think your way to a new way of doing. You do your way to a new way of thinking, and that is, we can talk about this all day long on a podcast. We can read it in a book. You can process it, but until you start doing, and then in the act of doing, like you’re saying with, okay, you know what, do it five times, just do it.

Then you start building that like you see how the students respond, you see how you’re engaging with it. You see how the kinda the results are in the process, and that’s what actually produces a change is you [00:34:00] have to jump in and start doing the work differently. To really understand how to do it different.

Jeff Zwiers: Yeah. And that’s both teacher and student. So that’s the other challenge is I might have convinced a teacher, but the students, if they’ve been in school for eight years now and they’ve learned a certain way of learning. Then to convince them is very difficult too. Especially when you’re talking fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth grade.

Kids start getting real self-conscious about their talk and how they talk and if they talk, and so to get them into the space to get their Hey, this year, like even if a teacher says, this year we’re gonna talk a lot. That’s that. Like you said, it’s a lot of doing. It’s not just saying, Hey, let’s talk a lot, and suddenly the kids are just talking like crazy the next day.

It’s a lot of doing these types of activities. It’s also being highly supportive and highly encouraging of just any kind of talk at all. I don’t care. I don’t need complete sentences. I don’t need perfect vocabulary. I just want you to talk. To try to talk, to [00:35:00] help others build ideas and to help you build ideas by talking, listening, reading.

And so it is a, it’s a major o shift slash overhaul for kids to show up in class and think, I’m building an idea, right? What am I gonna do today to build up an idea as strongly and clearly as possible, as opposed to, okay, what’s the teacher gonna make me do today? In terms of right answers, getting right answers.

Now those right answers, we, I still want right answers. Those in a lot of ways become building blocks. If I think of ’em as building blocks rather than just stuff to plop down in front for points. That’s, there’s a difference there, right? I want this stuff to last. I want your ideas to last. I don’t want you to just kinda show up for the show and make a little show and then forget right.

I want you to, and so I often will have teachers, hold on, have their students hold on to these idea graphic organizers or whatever. It doesn’t have to be graphic, but in the back of their binder and leave open [00:36:00] spaces in them. To say, Hey, you’re gonna keep building this. We in the next unit we read, you might come.

Something might come up that helps you build up this idea. It’s not over and this might last the rest of your life. And kids are like, what? Yeah, I don’t have room. No, you have room in your brain for these ideas and you gotta keep building ’em. 

Andrew Brandt: And what I love about that is it also says the student, this isn’t just about the test that’s happening next month, it’s about developing you.

And what I’m hearing is it’s about that perspective of really we’re developing the student. For life, not just developing the skills for the test. And I think you really have to be able to embody that in yourself. ’cause it will come through to the student. They will feel it. Is this just, I gotta figure out what I gotta do to pass the test?

Or is this like you care about me, you wanna see me successful in life? You wish is a key part of opening doors of opportunity. Cultivating that mindset I think is a big part of doing that. I love how you’re like marrying both that perspective with some really tangible skills like practices to help the students develop.

What they need now that will serve them on the test. [00:37:00] But this isn’t about the test. This is about the student. 

Jeff Zwiers: Yeah. They’re generally not gonna do worse on the test. I’ve seen it, right. I’ve been doing this stuff for years and they’re more excited to be in school. They’re more excited to talk. It’s not, oh, this talk time is wasting test prep time.

Mandi Morris: I wanna go back for a moment if we can, and talk about student discussion discourse in the content classroom. I think everyone listening to this podcast who’s in the ML space, they’re sold, right? Like they’ve already bought into the concept, they’re already exercising this and their classrooms and. One way or another, they believe in the power of students being engaged in conversation.

I think where we run into challenges is when we are in a position as an ELD specialist on campus trying to convince our colleagues that are teaching math, science, social studies, ELA, that you have time and space in your classroom. To utilize these practices. Years ago when I was teaching humanities at middle school level, I started doing [00:38:00] Socratic seminars with my students and it was so much fun and it was really hard to get up off the ground.

It was really hard, and it took. Multiple attempts because the first was a total fail, right? Like I failed the students. It didn’t get it. It was really hard to get up off the ground. But what I learned through that process was if the topic was engaging and local, that students then felt ownership of the topic.

So for example. A topic that got students really energized at the time. There was a massive construction happening throughout the Emirates that was deconstructing mangroves, and that’s of course really important for desalinating the waterways. So this was a very controversial topic in the Middle East at the time, like how do we continuously.

Tear down these mangroves in order to build and add more islands, et cetera. Students were so energized by the topic. I could not believe [00:39:00] how much they were talking in class. And these were middle schoolers, right? Like they are inherently, as you said, awkward, uncomfortable. Don’t wanna put their ideas out there ’cause they don’t wanna feel wrong.

I wonder what thoughts do you have? For what do these practices look like in a core content classroom? Or how can ELD specialists really be an agent for change? And shifting mindsets that you can have student discourse In a core content classroom, it might look a little bit different than an ELD classroom.

Maybe the structure is a little bit different, but you can take your content and you can turn it into these vibrant, engaging discussions for students no matter the content area. 

Jeff Zwiers: Yeah, I have quite a few things that came to mind when you were talking about that. One is I always suggest having an engaging product or performance that’s not a test, which is basically not engaging to most kids.

So. You have something where they’re presenting their, they’re gonna present their idea, [00:40:00] their unique idea. Remember, it’s not like someone else’s idea that you memorized. It’s a unique idea. So that’s why it’s always important to have your personal building blocks, but present your unique idea to others.

Ideally, it’s not. It could be in the classroom, which is the most common, but ideally it’s people who really don’t know about this topic. So you’re communicating kinda like the real world, right? When people prepare presentations for the real world, it’s usually to people who want or need to know this stuff, right?

It’s not, it’s not like they already know it. It’d be a waste of everyone’s time. So that’s one. And that they’re presenting their idea. And often the unique idea makes sure they have their personal building blocks, right? Another for the ELD specialist is to model these strategies as much as possible to push.

And again, talk is really my thing, but I always say push for more minutes of talk. Ha. Talk with your content area teacher if you’re pushing in or if you’re co-teaching and see if you guys can kinda. Have this, this agreement that we’re gonna try to get each student to talk more, to [00:41:00] talk for two minutes rather than one minute, or to talk for one minute rather than no minutes during each lesson.

So it some kind of little mini goal of just quantity. That’s quantity. And then the quantity would be as you listen to the quantity. You realize often they will need one or the other of clarifier support. Some cases they just need content. They haven’t, they didn’t read the text, but often they’re gonna need the, the, the strength or the clarity and that they’ll need.

Often you’ll need the kids asking each other questions. Now, I will, the ELD specialist or the content teacher can model good and bad conversation. It’s often, I, I often do this. With kids and say, you all are one partner and I’m the other partner. And I say something like, oh, the memories make us, I think memories make us human.

I think that was a theme of the story. And then I wait and, because a lot of kids might just say, okay, I agree. And I say, so [00:42:00] what can you ask me to, are you interested in what I’m saying? That’s a big idea. What can you ask me? And usually they, by then they know the clarifying the support, but I’ll model that uncomfortable silence.

And so they realize, okay, if you hear that from someone, you ask a question. I’ll also model, if I am the person talking, I need to be uncomfortable with just one sentence. So in some cases, for that ELD specialist or the content area teachers, I even say I have this, I don’t even know what you call it, an acronym with numbers.

It’s 1, 2, 2, 2. So one is this activity should be focused on building an idea or. Solving an argument, right, which is actually two ideas you build up and you decide which one weighs more. The two, there’s a two would be the two skills of clarify and support. That’s how you build the idea. Then there’s two, two or more sentences is.

Are they listening for two or more sentences? Are you getting two? Because usually the nice thing about two or more sentences is that second sentence is, and it has to be connected, two or more [00:43:00] connected sentences. That second sentence is usually a clarifier support sentence in some way. So actually you’re building up kids’ abilities to speak in paragraphs and to think and speak in paragraphs because two sentences in a sense, makes a paragraph where it’s the beginning of a paragraph rather than just a single one answer.

So it’s getting kids in the habit. And if you can do it, if you have multiple pair shares a day and every kid knows that one sentence isn’t enough, you’re gonna get a lot more oral language out of it. And then the last two would be the have two or more partners. That’s a little harder to pull off when a time crunched lesson, but often the more teachers do it, it gets smoother and they see the value, right?

So I like three for the stronger and clearers typically three. But even if you have, okay, turn to your elbow partner. Have a quick pair share interaction with clarifying support. Now turn to your, the facing partner and do it with that real quick. You can get it down to five minutes or four minutes or three minutes.

Right. So I would say working on those things, it’s almost like sneaking [00:44:00] oral language in, so it has a foothold. And then, and then seeing how, let’s say the content area teacher or the LD teacher, whatever, seeing how. Seeing how much you like it and how much the kids like it. Another thing that I’ve noticed with all this is some teachers will say, this is why I got into teaching.

This is like an, because it’s a big alternative to okay, preparing them for tests and quiet all the time and answer these questions. It’s, oh, this is hearing these kids come up with, and sometimes it’s wacky stuff, right? Particularly in the younger grade levels, you’ll hear all kinds of stuff come out, but.

It’s also great for kids. That’s part of the apprenticeship is realizing, okay, I can be funny. I realized I was being funny, or I can be wacky. It’s okay, but I realize this isn’t gonna be useful. It’s that constant process of evaluating, is this useful for the idea building or not? 

Andrew Brandt: I’m loving this discussion and I love how what you’re describing with the students, it creates just an authentic stretching of their abilities.

But the thing that’s really standing out to me about the teacher though, in this [00:45:00] situation and what you just shared. It’s also stretching the teacher. For the teacher. The easy thing is, okay, gimme the gimme. What I need to do, I’ll go through the list. In this situation, the teacher’s gotta be loose and free enough to let the student do their thing and then let the teacher respond and, and coach or mentor whatever they need to do.

And I think that’s where the life that you’re just talking about of this is why I got an education. That’s where that comes from, is that in that moment, the teacher’s gotta be able to just be loose and free themselves just like the student is, and just let the learning happen. And that’s. Beautiful. And as Mandi, you’re talking about your experience teaching and students getting excited around debating the mangroves, just as you talked about different approaches, what that looks like.

It reminds me of the podcast we had with Tan a year ago, and one of his really simple prompts that he would use that was very straightforward. It was. Like K student, who’s your favorite band? And then they name, maybe it’s Taylor Swift. And then be like, okay, what do you think is her best song? And tell me why.

And there are times, there’s a lot of times where it’s great to go into content alliance, but sometimes [00:46:00] if you can just engage student with something that’s right at their level, like that’s a great like entry level. Like you love Taylor Swift, you think that’s her favorite song? Explain that. Support that.

Just let the learning happen in that moment in something that’s very real for that student. It’s funny. Yeah. This is where education comes to life, and that’s why I love what you’re sharing, Jeff. It’s being able to step back and let the learning and education happen as opposed to overly trying to force it to happen.

Jeff Zwiers: Yeah, exactly. And for the teacher, like you mentioned two things. One is focusing on those more social fun topics is a great way to practice these activities, right? The pro con activity might not start off with communism. You might start with ice cream, things like that, but practicing the activity. Then once you get the activity down, and some kids get it quicker than other, but then you move into, okay, now remember the pro con we did with ice cream.

Now we’re gonna do it with communism or whatever. Um, in, in terms of like teacher reflection as well, one of the things I work on is, is what are some cues for. Even within the lesson [00:47:00] prompting for oral language and getting in the habit of practicing instruction that includes more oral language. And that’s a challenge.

That’s like the shift for the teacher. Like I just taught the last two weeks. I don’t know how many classes, rooms I, I taught in, but um, and I pretty self-critical usually, and I usually share those insights with. Even that afternoon, usually it’s I’ll teach in the morning and then we have a meeting in the afternoon.

And so for example, one of the things that I, I just wanted to share a couple things that I was focusing on as a teacher, and one was I realized that kids were focused on filling in the boxes of the graphic organizer. And so I coined the term fill in the boxes itis, so I’m trying to prevent, fill in the boxes, itis, even though we still want the graphic organizer, so don’t want them to think this is just for filling the box.

This is like you said, this is for your lifelong. This is gonna be in your head. I want this in your head for a long time, and I want you to keep building. I don’t want, this is not done when you fill in all those boxes, right? And so that’s one thing. [00:48:00] Another is I tend to interrupt a lot because I didn’t prepare them well enough for certain things.

So I’m trying to figure out what it means to prepare kids. Well enough. And, uh, I, granted I’m coming into a classroom I don’t know very well, and teaching a content right in the middle of a unit, but at the same time, it’s always something to remind me, okay, what, how can I prepare them best so I’m not interrupting them?

And then finally, I think there’s, oh, I’m always reminding them of the big idea. I want, I’m, I need to be obsessed with the big idea. So it just reminds them to get over the hump of. Accumulation, right. Or getting points and just maximizing the minutes of talk, right? So some, it’s every, I don’t know, every few minutes they’re turning to a partner or they’re saying something to me, or modeling a conversation skill.

So it’s really, it’s constant, but it’s also really exciting. Like you said, it’s for the teachers saying, I, this is why I got into teaching. I’m exhausted at the end of, at the end of my lesson, these, but it’s, it’s a really good exhaustion because I’ve been trying to. [00:49:00] Help these kids build ideas, help ’em build skills, help ’em build language, and hearing some of the things they say is really exciting.

It’s really exciting. 

Mandi Morris: I think what can be really challenging and zap the joy out of teaching is when teachers feel an incredible amount of pressure to be on a certain page on a certain day. And we talked about this briefly when Steve Gill was on the podcast a few months ago, and I, his response was.

Teachers whose students score well on state assessments are generally left alone. So I loved his response, but I think a lot about that. I think I have a son in eighth grade and their night, I was doing dishes after dinner and I’m so tired. It’s the end of the day, end of the workday, and he walks over and he’s mom.

Why is communism bad? I don’t understand what’s bad about communism. And I’m like, okay, do I have brain capacity right now to age in this conversation and like pros and cons and give a balanced, fair assessment and not lead [00:50:00] him to an answer, but try to give like different options to think about and mull over.

So he’s doing the learning, he’s doing the thinking, the hard work, but that’s. In the classroom on the spot. As a teacher, it’s a hard thing to do ’cause you don’t have one person in front of you. You have 25 to 30 people in front of you. So just owning, that’s hard work, right? It’s really hard work. It’s really hard when you have the pressure of I have to be on a certain page, on a certain day.

I wonder what it would feel like or look like for that teacher to do the backwards planning of, I have these objectives that I have to hit by the end of the quarter. If I backwards design, how can I. Redesign. Some of this lesson in order to allow students time to really grapple with big ideas, to build big ideas.

I’m still on the right trajectory to meet my standards and my skills, but I’m redesigning what the lessons are gonna look like just to create space that we are gonna grapple with this together as a class. And I just wonder [00:51:00] if you have any advice for teachers that. Are have not only time constraints, but constraints from school districts of, you’ve gotta be on this page on this day.

Do you have any advice about how they should think about trying to incorporate these really important moments in the classroom? 

Jeff Zwiers: Yeah. That, that comes up a lot. And it’s a real tough one, right? Because I, I have a luxury of saying all this stuff and. Not having someone say you have to be on a certain page on a certain day.

What I would say is maybe ask, work with a coach, work with a ELD specialist and talk to an administrator saying, I would like to try one unit. I wanna see how this big idea. More oral language works with this one unit. I don’t, I’ve done this. Just see what it’ll look like. See how much you sacrifice of the being on the right page for the right on the right day.

See if that’s sacrificed or not, but just see if it’s okay to try one unit where you’re just building up a big idea or you’re building up an argument, [00:52:00] right? You’re deciding on an argument and then just seeing how it goes. It’s three weeks. Four weeks, I don’t know how, however long, but trying it out and then inserting a lot of this oral language stuff if you can, or just more talk.

And it’s a little bit like a research, right? A mini qualitative action research project where you’re just, and then talk to the kids, observe the kids, have someone else come in and observe, see what their final product or performance is, right? Which is not a test. Necessarily, you might still might have a test, but then you can look at those.

You can ask the kids, okay, is this gonna last? I was talking with a principal a couple years ago and she said, oh yeah, this, my student came back five years later and said the one thing he remembered was this big project we did, and that was it. Of course, he learned other stuff, et cetera, but that those were, that.

That was the memorable part of it, and I think valuing. The creativity of kids in coming up with ways to communicate through the product and performance. Also, valuing [00:53:00] teachers, VA valuing, because when you say you have to be on this page in this, you’re not really valuing the judgment of teachers necessarily.

I don’t think you are. I think if a teacher thinks they need to be on this page for two days. Then we, we need to trust the teachers, know the kids and they know the content. I don’t, I won’t talk very long about that, but I think that, that the valuing of the ideas, the valuing of the students and their, the building blocks they bring the valuing of the teacher expertise and knowledge.

I don’t know how many times teachers have said, they look at the, all these tests that take weeks, three weeks or whatever, and they say, yeah, I could’ve told you that without. All that test, and I could tell you a lot more too if you want. So I think it it, it’s a way to also really get to know the students better and to value their contributions.

Andrew Brandt: Jeff, this has been phenomenal. We could talk all day quite literally, and beyond that as well. I know we’re getting close wrapping up, but one question that I’d love to get your answer to [00:54:00] is just really tangible. If you’re a new teacher and you’re trying to figure out, okay, where do we get started? How do I approach this mountain of a task?

To, to teach these amazing kids. What advice do you give them or maybe a teacher’s been teaching for 20 years where they’re like, Hey, I feel like I’m new in this work still. Like, where do I start? 

Jeff Zwiers: I would, I would, even though it seems like a big leap, it’s, I would start with the big idea. I do this pretty much in every.

Professional development I run and some, and sometimes it’s even in other people’s professional development, but I ask for these big ideas and say just what’s a good, what’s a big idea that kids could work toward in this unit? They might be doing some other stuff. I know there’s a lot of skills and.

Little standards based factoids that come up, but what’s an overall kind of a pretty cool, like animals adapt to survive or memories make us human, or there’s, there’s dozens of, or maybe hundreds of other ideas. Start with that. And then that’s the kind of a big site. And then starting at the ground level would be just trying to work on these pairs and [00:55:00] getting more and better language out of pair shares.

So I would, you know that that pair share eventually, hopefully, would, you would say, Hey, you’re sharing with these diff different partners to build up an idea and to help them build up an idea. It almost becomes a, okay, I get it. I would love kids to say, I get it. We’re building it. Or I would love to ask every kid in that classroom, why did you share with your partner?

We’re trying to build up this idea that’s up on the wall. Great. That’s exactly what I wanna hear. Because most of the times you ask them why they share it with a pair, with a partner. ’cause the teacher told me to, and that means usually that means bare minimum. Usually it means it doesn’t last for either kid.

What I say doesn’t last in my mind or what it usually, not all the time, but, but if you’re, if you have this idea building mindset that, okay, whenever you share, or whenever you and I extend this out, whenever you read, write, speak. Do art, whatever you’re communicating, either you’re communicating into or out of in order to build up ideas.

So that’s, I guess that’s what I would say. That was a good question. I don’t get asked that very often. 

Andrew Brandt: One thing I, [00:56:00] what I hear from that is, as the teacher, it’s your job to create the structure, but then the students can fill with language. And I love that. ’cause in some ways it is more challenging for the teacher to really learn.

And whether it’s being confident in your questions and your structure to then step back, that takes work. But once you, as you build that and more confidence in that, the students then have that flexibility and that freedom to just fill it with their unique expression of ideas and language. I think there’s the kind of thing that it’s easy to hear maybe on the podcast right now and be like, okay, I’m getting it, but I’m, as soon as you try, as soon as it, as somebody listening, tries it once, so you’re be okay.

I struggled to hear there. Where should our listeners go to learn more about your approach? I don’t know if you’ve got any books or any resources that you’d say, Hey, this would be a good place to go, that continue to build out that skill. 

Jeff Zwiers: Yeah, I would say probably the last three books and you might wanna hunt and peck for this last book, like I said, is a little more of an overview, a little more on the curriculum side of things.

There are, the appendix was way too long, but some people like it. It’s a lot of model [00:57:00] lessons and kind of sample units. I think. Simple units or lessons. But then if you go back a little bit, there’s, there’s next steps with academic conversations, which is most mostly focused on conversations. And there’s another book called The Communication Effect, which talks about how to enhance.

A lot of different, I don’t know how many, 20 different strategies with authentic communication features. So those features, like I mentioned, were idea building, clarifying support and information gaps, like filling information gaps. So how to, just like I’ve mentioned a little bit with the pair shares, how to enhance the pair share.

So you’re getting a lot more out of that time and that activity. Yeah, and so that you could do that. You could also, there’s probably, there’s quite a few things online here and there that you could access as well. 

Andrew Brandt: Otherwise, I know you’re out at a lot of conferences. I know your workshop at We, that was, was amazing.

So a great place to look you up. 

Jeff Zwiers: Okay. Thank you, 

Mandi Morris: Jeff. Just as we wrap, what is something that you feel really excited [00:58:00] about right now in the world of education? You’re on the road, you’re with different teachers all across the country, in different classrooms with different admin students. What is something that you see that you just feel really excited about or a practice that you are energized about right now?

Jeff Zwiers: That’s a good question. I think one of the challenges of this work, just as noted by the word overhaul, is it takes time. So I think just recently I was. Pretty much third year at, at a county office, and it’s taken a while, but just to, to have quite a few teachers say, okay, I’m, I’m practicing this now and I’m getting it.

It’s, it’s taking some root, it’s not easy. It’s taken a year and a half or two to get things going, but just to hear that it’s, to hear that the people are sticking with it, they’re finding success. They’re seeing their students light up. And get excited about talking to not feel so burdened by. [00:59:00] By kind of the, sometimes it’s the fears of what the admin will say.

’cause we also, I also work with admin quite a bit, so it’s a lot of convincing. In fact, somewhere on my notes I say a lot of this is 50% of this work is convincing. It’s not just the informing and modeling. It’s convincing that because we’re so tight on time and there’s a lot of initiatives out there, it’s exciting to see.

I think one of the most exciting. Pieces is when I see stuff carried over. This last, I was just in Chicago for a second year with the district and, and just to see that a lot of it carried over. From the previous year that you just, I saw what I thought were notable differences in, in student talk. Ev, every time I got up to model something, they were already doing it, which when you wanna hit the ground running, this is when you wanna hit the ground running when it comes to talk.

’cause there’s always a little room for improvement. And then imagine, I just. I visualize every year if I think these kids are talking twice or three times, or four times as much [01:00:00] every year, what, where do they get to when they’re in ninth grade? When they’re in 10th grade or they’re in 12th grade or when they graduate, they become much better than what we’re seeing out there in the world right now in terms of communication.

So that’s what’s exciting to me. 

Mandi Morris: Thank you so much for joining us on the ML Chat podcast. It has been a complete honor to have you here today and to have this conversation. I’m excited about all of the educators who will hear this and go and learn more about your work and share it with your colleagues.

Share it with your content teaching peers. There’s so much value in this conversation and thank you so much for being here with us.