What is Quality Talk?
Quality Talk (QT) is a student-centered, teacher-facilitated approach to holding small-group classroom discussions. Learning about and integrating the QT Approach in your classroom will radically improve the way students and teachers think, reason, and talk together.
Classroom discussion can be a powerful tool to help students think deeply about content and develop higher-order thinking and reasoning skills. However, productive discussions do not just happen spontaneously. We believe that both students and teachers must be explicitly taught how to have discussions. Quality Talk is a discussion approach that helps students learn how to ask questions, develop arguments, and reason together to collaboratively build knowledge.
Importantly, Quality Talk helps students to take on interpretive authority and responsibility for the discussion. Unlike other approaches that center the teacher, Quality Talk places the students at the center of the discussion. Instead of leading the discussion, Quality Talk teachers act as a facilitator, and gradually release control of the discussion to students as they learn how to have discussions together.
Using the Quality Talk discussion model, teachers adopt pedagogical principles and an instructional frame that guide their approach to small-group discussion. Students are taught about discussion elements and teachers use teacher talk moves to help facilitate productive discourse.
We know that using Quality Talk in your classroom will radically improve the way students and teachers think, reason, and talk together! Many studies have demonstrated the effectiveness of Quality Talk in improving students’ thinking and reasoning abilities. Check out our Supporting Evidence page to see how Quality Talk has been studied across content areas and grade levels!
How can I bring Quality Talk to my classroom?
In QT discussions, the roles of students and teachers differ from traditional classroom dynamics. To facilitate these shifts, the Quality Talk Approach provides activities to enable both students and teachers to effectively implement the Quality Talk Discussion Model.
Initial Teacher Professional Development
Quality Talk provides teachers with both initial and ongoing professional development. Initial professional development provides an overview of Quality Talk and helps teachers develop the knowledge and strategies needed to implement QT in the classroom. Our free online courses serve as your initial professional development. You can also contact our team to discuss options for in-person QT professional development training for your school.
QT Student Discourse Lessons
We have developed the lessons you will use to teach your students essential strategies for productive discourse. All the resources you need to teach your class about discussion are provided for you as part of your professional development.
QT Content Discussions and Activities
At this stage, students and teachers practice by engaging in QT discussions about relevant content. Students practice the discourse elements they have learned and take on interpretive authority over the content. Your QT professional development will cover everything from choosing effective tasks to planning your instructional week to include QT discussions.
Teacher coaching and coding
We will also teach you how to “code” discussions. QT coding is a way to explore the quality of student discussion and teacher facilitation.