Getting Started
Investing time to develop expectations and work through the challenges will reap future rewards.
Watching video of classrooms in which students comfortably and fluidly engage in discourse may be daunting, especially if you have little prior experience with APT. The sections below provide guidance beginning with the very basics: developing agreements and organizing the space. The next sections move into planning and facilitation techniques.
You may have doubts about whether APT can work in your classroom for any number of reasons: the time it takes, the few students who always dominate the talking, or the reluctance of students to speak at all. Perhaps you have English learners and are concerned that they will be left out. These common challenges are addressed in the final section.
Changing teaching practice is never easy. But investing time to develop expectations and work through the challenges will reap future rewards as your students become more engaged and take on more responsibility for their own and their classmates' learning.
Video Libary
Select video footage accompanies most pages on this website to illustrate important aspects of Academically Productive Talk. More complete and annotated classroom footage is also available in the Video Library.
Explore the Video Library now.
Teacher Tip Deck
The APT Tip Deck is a handy resource offering dozens of practical teacher moves to support Academically Productive Talk.
Look for links throughout this site or open the complete APT Teacher Tip Deck now.
Community Forum
Welcome to the Academically Productive Talk Community Forum. We hope this site creates an opportunity for educators to learn from each other. Please share how you are using this resource and how APT is going in your classroom.
The Academically Productive Talk Project was made possible by a grant from the Spencer Foundation #202000131. The views expressed here are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Spencer Foundation.
