Topic: Maria Nichols

How can we create a classroom environment where every student feels safe and valued enough to actively participate and engage in their learning?

How can we create a classroom environment where every student feels safe and valued enough to actively participate and engage in their learning?

Heinemann is a proud sponsor of the 2021 Literacy for All Conference. Check out this blog for a complete list of the Heinemann authors presenting this year.

Authentic, purposeful talk is, by nature, unpredictable, but your teaching doesn’t have to be.

If children are to develop as a learning community, they must believe that their efforts to engage with each other and with ideas matter.

To learn together, children need to figure out how to live in the confined space of a classroom, developing processes that enable them to navigate their environment, and each other, with care, respect and trust.

Creating a visual image of a process as dynamic in nature as purposeful talk is challenging at best. But visuals are incredibly helpful for both internalizing the process, and pushing against misconceptions.

Today on the Heinemann Podcast, we’re joined by author Maria Nichols. In her new book “Building Bigger Ideas: A Process for Teaching Purposeful Talk,” Maria drives home the growing importance of purposeful, face-to-face communication.

Talk has a purpose—and that purpose is to tackle the unknown—to strategize, to innovate, to problem-solve, to construct understanding. This use of talk “in the wild” frames the “why” behind purposeful talk in the classroom—our rationale for designing teaching and learning that’s dialogic in nature.