School Leaders
How Conversational Development Can Benefit Your School
- Administrations who invest in an active, engaged culture see reductions in student conflicts and disruptive behavior.
- There is no question that high quality professional development impacts a school culture and climate.
- Professional development also leads to better instruction and improved student learning. But as you know, not all professional development programs are created equal.
- Conversational Development is a proven, data-driven program that emphasizes critical thinking and increased engagement from both students and teachers. The curriculum is focused on developing conversational skills in an engaging and thought-provoking way.
- Want to know more?
- Administrations who invest in an active, engaged culture see reductions in student conflicts and disruptive behavior.
- There is no question that high quality professional development impacts a school culture and climate.
- Professional development also leads to better instruction and improved student learning. But as you know, not all professional development programs are created equal.
- Conversational Development is a proven, data-driven program that emphasizes critical thinking and increased engagement from both students and teachers. The curriculum is focused on developing conversational skills in an engaging and thought-provoking way.
Want to know more?
Designed By Teachers For Teachers
The protocol taught in Conversational Development was created by two teachers from Chicago, Steve and Dan Fouts (both founders of Teach Different). The protocol has been tested and refined through real classroom experiences.
Designed By Teachers For Teachers
The protocol taught in Conversational Development was created by two teachers from Chicago, Steve and Dan Fouts (both founders of Teach Different). The protocol has been tested and refined through real classroom experiences.
Often at The Conversation Project, we discuss the impact conversation-based learning has on student engagement. Meta data studies conclude that classroom discussions accelerate student achievement faster than over 94% of common influencers (Hattie, 2010).
The truth is that, while important, student engagement is only half of the equation. It is just as important that the teachers themselves are engaged with the curriculum and their classrooms.
Bearing this in mind, Steve and Dan have developed this program to translate their experiences in a way that is deeply engaging to the educator undergoing the training.
Direct coaching is combined with online learning and live classroom implementation and feedback in a way that ensures teachers are getting the most they can out of the program as well as immediately seeing the positive impact on student learning. This is a turn-key implementation that integrates seamlessly with a teacher’s curriculum.
“Selection of the appropriate professional development to capture and engage teachers’ perspectives on how to build relationships with students to facilitate instructional best practices will drastically decrease opportunities for students to engage in inappropriate behaviors that often disturb the learning environment” (Kola, Sunday, & Ayinde, 2015)
Thoughtful Conversations Elevate School Culture
and Raise Student Achievement
No School Or District Should View Finance As An Obstacle
Most urban districts spend between $6000-8000 per year, per teacher, on professional development. The average cost for coaching itself is around $4000, plus travel expenses and board for conferences. These costs only increase when the resources needed to acquire substitute teachers are accounted for.
The cost of Conversational Development is a fraction of this, plus its flexible online scheduling means that teachers never have to miss school to attend. In addition to trying out new strategies immediately in live classrooms, work with coaches is done outside of school hours and provides evidence of professional activities to include in professional growth plans.
This makes the program much more affordable than equivalent programs. However, we recognize that there are many school systems where the cost would be prohibitive. Often these are the school systems that would benefit the most from our conversational training.
As such we are currently building a network of donors and sponsors who can help subsidize some or all of the costs associated with the program. We are also happy to help point you in the direction of grants which would help to cover participation.
If you or a teacher in your school are interested in this program but it is not in your school’s budget, please don’t hesitate to contact us so that we can work with you to make sure that you can participate.
