Signature Training: CALM Conversations in Class

Relationship & Academic Talk

Whether it’s academic conversation, sidebar conversation; addressing harmful language or conferencing with students, all classroom communication informs teaching and learning. This training explores how language can impact classroom relationships and how non-academic communication can be leveraged to build academic, emotional and social intelligences.

Features

• Strategic use of interpersonal communication (e.g., code-meshing, off-topic talk) in the classroom 
• Build emotional, social and academic intelligences 
• Increase classroom participation and student collaboration 
• Co-created classroom conversation plan 
• Decrease student referrals

Benefits

• Students develop academic literacy and social awareness skills for cross-subject study and real-world interactions 
• Decrease the prevalence of student use of hate speech and harmful language 
• Improved student engagement and increased opportunity for academic conversations
• A beyond “that’s-not-appropriate-for- the-classroom” approach for communicating effectively and empathetically 
• Increases teacher-to-student, administrator-to-teacher and administrator-to-student relationship currencies by decreasing incidences of referrals due to teacher-student power struggles and student conflicts

End-of-service product: Customized conversation plans

Customized CALM Conversation Plan (long-form training)/customized CALM Conversation Preflection (short-form training)

Plan and Preflection products are based on the class subject, grade, and types of classroom talk and within the context of structure, relationship and engagement, (e.g., co-created classroom community agreements for class to regularly return to as values that guide words and actions.