Newsletter #6: Team Ice Cream!

Beverley Taylor Sorenson Visual Arts Educator

I taught and collaborated with a dear colleague, a fellow third-grade teacher, for 10 years before she recently retired. Every year, she insisted her class call themselves “Team Davis.” She hung pennants and signs for “Team Davis” in her classroom. Her students would sign off on weather broadcasts with, “This report is brought to you by Team Davis!” I noticed her students consistently worked and communicated well together.

Coaches prepare teams to win by teaching their players to communicate effectively on the field. ”I’m open!” or “Pass it to me!” are common phrases you’ll hear on a field of play. As educators, how do we prepare our students to collaborate or work as a team? Do we teach them how to communicate and work with others?

Educators often divide students into groups and expect them to know how those groups should operate. I notice when we do collaborative projects in my art class, some students do all of the talking while others remain quiet. My college-aged daughter recently complained about the lack of effort and communication in a “group project” she was assigned by a university professor. Students are lacking the skills to work together. “Communication skills are consistently rated the most important in in-demand skills businesses seek in employees, so devoting time to developing them is a worthwhile endeavor” (Berger 2016; GMAC Research Team 2020).

In Cultures of Thinking in Action, Ron Ritchhart suggests a routine to build collaborative conversations in classrooms. Ritchhart says teachers must “invest time” in practicing critical communication skills by “explicitly teaching and debriefing group interactions.” 

“Many classroom conversations are of the popcorn variety in which individual contributions burst onto the scene.” Sound familiar? Students just say whatever is on their mind, whether it is topical or not. These popcorn discussions can be useful, i.e. during brainstorming sessions, but they rarely lead to the deep and meaningful conversations required to build, connect, or better understand one another. 

Instead, “...encourage conversations in which new ideas are carefully placed on top of and connect to the previous ideas, like a stacked ice cream cone” (Ritchhart, Cultures of Thinking in Action).

Practice through Scaffolding

Practice the ice cream cone method in your classroom by scaffolding the layers of the cone. Write the “ice cream scoop” phrases on the board (listed below). Have students repeat or refer to them when discussing any topic to practice connecting and building on a peer’s ideas.

This will lead to better communication, better understanding, and better collaboration.

• I want to add on to what _______ said.
• I have a connection to what _____ said.
• I don’t understand, ______ could you clarify what you mean?
• I have another way of looking at this that is different from _____.
• Could you say more about that because I am having a hard time understanding _____.
• I agree/disagree with _____ because ______.

How Has Your Students' Thinking Changed Over Time?

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