Facilitating Productive Discussions

Why Productive Discussions Matter

Classroom talk is central to science learning. In a Model-Based Inquiry classroom, discussions help students make their thinking visible, connect evidence to ideas, revise models collaboratively, engage in scientific reasoning, and build shared explanations with peers. Discussions occur through an MBI unit as students negotiate ideas as a whole class.

Productive discussions don’t happen by chance—they’re guided by intentional teacher moves that create space for students to think, share, and revise together. This includes asking important questions and using discourse moves, like those shown below, to help students reason together.

Discourse Moves

Types of Productive Discussions

Not all discussions are the same. In a science classroom, there are three main types of discussions we facilitate, each for a different purpose. These often happen at different points throughout the unit.

Eliciting Discussions

When to Use: At the beginning of a lesson or unit—before formal instruction or investigation begins.

Purpose: To draw out students’ initial ideas, questions, and everyday language related to a phenomenon or puzzling event.

Teacher Goals:

Encourage all students to share what they think, without evaluation.
Surface the range of thinking in the room—partial ideas, alternative explanations, and prior experiences.
Create an open environment where all ideas are welcome.

What Students Are Doing:

Accessing prior knowledge and experiences.
Posing questions or hypotheses.
Using everyday language to describe what they notice or wonder.

Sample Prompts and Moves:

“What do you think is happening here?”
“What do you notice? What do you wonder?”
“What makes you say that?”
“Who sees it differently?”
Discourse moves to emphasize here: Revoicing, Probing, Wait Time, Adding On

Tips for Success:

Avoid correcting or evaluating student responses. Focus on surfacing ideas, not refining them yet.
Use a public record (whiteboard, chart paper, digital doc) to capture a wide range of ideas.

Sensemaking Discussions

When to Use: After students engage with data, observations, or experiences related to a phenomenon. These often happen after purposeful tasks.

Purpose: To collaboratively interpret evidence and revise or build explanatory models.

Teacher Goals:

Help students link new evidence to existing ideas or models.
Encourage revision, reasoning, and the use of scientific language.
Promote peer-to-peer sensemaking and idea negotiation.

What Students Are Doing:

Interpreting data or patterns.
Comparing new evidence to earlier ideas or predictions.
Offering mechanistic explanations for how and why something is happening.
Using diagrams or models to visualize thinking.

Sample Prompts and Moves:

“What do we notice in the data?”
“How does this support or challenge what we thought earlier?”
“Why might that be happening?”
“Can someone explain that in their own words?”
Discourse moves to emphasize here: Probing, Revoicing, Adding On, Agree/Disagree

Tips for Success:

Allow time for confusion—sensemaking often starts with conflict or surprise.
Encourage students to revisit earlier ideas and models, and revise them.
Use board space to build visual coherence (e.g., models, evidence lists, patterns).

Consensus-Building Discussions

When to Use: Toward the end of a lesson, investigation, or unit—after students have explored and discussed multiple ideas.

Purpose: To guide the class in agreeing on the most supported explanation, model, or next step, based on reasoning and evidence.

Teacher Goals:

Encourage students to articulate and justify claims using shared evidence.
Identify points of agreement and unresolved questions.
Solidify the class’s current best thinking—while keeping space open for future revision.

What Students Are Doing:

Comparing and evaluating competing explanations.
Justifying claims with data or observations.
Revising models or diagrams collaboratively.
Engaging in respectful disagreement and convergence.

Sample Prompts and Moves:

“What explanation best fits the evidence we’ve seen?”
“Can we agree on what our model should show now?”
“Does anyone see it differently?”
“What’s still unclear or needs more investigation?”
Discourse moves to emphasize here: Agree/Disagree, Revoicing, Putting an Idea on Hold, Wait Time.

Tips for Success:

Invite disagreement—but push for reasoning behind it.
Use a consensus model or class explanation as a shared artifact moving forward.
Encourage students to see consensus as temporary and revisable.

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