DailySpark: Collaborative Conversations
Collaborative conversations are one of the most powerful tools for learning, yet they are often misunderstood or underutilized. This DailySpark is designed to help you notice, reflect on, and strengthen how students think with one another.
5 Hours | 30 Lessons | Video Instruction
What you will learn
Educators will be successful when they can:
Explain why collaborative conversation supports learning and describe how it strengthens understanding.
- Design tasks and questions that require students to explain, compare, justify, and decide together.
- Use routines and structures intentionally to support balanced participation and sustained peer-to-peer conversation.
- Commit to ongoing refinement of collaborative conversations by reflecting on practice and identifying clear next steps.
- Identify when student talk is supporting thinking and when it remains focused on compliance or task completion.
- Explicitly teach and model conversational skills such as listening with purpose, building on ideas, and disagreeing productively.
- Adjust conditions, prompts, or routines when conversations break down so learning remains central.
Overview
Across this series, you’ll explore how talk functions as a learning tool. You’ll examine the difference between surface-level talk and thinking together, notice how task design and conditions shape conversation, and consider how intentional structures can help students listen, respond, and build ideas collectively.
Course format
DailySpark is a professional learning series that delivers short daily videos with simple action items, helping K-12 educational professionals grow through small, consistent steps that build sustainable habits over time. Released intentionally one weekday at a time, email notifications will be sent Monday through Friday. This approach allows you to apply one strategy at a time, reflect on it, and gradually integrate it into your practice without adding workload, making professional growth part of your everyday rhythm.
- Introduction
- Day 1: Why Conversation Is Learning
- Day 2: The Difference Between Talking and Thinking Together
- Day 3: From Compliance Talk to Cognitive Talk
- Day 4: Why Group Work Sometimes Fails—and What That Tells Us
- Day 5: Conversation as a Tool for Access and Voice
- Day 6: Designing Conversations Worth Having
- Day 7: Open Questions Invite Open Thinking
- Day 8: Designing for Productive Struggle
- Day 9: From Information to Understanding Through Conversation
- Day 10: From Procedure to Problem-Solving Through Conversation
- Day 11: Conversation Is a Skill—Not a Personality Trait
- Day 12: Teaching Students to Listen with Purpose
- Day 13: Listening as Cognitive Work
- Day 14: Disagreement Without Disengagement
- Day 15: Peer Feedback as Conversation, Not Correction
- Day 16: Creating the Conditions for Strong Talk
- Day 17: Group Size, Roles, and Talk Balance
- Day 18: Seeing Conversations Through Students’ Eyes
- Day 19: Monitoring Without Taking Over
- Day 20: When Silence Is Productive—and When It’s Not
- Day 21: Five Powerful Collaborative Conversation Routines—Fishbowl Discussions
- Day 22: Five Powerful Collaborative Conversation Routines—Gallery Walks
- Day 23: Five Powerful Collaborative Conversation Routines—Opinion Corners
- Day 24: Five Powerful Collaborative Conversation Routines—Getting Jigsaw Right
- Day 25: Five Powerful Collaborative Conversation Routines—Reciprocal Teaching
- Day 26: Troubleshooting Common Conversation Breakdowns
- Day 27: Supporting Reluctant or Anxious Talkers
- Day 28: Collaborative Conversations for Multilingual Learners
- Day 29: What to Keep, Drop, and Refine
- Day 30: Your Next 30 Days of Collaborative Conversations
- Conclusion
Who this course is for
This course is designed for K-12 educational professionals at all levels—from classroom teachers to district administrators—who are committed to advancing instructional quality, whether you're directly teaching students, supporting teachers, or leading educational initiatives.
Meet the thought leaders
$15
This course also includes:
- 90-Day Course Access
- 30 Instructional Lessons
- Practical Classroom Application
- Course Learning Log
- Certificate of Completion
- Available in US and Canada only
Not ready to register?
DailySpark Demo: Courage to Learn is a 5-day FREE demo to give professionals the opportunity to try our DailySpark at no cost.