Dr. Jeff Zwiers, an educational researcher at Stanford University, has spent the last 15 years analyzing classroom conversations to see how they can be better used and improved in classroom settings. Teachers who have worked with him report significant growth in students’ engagement, content learning, language, creativity, and sense of agency.

Zweirs introduced his initial vision for classroom conversations in Academic Conversations: Classroom Talk that Fosters Critical Thinking and Content Understanding. His follow-up book, Next Steps with Academic Conversations: New Ideas for Improving Learning Through Classroom Talk, expands the first book with updated classroom strategies and practices. In this new version, teachers will discover:

• How to introduce buildable ideas and teach students how to develop and support them 
• Equitable classroom discussions and how diverse backgrounds conversing can benefit social skills and emotional intelligence
• Highlights of new research-based theories on classroom conversation
• Ways to develop students' confidence in conversation and how classroom skills can apply to real world interactions 

This resource is the product of his extensive research, co-teaching, and collaborating with a wide range of educators. It was written for busy teachers who want a practical guide for strengthening the quality and quantity of productive conversations in their lessons. 

Conversing with others has given insights to different perspectives, helped build ideas, and solve problems. Academic conversations push students to think and learn in lasting ways. Academic conversations are back-and-forth dialogues in which students focus on a topic and explore it by building, challenging, and negotiating relevant ideas.
In Academic Conversations: Classroom Talk that Fosters Critical Thinking and Content Understandings authors Jeff Zwiers and Marie Crawford address the challenges teachers face when trying to bring thoughtful, respectful, and focused conversations into the classroom. They identify five core communications skills needed to help students hold productive academic conversation across content areas:

1. Elaborating and Clarifying
2. Supporting Ideas with Evidence
3. Building On and/or Challenging Ideas
4. Paraphrasing
5. Synthesizing

• Academic vocabulary and grammar
• Critical thinking skills such as persuasion, interpretation, consideration of multiple perspectives, evaluation, and application
• Literacy skills such as questioning, predicting, connecting to prior knowledge, and summarizing
• An academic classroom environment brimming with respect for others' ideas, equity of voice, engagement, and mutual support

The ideas in this book stem from many hours of classroom practice, research, and video analysis across grade levels and content areas. Readers will find numerous practical activities for working on each conversation skill, crafting conversation-worthy tasks, and using conversations to teach and assess. Academic Conversations offers an in-depth approach to helping students develop into the future parents, teachers, and leaders who will collaborate to build a better world.