I love the use of this checklist!!! It assists in determining which children have shared/what would encourage them to share, and exactly how the teacher shall meet their needs.  Children are held accountable and encouraged; they are ALL actively participating and owning their learning!! 

Way to go Ms. Horwitz! I love the checklist idea of getting a formative assessment from students speaking and listening the teacher is able to get a lot of information.  Are the students listening to what their peers are they staying on topic?  The relaxed setting is helpful especially when getting the relucant student to speak.  I see the need for preteaching how to participate in some of my classes would be necessary.

The fact that the teacher used the checklist as documentation resource proved to be a very effective tool to evaluate the listening and speaking skills of scholars.  She also acknowledged students who were applying the skills.

letting students know exactly what you are looking for / modleing/havng sentence stems to help talk about thier idea or just agree with anther students idea and restate it are powerful tools. I notied she definatley had done some training in discussion sentence starters and response starters to enhance confidence in stating ideas and questions.