We have known for some time that learning is a social process. But we also know that, when young people imitate what their teachers do in classrooms, many still mimic teachers talking endlessly from the front of the classroom. The inevitable result of too much teacher talk in the classroom is student passivity, and passivity is the great enemy of learning. This is exacerbated when the talkative teacher uses ‘death by dotpoint’ Powerpoint summaries to ‘cover content’ before high stakes assessment. And the problem has not been mitigated by the advent of digital devices on student desks. When the ‘thousand-dollar-pencil’ meets ‘type-and-pray’ on Google, the learning culture is even less likely to be vibrant or collaborative. As a result, many well-intentioned teachers, from novice to experienced, are still struggling to build and sustain collaborative learning in their classrooms.

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