Getting Started

Investing time to develop expectations and work through the challenges will reap future rewards.

Watching video of classrooms in which students comfortably and fluidly engage in discourse may be daunting, especially if you have little prior experience with APT. The sections below provide guidance beginning with the very basics: developing agreements and organizing the space. The next sections move into planning and facilitation techniques.

You may have doubts about whether APT can work in your classroom for any number of reasons: the time it takes, the few students who always dominate the talking, or the reluctance of students to speak at all. Perhaps you have English learners and are concerned that they will be left out. These common challenges are addressed in the final section.

Changing teaching practice is never easy. But investing time to develop expectations and work through the challenges will reap future rewards as your students become more engaged and take on more responsibility for their own and their classmates' learning.