After a really busy term, we have finally gotten back into extended discussions. What I have noticed is that the students needed quite a lot of prompting and scaffolding. It appears they have forgotten some of the strategies we were using.
I think what would be best is to go back to revisit what extended discussions and reciprocal teaching are, to remind the students in hopes to get it happening again. We need it to become a naturally occurring strategy in order for them to benefit the most with their reading comprehension and higher-order thinking. Using these strategies will in turn support them in making connections by applying their knowledge to real-world scenarios.
"Teachers who plan to teach and extend students' higher order thinking skills promote growth for their high-ability students. Higher order thinking is often used to refer to 'transfer', 'critical thinking' and 'problem solving.' These can be defined as:
transfer - the student's ability to apply knowledge and skills to new contexts (for example, a student in year 5 learning about fractions applied her knowledge to a real world scenario)
critical thinking - the ability to reason, reflect, and decide what to believe or do next
problem solving - meeting a goal that cannot be met with a memorised solution (Brookhart, 2010, 2011)."
(https://www.education.vic.gov.au/school/teachers/teachingresources/high-ability-toolkit/Pages/higher-order-thinking.aspx)
