It is totally fine to start really small. You may only have a class one day a week, have a heavy workload, or be new to this kind of approach. Here are some ideas for doing a single trial lesson.
The key is still to have a goal and think about what you might find out in advance of implementing the lesson.
Research suggests that the first step in improving class discussions is creating class ground rules for talk [link]. You can do this in a single lesson by using the Toolkit resource in the epiSTEMe Introductory module.
Once your class have created these rules, you can ask them to apply them to a task or topic that you need to teach anyway and observe how they do it. Alternatively, you can then use one the tasks in the Toolkit, either in the epiSTEMe Introductory module, or, if you teach mathematics or sciences, by choosing one of the tasks in the epiSTEMe Fractions & Ratios, Probability, or Forces materials.
When you observe the students talking, decide what you want to focus on and how you are going to assess what is happening. This will enable you to return to those competences or outcomes later on to see if things have improved.
Case example of goals and evaluation in a single-lesson trial
A primary school teacher decided to create ground rules for talk in his classroom to improve equal participation of all students in classroom discussions. To evaluate this goal, he observed the students during their group discussions on the Ground rule task [TODO: link to resource page] to see who was contributing to the discussion. Based on just a single lesson of observations, he became aware that EAL students had fewer opportunities to contribute to class discussions, often because they could not express themselves as quickly, and other students stepped in to ‘help’ them.
Based on the case example, it would then be possible to share these findings with the pupils, set them the goal of letting everyone contribute as well as yourself, to support equal participation. You could then use, for example, a participant tally in different lessons to see if participation improves over time.