Student Discussion in 30:60:90

We all have our go to strategies we like to use.  For us, they may seem old hat; standard operating procedure. But in the hands of someone who hasn't done it before, it might be completely innovative.

Innovation is relative.

But that's another blog post.

Back in August I was helping with the new teacher orientation for our district.  It was a mix of district policies and procedures, teachers getting their computers, and that kind of thing.  One of the mini sessions was run by a colleague, and former assistant principal of mine, Kevin Mount.  He wanted them to talk about a topic, and just casually implemented one of his go to standard practices.  He described in about 30 seconds, and then immediately got the new staff members going.

He called it "30:60:90."

I loved watching it in action, and I guess you could say it was a 1CoolThing moment for me. I knew I would want to share the practice with others.  It was similar to something I have done, but I like the naming, the structure, and the great balance of deepening a conversation, without taking up too much class time.

Here's how it works:

Student are given a topic to discuss. Ideally it should be an open ended and/or higher level question that promotes divergent thinking.

Partner A talks on the topic for 30 seconds. Then partner B talks for 30 seconds.
The process repeats again, this time with each partner speaking for 60 seconds, and then again for 90 seconds.

It's that simple, and when it's all said in done, you've only devoted 6 minutes to the process.

With each rotation more time is allowed, and the conversation gets deeper and deeper.  The first round might just scratch the surface intellectually, but with more time in the second round a person has more time to get their point across and perhaps the partner discussed an idea worth elaborating on.

Pair this with the active listening process I've discussed in a previous post, and students will be better and speaking for a prolonged period of time.  Plus you're fostering equity of voice and meaningful conversations about a topic relevant to the class.  Of course it's all about the question you ask, but this process scaffolds students in the process.


Some Ideas:

• Use this any time you want to break up a lesson.  Just teach a lot of content? Pause and give time to recap in 30:60:90

• Students coming to class having done a reading? Start class off with 30:60:90.

• Just do a new seating chart, and want kids to get to know each other? Pick a fun topic and give them 30:60:90 

•  Save 6 minutes for the end of class for students to recap what they've learned.

• Subject area: I think this is pretty self explanatory for any subject. The only one it's probably not obvious for would be math, so here's and idea of how it could work in math:

• Give a partner pair 6 leveled questions: an easy, medium, and difficult for each person. Give them the interval of time to solve the problem and discuss their logic.  Partner A solves the problem while partner B watches and listens to their logic, then switch.  

Thanks to Kevin Mount for the idea and inspiration for this post.


Have another idea of how 30:60:90 could be used? Do you have a twist on the similar idea? Share your ideas or thoughts in the comments!