Are your students talking more then you?

In my readings for my graduate school class this week I read about something called the "two thirds" rule (Edwards and Mercer 1987). This refers to the fact that the teacher is taking up far more of the talking time in the average classroom then the students are. Most of the time, or 2/3 of the time, the teacher is lecturing or asking questions. A classroom program that supports more diverse learners would create more opportunities for varied and organic interaction patterns to occur (Gibbons 2002).

Therefore my New Years Resolution in my classroom is to turn the tables! I hope to have my students talking two thirds of the time and to limit myself to only taking up one third of the talking time. I hope that I can encourage my group of diverse learners to be working and talking more then me!