The purpose of this case study is to investigate the educational practices that school leadership, more specifically teacher leadership in a Colorado high-achieving elementary school, utilized to promote student talk as an active learning strategy. Sampling process was based primarily on three criteria: 1. An elementary school sustained high academic achievement; 2. The student population in the elementary school has high low socioeconomic status (SES); and 3. The teachers in the elementary school utilized different form of critical thinking as an instructional strategy to promote teaching and learning effectiveness. The researchers used the report from the Colorado Department of Education (CDE), which indicated five the high-achieving schools with high low SES population in the state of Colorado. Eventually, one school accepted the invitation for this research and the researchers arranged one-on-one interviews with seven teacher leaders. The results from this case study indicated that “student talk” is an effective instructional strategy used in the classroom to increase student engagement in the learning process and eventually promote student school success. This study provided some implications for policy makers, administrators, and educators to assist in the implementation of critical thinking as an instructional strategy that supports student achievement.
Keywords: Critical thinking, Instructional strategy, Teaching Effectiveness, student achievement; low socioeconomic status
