Dear colleagues,
On Wednesday at noon, the TLI sponsored its first panel, on the ever-popular question of generating student discussion. Our panelists were Stephanie Mackler (Education), Becky Jaroff (English), and April Kontostathis (Education). Thanks to many of you for spending your lunch hour with us! Below, some of the highlights:
Stephanie began by exploring the big questions: why would we ever think discussion is worth having? What would it mean to say "discussion is a way of teaching"?
Here were some potential answers:
*Discussion shifts from disseminating information to developing powers of reasoning, to democratic deliberation. Discussion helps students gain the ability to talk through ideas.
*Discussion helps students practice speaking the language of the disciplines.
*Discussion shifts the discourse for students--it helps them tolerate ambiguity, see that there are differences in perspective, makes clear that for many questions, there are no right answers.
After this introduction, Becky offered some ways to prepare students for discussion. As she noted, students (especially on the lower level) often do not realize that they are responsible for their own learning. Generating knowledge is a communal practice, and we all share responsibility. To help students get started, she recommends:
*study questions--homework; get students writing and thinking before they enter your classroom
*have students bring things in to make the material relevant for themselves (objects from their own lives relevant to your course material)
*give students their day--debates and in-class projects where we be quiet and let the students organize the discussion
*push a little bit (do not be afraid to challenge students--to call on them if a class is silent, to question silences without being humiliating)
*make students grade participation; everyone evaluates the participation habits of others twice over the course of the semester (it was noted that this takes the pressure off professors, allowing for a more productive use of faculty time
April then followed up by explaining how and why she brings discussion into the science classroom.
*as others have mentioned, it shifts pressure from dissemination of information
*connects science to real world issues, making clear to students how the technology they study is used in society.
April mentioned some projects that sounded fascinating to this nonscientist: putting popular science articles on the syllabus, making students experts on these topics in advance, emphasizing creativity (how could you write a compiler, for example?).
In the large group, we discussed some of the challenges of discussion, and everyone had their own ways of dealing with them. The first--what do you do with students who dominate discussion? There were many responses, which included:
*flatter students on their oral skills, ask them to let others speak first
*limit students to a certain number of contributions per class
*ok to ignore someone constantly raising his or her hand
*use a roulette wheel that he spins to choose the next participant (so it really is by chance!)
*both Becky and Stephanie play a game called "popcorn," in which the first participant who answers a question gets to call on the person of his or her choice
The next big question--what do you do when discussions go bad? how do you salvage a failed discussion? This is perhaps the lingering question for many of us--cultivating discussion is linked to larger questions of student engagement. As Lew put it, "What is the magic? When does it happen? How do you cultivate a culture where it is ok not to be bored?" These are big questions, speaking to general problems of generating enthusiasm for students emerging from the K-12 system. We discussed a variety of approaches: "being the magic," as Erec put it--letting our own enthusiasm bubble over the students; exercises that allow students to take a stand through adopting a role; and the barometer exercise, in which students have to move around the class to physically inhabit a position they have taken. Our discussion Wednesday began by considering the value of discussion writ large, and ended with a burst of spontaneous enthusiasm, as faculty around the room offered their methods of getting students excited. Perhaps "Generating discussion" and generating enthusiasm can be mutually constitutive, one leading to the other and back again.
Showing posts with label class discussion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label class discussion. Show all posts
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Class Discussions
Before I begin, I just wanted to introduce myself to those of you who don’t know me: my name is Cara Saraco, I’m a senior English major (advisee of Dr. Goldsmith’s), and I’m also getting certified in secondary education. Last semester, I student taught 8th, 9th, and 12th graders.
While I was student teaching, one of the things I was most nervous about was developing good class discussions. Though a discussion is typically regarded as a highly successful pedagogical tool, it’s also (in my opinion) one of the most difficult things for a teacher to pull off. I wanted to be the teacher who facilitated the kinds of illuminating dialogues in her class that I’ve experienced as a student, but I also remembered all too well the many attempts of my former teachers to spark a discussion that completely failed. Over those three months of student teaching, where everything I did was pretty much an experiment, I learned some things that can help to create an active and meaningful class discussion; these techniques are also practiced by the best professors I've had at Ursinus:
1.Scaffolding. It’s hard to get a discussion going if students aren’t already prepared with some thoughts. If you are going to be discussing texts, it’s helpful to set a purpose for reading so that they come into class having already considered the text. While the 8th graders I taught read Steinbeck’s The Pearl, I had them note quotations that responded to three “essential questions” for the unit. When we finally had our discussion of the novel as a whole, they had plenty of textual support to refer to and had been considering these questions throughout the reading.
2.Good questions. Questions should be intriguing and debatable. Though there’s likely an understanding you want your students to arrive at, questions should also reveal misconceptions.
3.Don’t ask a question that you don’t really want an answer to. Students can tell when a question isn’t really important, and will not feel like responding.
4.Wait Time. Studies have shown that teachers typically wait only for about 1 second before calling on a student, which is understandable: the silence is terrifying. However, it’s important to keep in mind that students need time to think, especially when you’re hitting them with some pretty heavy stuff, and if you wait just 3 to 5 seconds before calling on someone, more hands will go up and answers will be more substantial. I no one is raising their hand, don’t give in to the silence immediately. It might feel horribly awkward to stand there in silence, but it feels awkward for the students too, and sooner or later someone will feel obligated to break the silence.
5.If a student asks a question, resist the temptation to answer it yourself. Put it back out to the class to see if another student can answer it before you do.
6.Don’t be afraid to break away from your agenda. If a discussion is thriving and it’s intellectual, it’s good to hold off from predetermined questions and not worry too much about getting back to your plans.
7.Classroom arrangement. It may seem silly to force students to make their desks into a true circle, but it really does help. My most successful discussion with the seniors I taught occurred when we pushed all the desks to the sides of the room and sat in a circle on the floor.
8.Knowing and using students’ names. Making the effort really does pay off.
Dr. Goldsmith and I would like to hear your thoughts and experiences as well about this tricky topic.
• In your opinion, what constitutes a good discussion? What are some ways you’ve facilitated good discussions?
• What to you constitutes good questions? How do you develop them?
• What do you do if a discussion fails?
• Why is discussing good? When is it not good?
• For those of you who have students use discussion forums online, how do you get students to respond to each other rather than just posting their individual thoughts? (I tried doing a blog with the seniors, and the most common problem I found was that students didn’t read and respond to their peers’ comments).
While I was student teaching, one of the things I was most nervous about was developing good class discussions. Though a discussion is typically regarded as a highly successful pedagogical tool, it’s also (in my opinion) one of the most difficult things for a teacher to pull off. I wanted to be the teacher who facilitated the kinds of illuminating dialogues in her class that I’ve experienced as a student, but I also remembered all too well the many attempts of my former teachers to spark a discussion that completely failed. Over those three months of student teaching, where everything I did was pretty much an experiment, I learned some things that can help to create an active and meaningful class discussion; these techniques are also practiced by the best professors I've had at Ursinus:
1.Scaffolding. It’s hard to get a discussion going if students aren’t already prepared with some thoughts. If you are going to be discussing texts, it’s helpful to set a purpose for reading so that they come into class having already considered the text. While the 8th graders I taught read Steinbeck’s The Pearl, I had them note quotations that responded to three “essential questions” for the unit. When we finally had our discussion of the novel as a whole, they had plenty of textual support to refer to and had been considering these questions throughout the reading.
2.Good questions. Questions should be intriguing and debatable. Though there’s likely an understanding you want your students to arrive at, questions should also reveal misconceptions.
3.Don’t ask a question that you don’t really want an answer to. Students can tell when a question isn’t really important, and will not feel like responding.
4.Wait Time. Studies have shown that teachers typically wait only for about 1 second before calling on a student, which is understandable: the silence is terrifying. However, it’s important to keep in mind that students need time to think, especially when you’re hitting them with some pretty heavy stuff, and if you wait just 3 to 5 seconds before calling on someone, more hands will go up and answers will be more substantial. I no one is raising their hand, don’t give in to the silence immediately. It might feel horribly awkward to stand there in silence, but it feels awkward for the students too, and sooner or later someone will feel obligated to break the silence.
5.If a student asks a question, resist the temptation to answer it yourself. Put it back out to the class to see if another student can answer it before you do.
6.Don’t be afraid to break away from your agenda. If a discussion is thriving and it’s intellectual, it’s good to hold off from predetermined questions and not worry too much about getting back to your plans.
7.Classroom arrangement. It may seem silly to force students to make their desks into a true circle, but it really does help. My most successful discussion with the seniors I taught occurred when we pushed all the desks to the sides of the room and sat in a circle on the floor.
8.Knowing and using students’ names. Making the effort really does pay off.
Dr. Goldsmith and I would like to hear your thoughts and experiences as well about this tricky topic.
• In your opinion, what constitutes a good discussion? What are some ways you’ve facilitated good discussions?
• What to you constitutes good questions? How do you develop them?
• What do you do if a discussion fails?
• Why is discussing good? When is it not good?
• For those of you who have students use discussion forums online, how do you get students to respond to each other rather than just posting their individual thoughts? (I tried doing a blog with the seniors, and the most common problem I found was that students didn’t read and respond to their peers’ comments).
Friday, January 29, 2010
"Anyone, Anyone"?: A Panel Discussion Sponsored by the TLI
Do you ever feel like your classes are like this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-S54bbX6eA
As our student blogger mentions, everyone has days when it feels like discussion rocks, and some days when it just doesn't work. Newer faculty might be adapting to a range of different class preps, class sizes, and student discussion styles and capabilities. For all of us, though, generating discussion can be a challenge. The TLI's first Common Hour will address this issue--please join us for "Anyone, Anyone?": Thoughts on Generating Class Discussion. Panelists will include Becky Jaroff (English), April Konstosthatis (Education), and Stephanie Mackler (Education), and all of them, I promise, are MUCH more interesting than Ben Stein.
Where: Pfahler 108
When: Feb 17, 12 noon
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-S54bbX6eA
As our student blogger mentions, everyone has days when it feels like discussion rocks, and some days when it just doesn't work. Newer faculty might be adapting to a range of different class preps, class sizes, and student discussion styles and capabilities. For all of us, though, generating discussion can be a challenge. The TLI's first Common Hour will address this issue--please join us for "Anyone, Anyone?": Thoughts on Generating Class Discussion. Panelists will include Becky Jaroff (English), April Konstosthatis (Education), and Stephanie Mackler (Education), and all of them, I promise, are MUCH more interesting than Ben Stein.
Where: Pfahler 108
When: Feb 17, 12 noon
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