HOW TEACHERS USE STRATEGIES OF DISCUSSION IN THEIR CLASSROOM

Naila says that she aims for her students to be as actively involved in classroom discussions as possible, but she recognizes that she can, at times, lead a “Tour Bus” style discussion, which is what piqued her interest about this course. In the past, she’ve been worried about surrendering control, as she so focused on ensuring the class and she get to where she feel she need to go; she is very open to strategies that will enable her students to be empowered and lead her there.She really like Professor Moe’s strategy of having the students write a response to a passage and then formulate discussion questions prior to the discussion. She’ve utilized a similar approach in the past, and it’s been great for students to see that they automatically have something to contribute.

Amna like to present a topic, such as script writing, where they engage in a think-write-share. Each student has the opportunity to think about what the story could be about, write down their thoughts and share to others. Coupled with a turn-and-talk that is timed (usually 1-2 minutes per share), all students are able to not only hear others, but also are able to share their ideas during class.

Saima have tried to shake up the formula of discussions in her classes a bit depending on the topic of the day. If she were to use the metaphors given from the Moe article, she would say that she have led "Tour Bus" Discussions, and she have also tried to style "Urban Sprawl"-style discussions.Something that she did last year was an evaluated small group discussion, where students were divided up into groups. They had to have conducted a little bit of research and outside reading on a subject that was related to our unit on Hinduism, and the intention behind the discussion was to share their findings and seek out what connections they could make to each others' topics. For that discussion, she was strictly an observer sitting back and taking notes.

Adnan have also found that choosing a different leader for the group discussion each day is useful. he tend to rotate duties for students in each group. Each group has a leader, who will read the prompt and offer the first opinion. The note taker will take notes on the opinion everyone shares and summarize the opinions at the end. This person will also read that summary to the entire class after groups have finished. Also, he have a time keeper. Each students should be given a specified amount of time to talk. This limits the "talkative" students and encourages participation from all students, so not one student dominates the entire conversation.

Rabia have tried the discussion activity called?“Share a Question”. She has learned this from other teachers and tried in her class.?After students finish the pre-assigned text, they post one question (What/When/Why/Who/Where questions, How question) to Google classroom. After posting a question, students should respond to the posts of two other students. One of the key points is No two questions should be the same - so students need to read the other questions before posting their own. As the lesson starter of the next day, go through all the questions with the whole class, then have each student share their opinions. She feel this approach has helped students to see how questions are more important than answers. They begin to think more critically about the content of what they are reading.

Ambreen employed small group discussions regularly, and she tried many different tactics. Sometimes she would pair all of the talkative students together, and she also experimented with splitting them up into different groups. Neither worked perfectly.There are a few strategies from the videos and the reading that she is confident will help her navigate these challenges in the future. She loves Professor Mansbridge’s pre-writing strategy. If she is able to almost assign different discussion points to particular students, she can ensure her vocal students are involved and heard without monopolizing the discussion, while also inviting others who are less active to share their idea.She could see this being so validating and motivating for her quieter students.

Shazia have used the popsicle stick method while working with middle school-aged children or while teaching French. At the start of the year, the students each get a popsicle stick that they decorate to their preference, then she put them in a jar. Sometimes these are used to reassign seating plans, and sometimes they are used for discussions or for when they are practicing our spoken French skills. She warmed the students up to the popsicle stick selection process by starting the year with a "question du jour", and picking someone from the jar who would choose the question to ask the class. She found this to be very effective, especially for the middle years and for tricky classes where some students withdraw or dominate.She think a general challenge for future me will be to ensure that her super engaged hands-up-first students don't feel discouraged if she wait on another voice to speak. Perhaps there is another way for me to engage them without having them?

Haroon have used small group discussions to help protect against a few students dominating the conversation. While there is no way for him to stop those students from being so dominant (that is just their personality) He felt putting them together may help. It did not really because they got off topic often. If he split them into other groups, then they dominate many groups. So, he put them in different groups and then he join each group at various times, calling on different people to speak, especially the ones who seem more quiet.

Kiran say that as a teacher, she have not played roles in discussions as much as she would like to.?That's her goal in taking this class, to have more discussions.?When she worked in an alternative school setting, she facilitated discussions that revolved around emotions and behaviors that were stimulating and enlightening.?While in that role, she asked questions, redirected students who got off-topic, and mediated when her students got emotional.She want to be like a professor that she had for my first master's degree, Dr. Bernadowski.?She was a great facilitator of discussions and she also engaged in the discussions with us.?She encouraged us to share our opinions and shared her own opinions, which allowed us to feel safe and she made us feel heard as well.?

Ashir say that as a teacher, classroom discussions have been a central part of the teaching and learning in her classroom. As a group of teachers in her building participating in an instructional improvement team, they identified and read research about the importance of structured student talk in our classrooms. This who are doing the talking, are doing the learning. They focused on teacher versus student talk time, and created a bank of scaffolds and talk routines to?implement in our classrooms.

Sarah feel very fortunate in that she have learned quite a bit about facilitating discussions in her classes from her colleagues. Particularly, she learned from her colleagues how to conduct conversations using Harkness Discussion Method which seem similar in style to the variety of conversation conducted in the second video. She often use this type of discussion (or student-led discussions in general) in my Social Science classes, particularly in her World Religions course.

Ghazala says that as a teacher, she only had the opportunity to teach at the preschool level where the content and the way to invite students to discussion is different. It seems to her that at the level in which she is currently teaching (high school) it is extremely important to take much more in consideration their ideas and opinions on more complex issues and that?invite them into?reflection and shared their thoughts, what she liked the most about the videos.Talking with students about the content, listening to what they develop is definitely crucial for her as facilitator, to know if there is something we have to go deeper into.

Seema says that as a teacher, the role in the discussion becomes that of facilitator, to design and facilitate the discussion rather than convey information, to avoid talking by myself all the time. Organizing a discussion can be in many different ways: to have students work in small groups, role-play, debate, etc. Moreover, she thinks having a clear goal in mind makes it much easier to plan a discussion, the teacher needs to have a clear goal of “ what want students to know”. Leading a discussion is helping students to practice thinking about the contents, not just simply receive them.