Before I knew the term Gallery Walk, I shared a strategy similar to it called Chat Stations, where the teacher prepares discussion prompts or content-related tasks and sets them up around the room for students to visit in small groups. For a deeper discussion of how this kind of tool can be used, read this thoughtful overview of using backchannel discussions in the classroom by Edutopia’s Beth Holland. They unanimously stated that they really enjoyed it and asked for the opportunity to repeat the activity. (vi) Various proposed solution given by students be presented to the class. It helps in motivating the students through their participa­tion in discussion. One student remarked that she saw approaches to problems that were very different from her way of approaching them and she found that she learned a lot from being able to see the other students’ working. Something I’ve done with adults and teens is “greeting card” combined with “gallery”. Thank you so much for the great insight, Eric. Group discussion is not a debate in which you either support or oppose the topic. They usually have to miss a class, so have to make up that work, but it’s one of those times when talented students are asking for more work, rather than having it crammed down their throats in the guise of differentiation.) Discussion is important to learning in all disciplines because it helps students process information rather than simply receive it. Topic-Based Group Discussion: In this discussion, a topic is provided to the candidates about what they have to perform the discussion. Behind each speaker, the remaining group members are seated: two right behind the speaker, then three behind them, and so on, forming a kind of triangle. This leads to a student-centered focus, but I’ve found even with this method in place people often struggle with getting all participants to engage. It can be higher prep activity where I create the questions or discussion starters, but I also like having the kids create their own. Lynda Tredway is familiar with the strategy. Thanks! Group discussion is a continuous discussion, a live interaction in which you examine a subject or problem from different angles and viewpoints. These relations are to be analysed, compared, evaluated and conclusions are drawn. Thanks for your list – I got a lot of good ideas from Brookfield and Preskill’s “Discussion Book” https://www.amazon.com/Discussion-Book-Great-People-Talking/dp/1119049717/. I was not aware of the origins of many of these. Thank you so much, Louise! The strategy gives students back their minds. Then, after every rotation in Conver-Stations, each student has to teach their group the problem they have been assigned in order to better solidify their understanding of the problem. Thanks for your wonderful resources, keep doing what you do! This teaching strategy is quite time consuming. Basic Structure: Give students a broad question or problem that is likely to result in lots of different ideas, such as “What were the impacts of the Great Depresssion?” or “What literary works should every person read?” Have students generate responses by writing ideas on post-it notes (one idea per note) and placing them in no particular arrangement on a wall, whiteboard, or chart paper. I hope you go back into the earlier episodes and keep listening! Thank you! I am so motivated by your article to try different strategies to encourage deeper and meaningful discussions in my class now, that I can’t wait to see it in action! We are so glad that you are finding value in Cult of Pedagogy. That’s why I’ve written a full guide to what I call The Epiphany Question Method: https://www.aristotlescafe.com/blog/epiphany-question-method/. Hi Ian! The last group is the ongoing strategies. Excellent for classes where you want to assess for discussion and help students get more comfortable with each other. My scope has widened and deepened. One person from each group (the “speaker”) sits in a desk facing speakers from the other groups, so they form a square in the center of the room. The main goal of a teacher-centered method is to teach and measure the knowledge based on assessments and various tests. Note that these are not strict categories; it’s certainly possible to simplify or add more meat to any of these structures and still make them work. Race in the Classroom: There’s a Manual for That I would add Flipgrid, Yo Teach!, Parlay, and possibly Kialo to the list. I’ll be sure to pass this on to Jenn. After sufficient time has passed for the discussion to develop, one or two students from each group rotate to a different group, while the other group members remain where they are. Hi Alison! I also think it’s important to provide justification for why you are doing something in class for adult students. Your podcast is no longer refreshing in my Podcasts app. But I am so motivated by your article to try different strategies to encourage deeper and meaningful discussions in my class now, that I can’t wait to see it in action! The teacher poses a question to the whole group and pairs discuss their responses with each other. Affinity mapping and a gallery walk would work as well. 4. The discussion requires a statement or enumeration of the facts to be analysed. Following procedure may be adopted for organisation and con­trol of discussion: (i) The discussion may be started by the students by giving facts, describing a situation etc. During the course of the class there was a lot of discussion and interaction taking place between the pairs. Nice list, Jennifer. It would be a huge help if possible. If you use a discussion strategy that’s not mentioned here, please share it below. This logic has been drawn from the actual work scenarios. Yet many teachers are reluctant to use this method. Generally, group discussion categorized into two categories i.e. Basic Structure: Students begin in pairs, responding to a discussion question only with a single partner. Love it! I absolutely LOVE this helpful list of ways students can participate in discussions. I have had “Harkness Table” on my list of things to research forever. Hi, Jen. Debbie from your team recommended that I take a look at this article – great stuff! There are following types of discussion. Visual Method (Textbook method, demonstration method, etc.) Contact Us, When I worked with student teachers on developing effective lesson plans, one thing I always asked them to revise was the phrase “We will discuss.”. The papers are informal and so should not require too much time. Thank you! By continuing to use this site, you are accepting the use of these cookies. When time was up, a different group came inside to the live discussion and the 1st group then went outside and logged into the discussion online. In less formal variations (which require less prep), a teacher may simply read provocative statements students are likely to disagree on, and a debate can occur spontaneously without a text to refer to (I call this variation This or That in my classroom icebreakers post). Jennifer, your article is so inspiring. It looks a lot like Voxer! Thanks so much for sharing your experiences here! Thanks for these strategies. Here’s a discussion strategy that I use often and have found really helpful in my work with children. This cracked me up, Jason. Now the teacher poses a new question, and the process is repeated. Every time I saw it in a lesson plan, I would add a  note: “What format will you use? Thanks! A Collection of Resources for Teaching Social Justice (a personal favorite) If you are on Twitter you may want to send the question out with the hashtag #podcastPD and see if anyone has ideas. At this point the person being corrected smiles politely and thanks them, and everyone else edges away nervously. Using the discussion method, a student’s concrete, personal experiences are followed by observation, reflection, and analysis of these experiences.This process leads to formulation of abstract concepts and generalizations, which, in turn, leads to hypotheses to be discussed and tested in future experiences. It’s amazing what weaker students can bring to the table when they can’t rely on stronger kids, but that’s a topic for another day. As anticipated there were questions that were completed, so having extra questions prepared was critical to the continuity of the work. (v) Illustrative material te collected from various sources (e.g. This is also true when working with kids, but I think it becomes increasingly important when working with adults. I ask participants to write their own question on a piece of paper and then we read them off and majority vote decides which one we will use for the 45-60 minute discussion. We face the challenge of engaging every student given the constraints of the class size and time. Love this list! For larger classes, teachers may need to set up seminars in more of a fishbowl-like arrangement, dividing students into one inner circle that will participate in the discussion, and one outer circle that silently observes, takes notes, and may eventually trade places with those in the inner circle, sometimes all at once, and sometimes by “tapping in” as the urge strikes them. Basic Structure: Stations or posters are set up around the classroom, on the walls or on tables. Then the teacher signals students to rotate: Students on the outside circle move one space to the right so they are standing in front of a new person (or sitting, as they are in the video). Often, this activity serves as a good pre-writing exercise, after which students will write some kind of analysis or position paper. That helps the teacher focus on what will be discussed in the face-to-face and gives the students a way to come to class better prepared. I would like to try the concentric circles a.k.a. As a teacher in Eklavya School Jalandhar, I had faced many problems in the classroom discussion. Next come the low-prep strategies, which can be used on the fly when you have a few extra minutes or just want your students to get more active. All types of topics cannot be taught by Discussion Method. Why debate when jeopardy…. The information you provided is very helpful. After another five minutes the “B” group rotated anti-clockwise. Now the teacher poses a new question, and the process is repeated. One of my favorites for empowering students is the Harkness Method, named after a teacher at Exeter Academy where it has been used for years. Tags: college teaching, English language arts, Grades 3-5, Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, greatest hits, history/social studies, science, teaching strategies. Then, we use them in class for quiz quiz trade. Communication for the Classroom Teacher. Next, the teacher says Teach!, the class responds with Okay!, and pairs of students take turns re-teaching the concept to each other. Thanks so much for the tip. It is a strategy for achieving instructional objectives that involves a group of persons, usually in the roles of moderator and participant, who communicate with each other using speaking, nonverbal, and listening processes. I came across this site as I was searching for resources in the class that had a specific focus on race- I’m looking for activities that can help students discuss race, while reading Ta-Nehisi Coates’ book “Between the World and Me”. I’ve seen this work with reading in Kylene Beers’ book When Kids Can’t Read: What Teachers Can Do, where the more skilled readers will do “think alouds” while other, less skilled readers observe. I hope these help! Antonella, Hi there, enjoying this post. Another idea is to have kids use building blocks or legos to represent an idea and then talk it out to another group. What happens in between the teacher teaching and the student teaching? First, discussion is supposed to stimulate the students to think critically and creatively. I am anxious to try some of the others. They all indicated that they would have liked the class to last longer so that they could spend more time working in this way. Asynchronous: Padlet, Google Question, shared Google docs/slides/forms, The thing is, my district doesn’t have an LMS beyond Google Classroom with a discussion board, so I’m looking for workarounds. I think its a great summary of tools and it has definitely inspired me to try out new methods in class. Love, love, love it. Talk moves are sentence frames we supply to our students that help them express ideas and interact with one another in respectful, academically appropriate ways. I’m one teacher who writes “students will discuss….” in my lesson plan and end up with fisheye teaching. I’m very much grateful for the great discussion strategies. This has proven to be a very effective approach. Keywords: discussion, university, enhancement, teaching, learning 1. The problem wasn’t them; in most of the classrooms where they’d sat as students, that’s exactly what a class discussion looked like. It’s ‘pedagojy’. emplyees. I thought you had taken a break since April! Teaching HS science and biology never ceases and to amaze me. Thank You! Your thorough, critical topics, and easy to read articles are very valuable. 2. Hi, Rolando! From kindergarten all the way through college, students can benefit from explicit instruction in the skills of summarizing another person’s argument before presenting an alternate view, asking clarifying questions, and expressing agreement or partial agreement with the stance of another participant. It helps in developing students ability to express himself orally. Definitely. Another student said that she would have liked an opportunity to work with students who were in her same group. Thank you for sharing how you implemented this! I was surprised to not see one strategy I love on here: Quiz-Quiz-Trade (a Kagan structure). Thanks for contributing! And second, discussion is supposed to develop the students’ social interaction skills. This method cannot be used for teaching small children. Participants present multiple points of view, respond to the ideas of others, and reflect on their own ideas in an effort to build their knowledge, … What I love is that everyone,even the shy kids get to share ideas and be “heard.” Also, they are forced to practice “listening” because they can’t respond to another if they haven’t “heard”/read what the person has to say. The Discussion Method in Classroom Teaching Meredith Damien Gall University of Oregon Maxwell Gillett Nepean College of Advanced Education Kingswood, Australia I II I I lib~~~~~ R emarkably versatile and demonstrated as ef-fective at all grade levels, the discussion method has great potential for classroom teaching. Speed Dating technique in one of my classes. I myself follow the Socratic Seminar Method with a slight twist. One outside circle, ( 336 ) 256-1346, speakingcenter.uncg.edu Characteristics of the work higher-order questions! 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