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Adapted from: Finely, T. (Retrieved 3/1/2017). Rethinking whole class discussion. Edutopia. Retrieved from: https://www.edutopia.org/blog/rethinking-whole-class-discussion-todd-finley.
Whole class discussions are, after lecture, the second most frequently used teaching strategy, one mandated by the Common Core State Standards because of its many rewards: increased perspective-taking, understanding, empathy, and higher-order thinking, among others. These benefits, however, do not manifest without a skillful and knowledgeable facilitator.
Unfortunately, a preponderance of evidence demonstrates that many teachers mistakenly conflate discussion with recitation. "Typical teacher-student discourse resembles a quiz show, with teachers asking a question, the student replying, and the teacher evaluating the student's response. This is called initiation-response-evaluation, 'I-R-E,' or recitation."1
In contrast to recitation, quality discussion, according to the University of Washington's Center for Instructional Development and Research, involves purposeful questions prepared in advance, assessment, and starting points for further conversations. Teachers are also advised to:
- Distribute opportunities to talk
- Allow discussants to physically see each other
- Ask questions that "may or may not have a known or even a single correct answer"2
- Foster learners talking to peers3
- Encourage students to justify their responses
- Vary the types of questions
The Mechanics of In-Class Discussion
The Mechanics of In-Class Discussion
Follow-Up Questions
Ian Wilkinson defines authentic follow-up as "questions that the teacher is genuinely interested in exploring and that evoke a variety of responses from students (in other words, the answer is not pre-specified)." Good follow-up questions expand the conversation and require students to:
- Clarify their answers: Tell me more about that.
- Support their answers: What about the reading made you think that ___?
- Argue: Convince us that __.
- Examine their responses more fully: In what other context does that idea play out?
- Consider different perspectives: What would you say to someone who thought ___?
- Predict: What do you think that we will discover in the next chapter?
- Hypothesize: How would handle a situation like ___?
- Decide: So, this leads to you to what conclusions?
- Compare: How is your answer different or the same from others?
- Generalize: What did you discover?
Avoid the Following
- Trick questions
- Inadequate wait time (less than 3-5 seconds)
- Lectures disguised as questions
- Sarcasm
- Questions with obvious answers
- Asking multiple questions before allowing response
- Rhetorical questions
- Yes or no questions
Set Parameters
Many learners need to be taught how to engage in an academic dialogue -- particularly ELL/ESL students. Provide conversation stems on a poster board or notecards:
- "Could you tell me more about why ___?"
- "Let me explain why I see that differently."
- "Have you considered ___?"
- "What we both agree on is ___."
A Handy Playbook
Lastly, I've provided a general checklist of items to consider when planning a discussion:
- Room layout (ensure discussants can see each other)
- Clarify objectives, purpose, relevance and ground rules
- Front-load rehearsal activities:
- Think-pair-share
- Quickwrite
- Survey questions
- Mindmaps
- Text annotation
- Engage students with the first question
- Vary the whole class format:
- Conduct formative assessment with these questions:
- What conclusions have we drawn so far?
- What part of our discussion is the most confusing?
- What questions should we focus on next?
- Plan for exigencies
- Strategize how you will deal with students who dominate, are off topic, inaccurate or unresponsive?
- Managing Hot Moments in the Classroom
- Plan how you will end the conversation
- See Carnegie Mellon's section on closure
- Summarization techniques
- The One-Minute Paper
- Assess the conversation with these discussant rubrics:
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