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...Home > Services > Newsletter > Lizard Index > 1992-1993 Issues > Leading a Discussion: Outline

Leading a Discussion: Outline

The greatest fear a beginning instructor has is not being able to get a response from students. Why do students sit there in silence? Are they bored? Have they come to class unprepared? Do they not understand the question? For those of you leading discussion sessions, this section will provide suggestions for how to keep your class interested and motivated in talking about the course content.

Prerequisites

• Students must feel comfortable talking to each other.
  This goes back to day one when you began to establish a relationship with your class. Knowing your students and having students become familiar with each other will greatly increase the chances of discussion.
  
• Consider the physical set up in your classroom.
  Can students see each other or are they sitting side by side in rows facing the front of the room? Is it possible to create a circle, or semi-circle? Do the chairs move? Can half the room turn their chairs and face the other half?
  
• Establish a criteria for good discussions.
  Some teachers start out at the beginning of class having their students develop a criteria for good discussions.
  • Everyone needs to participate
  • Ask questions which will stimulate critical thinking
  • Listen to each other, etc.

This then becomes the standard for class discussions. Students can also be responsible for developing discussion questions.

• Teach your students how to have good discussions.
  As strange as it may seem, some students need to be taught how to be part of a group discussion. Many have developed the habit of filtering all of their comments and questions through the teacher instead of talking to other students. Volleying questions and answers back and forth with the instructor is not a discussion - even if a good number of people are participating. The instructor may be part of the discussion as any other member of the group without dominating.
  
• Listen well.
  Respond to questions and comments in a way that indicates you have heard and understood what was said. Repeating the words is not much of a validation. Expand on what was said or challenge it. Ask a question in return to keep the discussion going.
  
• Allow enough time for the discussion.
  Good discussions require some time for warming up, reflecting and being able to hear from as many people as possible.
  
• Give students enough time to respond.
  Talk with your group about taking time to think and formulate a response. Practice being comfortable with an adequate amount of wait time.

Techniques

• Warm up your audience.
  Use review questions from the last session or even a nonrelated current event to get things going - the more controversial the better. You might even want to look at The Book of Questions. It poses dilemmas of all kinds and asks readers to take a stand. Go around the room and let every student comment.
  
• Present material as problems to be solved, often with many different solutions. Students clam up as soon as they think the question posed is a test of their intelligence.
  • "So let's consider all the ways we might go about figuring out in which period to place this skull."
  • "There are lots of ways the story could be interpreted. Let's see if we agree or disagree with the literary critics."
    
• Let students know in advance what the discussion topics will be.
  Along with this, raise an expectation from the beginning that participation in discussions is an important part of the grade in your class (if you have that kind of leverage). Offer different options for participation. Letting students turn in a written response to discussion topics on occasion helps shyer students. Having students work together in groups of 3 or 4 also eases the anxiety of speaking up in a large group. Assign a discussion topic to each small group and give them 5-10 minutes to pull together a response. Then let them decide how to present their thoughts to the class.
  
• Make the discussion relevant.
  If you are discussing 18th century England, ask students to describe what a typical day in their life would be like if they were living in that time period. In a chemistry tutorial, ask students to describe in what ways chemistry has affected their lives.
  
• Use your valuable office hours and make appointments to talk with students.
  You might ask what this has to do with discussions. Checking in with your students one-on-one may give you some valuable insight into why they are not participating in class. Office hours are also a chance to suggest that dominating students tone it down or to encourage quieter students to contribute more. This opportunity to build rapport will make it easier for students to speak up in class.
  
• Prompt students with a variety of questions.
  Questions require different levels of thinking:
  • Some can be answered with information from general experience or from basic data in the subject area.
  • Some require students to explain relationships among the units of information and to form general concepts.
  • Some require students to apply concepts and principles they have developed to new data and different situations.

  The following example comes from Teaching at Stanford. Suppose you are discussing Plato's Republic:

  • You might begin by asking questions such as: What are the basic components of Plato's ideal state? What are the characteristics of a good ruler? Why does Plato ban poetry from his republic?
  • After establishing that students understand the material, you can begin to explore relationships with questions like: How does the allegory of the cave fit into the rest of the work? What are the criticisms of Athenian society that Plato is making?

Tips for Learning Students' Names

Using students' names in class gives them a personal identity. Those coming to the university for the first time already feel like a number in the crowd. They are a social security number, a PAC number, a subject matter major or a class designation. Let them be a real person in your class.

• Read through your class roster several times before the first class to become familiar with names - especially those that may be difficult to pronounce.
  
• Ask students to bring in a picture of themselves - any reasonable resemblance will do. Practice with the pictures like flashcards.
  
• Give lots of short assignments so you'll have plenty of papers to hand back. Practice names each time you do this. Short assignments can be quizzes, response statements to what went on in class that day, questions generated from the discussion.
  
• Have students keep a class journal. These are not necessarily the kind of journals that contain a lot of personal information. You could consider them a log which tracks the student's progress in the class. Entries can vary in length and need not be time consuming. Reserve five minutes at the end of the class for a journal entry. Have students turn these in weekly. It is an opportunity to both practice names and a good way to keep track of how things are going from your students' perspectives.
  
• As often as possible use a student's name when you address them in class. You might want to comment on a question someone raised. "Jim, you had a concern about the implications of the current findings on the brain differences in homosexuals and heterosexuals. How do you think students will react to this information?"
  
• Use a seating chart. This can be temporary until you learn names.
  
• Ask students to say their name before asking or answering a question. This gives you and other classmates a chance to work on learning names.

Nervous?

• Practice
  Ask a friend or spouse to let you go through your first day lesson plan at least once. The rehearsal will give you a sense of the timing, and your trial audience may have some good suggestions
  
• Be well prepared
  Don't rely on your gift of gab to get you through this. Have something substantial to say and organize it well. Ask for help from a faculty member or GTF who has taught the class before.
  
• Visualize success
  The Olympians do it and so can you.
  
• Start strong
  Don't let "ummmm" be the first thing out of your mouth. Try "Hi, I'm....(your name). You won't appear as nervous as you feel. They can't see your sweaty palms, knocking knees, or pounding heart. They'll assume you're calm and collected for addressing the subject matter.

 

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