Discussions That Teach
At this workshop, Baylor’s Academy of Teaching and Learning covered integrating discussion into class instruction, facilitating discussions that are productive, and encouraging student participation. The information in these handouts from the workshop can sharpen your classroom teaching skills.
- Checklist for Keeping Your Voice in Balance: Signs you as the instructor may be speaking too much or too little.
- Conversational Roles: Expressing one’s point of view is not the only way to productively contribute to a class discussion. Selecting students randomly to fill the following roles may create more balance in the conversation and help students to reflect on the behaviors of other participants.
- Conversational Moves: Provide prompts that may help a reticent student to speak, show students the range of positive behaviors that go into good discussions, and help students to comprehend and analyze content.
- Sentence Completion Exercises: Asking students these or similar questions, and requiring them to write down their answers, can be a productive way to begin discussion.
- Brookfield's Classroom Critical Incident Questionnaire: This questionnaire may provide insights into how students feel about classroom engagement and help students reflect on their own experiences.