Discussions for success

In Discussion as a Way of Teaching by Stephen Brookfield, I was thrilled to see someone had written on the topic of discussions and the reasons they succeed or fail.  As a student, I have always listened to my teachers mention we needed to come to class prepared; which meant we needed to do the reading for class.  The next day, we would be sitting in a circle for discussion and only 5 or 6 people out of the 25 would actively participate.  However, if we were asked to journal about what we read, almost everyone would have around a page filled with thoughts of the reading.  This article has helped me, as a future teacher see some of the reasons why those discussions failed and how to help students have successful discussions.

One thing I don’t remember most of my teachers in high school doing until I got to college was “setting ground rules” for the class discussions.  They always said we were to actively listen and be respectful to one another, but to us, it was just the “normal” discussion.  Not once did we get to choose how our discussions were going to go or how we wanted everyone to participate and act during the discussions.  I would have been more engaged as a high school student if I felt I had a say in shaping how the discussions would go.  The examples shown on how to set discussion ground rules are very helpful.  While I am currently working with 6^th graders, I feel these will be good to use in all classrooms for Secondary Education.  I plan to implement my own version of these tips in my classrooms.  My students will have the opportunities to reflection on previous class discussions or videos that show “good” and “bad” discussions to see what they would like to have in a class discussion and what they would like to avoid in a class discussion.  This will give them a chance to have a voice in the classroom as well.