1. Classroom Conversation
What do
you think?
No, you’re
wrong!
Classroom Conversation
Discussion Types
Preparing Successful Discussions
Common-sense Rules
Benefits & Problems
A Discussion Rubric
He’s
wrong.
Well, what
about me?
How would
you feel?
YES!

2. Types of Discussions
General (gives students a chance to develop thinking, clear oral expression, and experience in posing and responding to questions)
Guided or Directed (used to guide students through a series of questions to discover some relationship, principle, or result)
Reflective (used to assist students in analytical skills, arriving at alternative explanations, finding solutions, or classifying ideas into major categories)
Inquiry (used to help students employ reasoning skills to acquire new information with a minimum of help from the teacher)
Exploratory (used to enable students to discuss controversial issues without fear of censure)

3. Preparing Successful Discussions
set realistic goals
determine type of discussion
pay attention to thought processes required to achieve goals
outline questions in light of required thought processes
provide for variety of questions
questions should be at student level
prepare a novel introduction
follow common-sense rules

4. Common-Sense Rules use wait time effectively
move from divergent to convergent questions
reinforce student answers
throw back questions
provide appropriate praise
interrelate previous comments
maintain positive atmosphere
clarify statements with follow- up questions
restate goal periodically
engage all students
take your time

5. Unresponsive Groups
From time to time you will encounter unresponsive groups.
Unresponsiveness will generally result from:
Students not having read the assigned reading or
Students having forgotten what they have read.
When encountering an unresponsive group, call on people.
NB: To make this course more enjoyable:
Always read the assignments and take notes before class.
Review the notes immediately prior to class.
You are expected to INTERNALIZE the information, not merely read and forget.

6. Benefits & Drawbacks Benefits Drawbacks motivates individual students
more likely to develop inquiry behavior in students
teacher receives feedback from students
an opportunity to engage all students in thinking
scope of discussion can be rather broad - integration
a good way to provide for review
Drawbacks
hard to conduct well
might go astray
can be time consuming
might be monopolized

7. Critical Components
All discussions conducted in this course must clearly include an alignment between the following components:
Goal statement – at the very outset the discussion leader should state the goal of the discussion, and avoid stating the conclusion at which the students are expected to arrive.
Discussion activities – the discussion leader should demonstrate those approaches described in the discussion scoring rubric.
Informal summative assessment – at the end of the discussion the leader should attempt to ascertain if the stated goal has been achieved by the students.

8. A Rubric for Evaluating Discussions
Defines important aspects of a good discussion
effective initiation of discussion
educational objective stated / achieved?
equitable student participation
quality of student responses
students answer the questions
question types / skills
Uses an even-numbered scoring scale.
Characterize quality performance from good to fair to poor to unacceptable.