Discussion as a Way of Teaching

I enjoyed reading Discussion as a Way of Teaching by Stephen Brookfield.  As a future teacher, I have learned that discussion is a very important piece to learning and understanding for students.  Through research I found that learning from peers can be more beneficial to the learning process.  Currently as a college student, I enjoy having class discussions about texts and homework.  It gives more perspectives to the reading to help create a better understanding and further my learning process.  I want to implement this for my students in my own classroom.

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.  Many times, there were issues of people getting into arguments and shutting other people down.  The teacher would even shut down students’ thoughts in a non-respectful way.  So, in the end, discussions would go nowhere and no one would want to have discussions or speak during discussions in that class.


The examples shown on how to set discussion ground rules are very helpful.  While I am currently working with 6th 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.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

"Anthem" by Ayn Rand

Description: Anthem is a dystopian fiction by Ayn Rand.   It was written in 1937 and published in 1938.   The setting in is an unspecified future when humans have come to another Dark Age.   This Dark Age has led to the concept of individuality to be banned.   People are now considered a collective group, only using plural pronouns.   No one has an individual name.   Children are no longer raised by mothers and fathers.   Children are conceived only for the sole purpose of procreation.   Men and women no longer get married or are able to interact with one another.   Everything in life is determined by the many different councils: jobs, who you mate with, where you live, etc. In this story, we follow the life of Equality 7-2521.   Equality is a 21-year-old man who wants to become a scholar.   His wish is unfulfilled due to being assigned to be a Street Sweeper.   When you being to read the text, you told about Equal...
Read more

Social Justice in the Classroom

Social justice is an important topic among educators.  It is the act of creating positive change.  We can all do this, whether it's in our classrooms or in daily activities.  As educators, we need to think of how we can implement this in our classroom and teach this concept to our students. First of all, teachers should not look at implenting social justice as an add on to their lessons.  Our lessons show be focused around social justice.  This could be as simple as connecting the lesson to the everyday lives of our students.  We should be thinking about this connection for our lessons to begin with.  When I think back on when I was a student, I didn't stay engaged with an assignment or lesson unless I knew how it related to my life.  Even now, I hear students walking down the halls asking each other when they're ever going to use certain parts of lessons. Secondly, if students know they can make a positive change, they will be more likely to ...
Read more

Pedagogy in an Urban High School

Critical pedagogy is a very tough topic to think about as educators as there is often a disagreement between teachers, administrators, parents/guardians, and even students.  Everyone agrees that educational systems need to focus on student achievement.  The way we reach that goal of student achievement is where many disagree upon. Throughout the changes in education, one thing still stands to be true, students need strong literacy skills to be a citizen in the world.  As students go into the career field, they will need to know how to formulate writing and read with the skills to help them comprehend/refute what is in a text. Teachers are the pathway to helping students master these skills. There is also a greater emphasis on standardized tests now than there ever has been in the past.  Teachers need to be able to teach students the skills that are needed to pass these tests and move toward their futures as citizens and yet, avoid "teaching to the test."  Te...
Read more