An English Student's Fear: Structured Discussions (Blog Post #2)
Topic Of Exploration:
When we think of the English Education classroom, we tend to quickly turn to reading and writing. We think about essays and books and speeches and more. What we often forget, though, is the inclusion of discussions. Discussions are an essential aspect of English that bring an important skill to life. The art of discussion can be easily translated into everyday use, but even more so into a professional manner. While it's incredibly important to learn, it's usually not well-liked... by students, at least. From my own experiences in the classroom, to social media, to passing student comments and more - no one likes discussions. They can be super awkward and intimidating, but they are just. so. effective!
What I want to explore through this inquiry is which method of discussion is the best. I am basing this idea of being "best" on: Student participation, student approval, conversation depth, conversation length, and more. Some of these factors may be a little abstract, so I plan to set a criteria for myself to avoid any bias.
I want students to be able to see the value in discussions, leading them to look forward to participating in one. The best way I can think to do this, is to study the effectiveness of them all.
I know a decent amount about discussions considering the fact that I am an English Ed student. This means that I have not only had the experience of participating in class discussions myself in high school, but I've also gotten the chance to learn about them in college. What I haven't gotten to do yet, though, is facilitate a discussion in a classroom. So, here I'll determine what I already know, and what I need to know to bring myself one step further to finding the best method of discussing in a classroom.
What Do I Already Know?
I know a decent amount about discussions considering the fact that I am an English Ed student. This means that I have not only had the experience of participating in class discussions myself in high school, but I've also gotten the chance to learn about them in college. What I haven't gotten to do yet, though, is facilitate a discussion in a classroom. So, here I'll determine what I already know, and what I need to know to bring myself one step further to finding the best method of discussing in a classroom.
Discussions can take form in a few different ways. They can be student lead, teacher led, large group, small group, popcorn style, hand raising, volunteered vocality, silent, written, chaotic, and so much more! Overall, though, a discussion is a tool - no matter how it is implemented, it is always used to facilitate conversation and deeper understandings. Discussions are used to bounce ideas off of peers with similar and different ideas, opinions, experiences and more. Their words and arguments can lead us to change our own thoughts.
Discussions are awkward and scary and ineffective if not done right. A lot of students nowadays have anxiety and social issues, so discussions can be an absolute nightmare for some. But, even beyond students with anxious fears, discussion are intimidating. They require you to be able to quickly formulate a well-thought concept and then present it eloquently to the class. If you're unable to do either, then you run the risk of being judged by classmates or receiving a poor grade. It's an unfair practice, if I'm being honest. Even further into the issue, some students are completely comfortable with raising their hands, putting their thoughts out there, leading the room, etc. while some students are more reserved, ready to share their ideas in a small setting, or just not ready at all. Discussions demand a lot out of students that some are just not comfortable with performing.
In addition to the dynamics of discussions, I know quite a bit about the set up of many of them. The most common one I have encountered is the Fishbowl. One group of students sit in the center of the room in a circle, while the rest sit in a larger circle outside of them. The inside group discusses while the outside group reflects on their conversation. There is also the traditional discussion setting where the class faces each other and just raises their hand/shouts out whenever they have an idea. There are variations of these two discussions and more that switch up the size of the groups, the responsibilities, the leaders, etc. But in the end, they all have the same effect on the students. This leads me to my questions I want to discover throughout my inquiry...
What Do I Want To Know?
Rather than typing out sentences that will likely run together in a paragraph, I thought I'd just write out a list instead:
- How do we get students excited for a discussion? Why do they not look forward to them?
- What are student's current positions on discussions and how do we get them to recognize their importance?
- Will students willingly participate more in a discussion if they can see the value of them?
- What would students like to see more in discussions? Do they want to lead them? Do they want guided questions? Do they prefer smaller groups?
- How do we grade a discussion in a way other than participation? Students that are too anxious to raise their hands are missing out on valuable grades, just because they are not comfortable. On the other hand, how can we make students more comfortable with participation?
- How do we encourage students to present "half-baked" ideas? In other words, how do we allow students to accept the fact that unfinished ideas are okay to bring to the table?
- Is building a strong classroom community all that we need to make a productive discussion? Or is there a piece that we are missing?
- How do we teach students to balance the discussion? Discussion dominators need to allow and encourage others to participate, while the quiet kids need to put themselves out there.
- And so much more! I could go on and on with more questions, but these seem to cover the bases pretty well.
Some Resources To Get Started:
Hi Olivia. I think the topic of guiding good discussions is a good topic for teachers to study. I am unsure what type of texts you will have students read about this topic.
ReplyDeleteWhen gathering texts for your text set (blog post #3) you will want to make sure that you are selecting texts (essays, novels, videos) that your high school students would read about discussions, not texts that teachers read on the topic. Focusing on "discussion" is doable but may be tricky. Please reach out to me via email if you would like to talk further about your topic for your text set.