I always envied teachers who could lead class discussions with
ease. You know the ones. Their students sit raptly as the teacher conducts a
discussion, calling on volunteers (or “voluntelling” less eager students) to
answer question after question the teacher poses to the entire class. In my
first years of teaching, that was my instructional go-to model--whether we were
talking about a piece of literature or pointing out the important aspects of a
work of art--yet I didn’t feel like I was very good at it. Nonetheless, nearly
every lesson of mine featured a section (sometimes a lengthy one) during which
I asked questions and the students answered them.
Now that I have a little more experience, I realize that my
question-and-answer discussion model was problematic for several reasons.
My classroom Q&A resembled a giant game of tennis with me on
one side and the class on the other. I lobbed a question, someone went after
it, I responded with the same question directed to another student or
backhanded a different one, and the volley continued. If an observer had been
charting the interaction, it would have looked like this:
Notice that the students were directing all of their talk in my
direction and that some students dominated the discussion while others made it
through the period without saying anything at all. While I’d like to believe
that those silent students were hanging on their classmates’ every answer as
they listened intently, I’m afraid the reality was that many of them were
paying only partial attention or were zoned out completely.
At the end of the period, I would have patted myself on the back
for my students’ lively discussion and mastery of the content. If I thought
about it more carefully, however, I would realize that all I could say for
certain is that someone in my class knew the answer to each of the
questions. I would have no idea whether every student understood the material.
The individual students, who had caught on that if they didn’t call attention
to themselves one of their eager, impulsive classmates would blurt out the
answer (saving them the trouble of thinking), would have no idea what they knew
or didn’t know.
Furthermore, this back-and-forth Q&A with me always on the
receiving end was exhausting. I was doing at least half of the work, which
meant my students were collectively doing the other half. Mathematically, the
average student in a 25-person class was working for 2% of the discussion
time--an unacceptably low number.
Over time, it occurred to me that leading an effective class
discussion required me to break one old habit and replace it with new ones.
My bad habit was asking a question that I expected one student to
answer in a discussion.
I have worked to replace it with a combination of two better
habits.
The first is a pair-share. When I catch myself about to ask the
class a discussion-type question, I stop myself and say, “In just a moment,
when I say ‘go,’ turn and talk with an elbow partner about this question for 30
seconds. Go!” At that moment, every student is engaged in conversation
about the topic, as speaker and/or listener, instead of the handful who would
have paid attention to my full-class discussion and felt brave enough to
contribute. After students have discussed in pairs, I call on a few of them to
share. Students who might not have volunteered to share on their own have now
had the chance to try out their answers on another student. They also have the
option to share with the class an idea or insight their partner brought to the
discussion. The result? More confident, thoughtful student responses with
increased participation.
My other replacement habit is to precede a class discussion with a
quickwrite. I ask a question and then let students take a moment to think on
paper about their answer before we talk about it as a class. Sometimes, when
I’m feeling extra adventurous, I ask students to pair-share after their
quickwrite and before we discuss.
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