I found an extremely interesting article this morning while browsing through my RSS feeds. The article devoted to "rethinking whole class discussion" really caught my eye since I have been the teacher and have seen colleagues struggle to pull information that was more meaningful from students. It doesn't matter what grade level you are working with when dealing with discussions as a whole, what matters is what the students are getting out of the discussion itself. There are so many times where a whole group discussion turns into a free-for-all and in the end there was no meaningful knowledge brought forth on the topic at hand. Making sure that we as teachers are eliciting thoughts and asking questions that are open-ended is crucial to the whole class discussion concept. Having read that "many teachers mistakenly conflate discussion with recitation" hit home a little more closely than I would have liked. This article made me take a step back and really focus on my own delivery of a topic and how I attempt to engage students in a discussion. A discussion should never be a recitation, but it should grasp at the higher order thinking skills without having to go through each stepping stone to reach those higher order thoughts. I highly recommend reading this article and know that there are many of us in the same boat when it comes to engaging in whole class discussions. Definitely a must read for any educator at any level.
"Rethinking Whole Class Discussion". Edutopia. Viewed on Tuesday, June 25, 2013. http://www.edutopia.org/blog/rethinking-whole-class-discussion-todd-finley?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+EdutopiaNewContent+%28Edutopia%29
Great article. I have always enjoyed my classroom discussions but after reading this article I also needed to think about our purposes. The one thing I do feel that is done well within my classroom is the "turn & talk". I do, consistently, have my students talk to the peers around them to discuss thoughts and then sharing ideas.
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