Dialogue #3: Discussion

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking this past week about discussion facilitation. I was trying to come up with strategies and ideas that might help me build an arsenal for effective discussions. When I watch you lead a one, I constantly find myself thinking, “Oh, that was cool. I would have never thought to connect it like that.” I think your biggest strengths are your confidence, your ability to recognize the teachable moment, and your knowledge of the students. The week before last, you had mentioned that maybe the reason behind students’ lack of participation is simply that they do not feel like they know me personally. In trying to think about what I can do since I have yet to develop aforementioned skills, I think you’re absolutely right – students don’t quite trust me yet. With that in mind, I started researching some discussion strategies that might alleviate that distance. My professor gave me a wonderful site (http://www.nsrfharmony.org/protocols.html) and I would like to try some of those strategies in class.

Also, I remember you telling me that you weren’t always good at discussion, which brings me to my next question: how did you become so comfortable and effective? I would love some insight on your past struggles and revelations. What did you try in the beginning that may not have worked? Did you eventually get those strategies to work? Do you run your discussions differently now? And if so, how differently?

Hmmm!  First off, I’m VERY impressed with how you’ve researched strategies to help, and disappointed with MYSELF for not finding such resources FOR you!  Wonderful!

Generally speaking, I follow a few rules in discussion that were drilled into me in IRD.  One is to ask SPECIFIC questions – ask things that are concrete and clear, but still open-ended.  I learned that one by asking WAY too many higher-level comprehension questions – questions that were more of a chance to fail than a chance to succeed.  Learning to ask deliberately easy, but clearly linked questions took time and effort, and I was forced to learn how partially because I had to ask EVERY kid in my room a question during EVERY class in IRD.  Being committed to that helped me develop my discussion skills more than anything else; in essence, I couldn’t help but learn since I was forced to work at it (no easy outs!).

Take the following question:

BAD QUESTION: “What did the article say about intelligence and self-control?”

What’s Wrong: This is too broad – only a student who had successfully read and interpreted the information, argument, and evidence could possibly even GUESS what you’re asking for here.  In other words, the question itself is a set-up – a chance to “perform” if a student DOES understand, not a chance to think through and learn something if he or she DOESN’T.  Here’s how to break down that question:

GOOD QUESTIONS: “Check paragraph 18 – in the study, what did a 1 represent?  Okay, what did a -1 represent?” (insert summary here, while keeping track on the board: “So if you got a 1 in something you didn’t change at all, and if you got a -1 you changed completely – you became the OPPOSITE of how you were before.”) “What score did the article say IQ got?  And how close is that to 1?  So therefore, how much did it change?  All right, now what about self-control – what score did THAT get?  So did it change MORE or LESS than IQ?  So, in other words, the assertion being made in paragraph 18 is …?  What can change?  What can’t?  Put it all together - in other words, the research shows that ... ?”

WHAT’S RIGHT: Each question is simple, direct, and VERY easy to answer, but each question also REQUIRES the student to interact with the text.  Even a struggling student can manage each, and get “little wins” that will help him or her push towards a final understanding of text, while also feeling more and more confident that talking with you is, in fact, a GOOD thing (and about learning something rather than being judged).