Skip to main content

Discussion As a Way of Teaching

When reading Brookfield’s article, the section that jumped out to me the most was his page 10, which discussed requiring kids to participate in group discussions. Growing up in a small school, I was in class with the same 30 kids from Kindergarten until we graduated, making it easy to speak up and have discussions because of how comfortable and used to each other we were. I used to be one of the kids who would lead all discussions, but since I have been at Eastern, I have found myself taking part in discussions less and less. One thing he discusses is that it may be a good plan to allow the shyer kids to speak up last so they have more time to listen to others speak and be able to form an answer of their own. I think that this is a good idea, but also, I think that forcing kids to talk about certain things when they don’t want to can also have the opposite effect on them wanting to speak up as well.
 In classes where I have been forced to speak up when I don’t volunteer, I usually get anxiety. I panic that now that I am in a room full of people who are equally and more qualified than I am, I am going to say something stupid or something that isn’t really a positive contribution to the class. I have found that at least for my own learning, I enjoy listening to what others have to say and forming my own opinions but that journaling about them and expressing my ideas that way has been more beneficial than teachers and colleagues forcing me to talk to them about it. It takes time for me to form an idea that I am proud of and am ready to share.
But at the same time, what if all of my teachers had continued to encourage me to contribute rather than allowing me to fall through the cracks my first two years here? Would I want to participate in discussions? Would I be able to voice opinions and ask questions without ant fear?

This is something I have struggled with for a few years now. Brookfield is right…once you fall into the pattern of not participating in class discussions, it is incredibly hard to break that pattern. I love that he introduces so many different ways to facilitate discussions and create ground rules, however, I do think it is incredibly important for us as teachers to keep in mind that each student feels different about participating in discussions and the different rules that go along with them, so diversity within these ways will benefit kids the most---his Classroom Critical Incident Questionnaire is a great way to start with feeling out where your students are in their learning and comfortability in discussion groups.  

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Annabel Lee TPA

Department of Education College of Arts, Letters and Education 312 Williamson Hall Cheney, WA   99004 TPA Lesson Plan #___1____ Course: Engl 493 1. Teacher Candidate Lauren Archer Date Taught 11/13/2017 Cooperating Teacher Jason Reed School/District Oakesdale MS/HS 2. Subject ELA Field Supervisor Stephanie Boughter 3. Lesson Title/Focus Annabel Lee-Theme Development 5. Length of Lesson 20mins 4. Grade Level 9 th grade 6. Academic & Content Standards (Common Core/National) CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.9-10.2 Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze in detail its development over the course of the text, including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details; provide an objective summary of the text. ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Assignment Template

When reading this article, I found myself reflecting on my own lessons and teaching ideas, which made a few things in this article stand out to me more than others.  This first part that really stood out to me was having the students write in the margins as they read. The first part I believe asked students to label in the left hand margin the summary, introduction, issue or problem being addressed, the author’s main arguments, the author’s examples, and the conclusion. Then the second part asks students to write in the right hand margin their reactions to what the author is saying. They list some possible reactions as personal connections they can make, reflection on the quality of evidence the author offers, and any questions or contradictions they have with what the author is presenting. The first thought that came to mind was that a lot of students cannot write in their textbooks and so this may be something that is hard for them to do. But then I thought that they could do so...
Post a Comment
Read more

Paulo Freire: Chapter 2 of Pedagogy

This was one of the more interesting articles that we have read. In Paulo Freire’s Chapter Two, he explains the difference between educators who use banking educational methods and educators who are humanist revolutionary educators. “Education is suffering from narration sickness”, he writes. What he is referring to is the way many teachers just talk and talk at students and expect them to absorb all the narration that they’re lecturing at them. He continues further down saying, “His task [the teacher’s] is to fill the student with contents of his narration”. Take note on that…”to fill the student with contents of his narration”. Not to help the students to grow in their learning and develop within the content, but to lead them in a direction of memorization. He makes a reference that compares this sort of educating to depositing money in a bank or trash in the trash can. The students become the trash can or the bank account that the teacher deposits his trash and money into. However...
Post a Comment
Read more