Discussion as a way of Teaching Response

I really enjoyed this text. Personally, I truly hate classroom discussions, however last quarter I came to the realization that even if I do not contribute much to the discussion, I am still learning a lot from the discussions themselves. This text was enjoyable because it provided numerous ways of using discussions within a classroom. Something that really stuck out to me was the ground rules and the case study sections. I think that setting ground rules at the beginning of any discussion is vital to trying to avoid what happened to Gary in the case study. Something like that has happened numerous times in discussions that I have had to partake in. When stuff like that happens it makes it really uncomfortable to contribute in fear of thoughts being shut down. I think that had the teacher stated ground rules then perhaps both the case study and my own experiences might have turned out differently.

I really enjoyed some of the discussion examples this reading had provided. I think that the section that describes conversational roles is an interesting idea. I think I would be willing to try that out in my own classroom with just a few tweaks to the different roles. Another one I really enjoyed was “The Circle of Voices.” I think that this is a very interesting idea and might have been something that I would have enjoyed doing while in high school. Like the section on circle of voices says, I think that it would be really helpful for the more quiet and/or shy students. 

Although overall I really enjoyed reading this article, there were some activities that I would not do in my own classroom. “Conversational Moves” was one that I did not necessarily like. I think that it makes the discussion more forced and not as natural or easy-flowing. Another one that I was not a huge fan of was “Quotes to Affirm & Challenge.” Perhaps I just do not quite understand the whole activity, but when reading about it, it just did not seem like something I would like to do now or even when I was in high school.

Even though there were some things I would not personally use, I still think that this reading had a ton of information on ways to make discussions fun, engaging, and comfortable. I was truly able to come away with learning a lot from this article. I know for a fact that I will be incorporating discussions into my lesson plans and this article helped immensely with providing me new and different ways of using classroom and group discussions.