Discussion to Support Learning, Part 2

This is the second of a three-part series of posts focused on using discussion to support learning. Part 1 introduced how discussion supports learning, especially discussion based on text. Part 1 also reviewed the research supporting classroom discussion, described formats, and offered instructional suggestions.

Planning Discussions

Besides identifying the content and text that will be the focus of a discussion, the teacher should develop goals for the discussion and explain them to students. This includes considering what the students should be able to do during the discussion, such as explain what they learned from the text, critique the text, make a connection to another text, or agree/disagree with the author’s position in an argumentative text.

Questions to consider while planning discussions:

• What are the main ideas and essential concepts I want my students to learn?
• What are my goals for the discussion?
• Which discussion format(s) and activities will best support my goals?
• What are the best initial and follow-up questions to drive an effective discussion?
• What can I plan ahead of time to ensure that all students participate and stay engaged throughout the discussion?
• What tasks should I have students complete before the discussion that will prepare and enable them to participate in the discussion?

Preparing Questions

Questions are an important part of high-quality discussions. They are used to begin and sustain a discussion and will help the teacher anticipate and prepare for how a discussion may evolve.

Productive discussions typically revolve around a series of well-thought-out, open-ended questions (sometimes called interpretive questions) that push students to think more critically. These kinds of questions have no pre-specified answers and are not simply answered with yes or no. They are designed to spark multiple positions and perspectives by students. Productive discussions include questions that “prompt the students to make connections to their own lives or feelings (affective response questions), to other texts or media (intertextual response questions), and to knowledge or understanding established by the group (shared-knowledge response questions)” (Wilkerson et al., 2015 p. 37).

Teachers should keep in mind the need to be flexible about the order they pose planned questions and that not all questions may be used depending on how the discussion unfolds.

Once students share responses to an initial question, the teacher asks follow-up questions, building on those responses with questions that incorporate what students said (called uptake). The initial and follow-up questions should afford students control over the flow of the discussion with the teacher as facilitator. (Wilkerson et al., 2015)

The research guide Improving Adolescent Literacy: Effective Classroom and Intervention Practices (Kamil et al., 2008) notes that questions that lead to good discussions are frequently described as “authentic” in that they ask a real question that may be open to multiple points of view, such as “Did the way ____ treat ____ in this story seem fair to you?” or “What is the author trying to say here?” or “How does that information connect with what the author wrote before?” These kinds of questions provide an opportunity for exploration and discussion and are very different from questions primarily used to test students’ knowledge.

After Questions

Students benefit from the opportunity to debrief after a discussion. The following questions can help students continue to build on what they learned during a discussion and reflect on how to improve their participation in future discussions.

• What are the most important ideas or concepts we addressed during our discussion?
• Do we have any questions about these ideas or concepts?
• How can we summarize our discussion?
• How do we feel the discussion went?
• What was the most effective part of our discussion?

Teaching Collaboration, Discussion Norms

Students may not participate in discussions if they feel their comments are not valued or are ignored, so teachers should establish discussion norms to support safe spaces for students to participate in discussions. Time should be provided to talk about the importance of norms with students, and the norms should be reviewed before each discussion.

Michaels and O’Connor (2012, p. 2) note the following about discussion norms:

“Students have to feel a sense of trust that their ideas will be taken seriously and that disagreements will be handled respectfully, so that ideas – not individuals – are challenged. Students have to speak loudly enough so that everyone can hear, and all students have to be on notice that if they cannot hear or understand what someone has said, they have to speak up and ask for clarification. Students need to understand that this kind of talk is expected of everyone, and everyone will have a chance to participate and express their ideas, perhaps not in every discussion, but certainly over the course of several days.

The sample set of norms below are organized into discussion guidelines and student rights and responsibilities (O’Connor, 2012).

Discussion Guidelines

• We come prepared for discussion with examples, stories, notes, text.
• We are active participants responsible for our own learning. This means we speak, request clarification, show agreement or confusion, verify, and ask others to repeat.
• We strive to have authentic conversations that are academically rich. This means we use target vocabulary, stay on topic, and ask about what we really want to know.
• We push ourselves and each other to think beyond the obvious, popular, or easy answers. This means we request proof or reasoning, point out misinformation, disagree with parts, draw others out, and are open to changing our minds.

Student Rights and Responsibilities

• You have the right to ask questions.
• You have the right to be treated respectfully.
• You have the right to have your ideas discussed, not your personality.
• You have the right to be listened to carefully and taken seriously by your classmates.
• You must speak loudly enough for others to hear.
• If you cannot hear or understand what others say, you must ask them to say it again.
• You are expected to agree or disagree (and explain why) in response to other people’s ideas.

Part 3 of the series will address academically productive talk, including details about the Accountable Talk framework developed by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh. Suggestions for facilitating high-quality discussions will be shared, including teacher and student Talk Moves.

Part 2 References

• Kamil, M.L., Borman, G.D., Dole, J., Kral, C.C., Salinger, T., and Torgesen, J. (2008). Improving adolescent literacy: Effective classroom and intervention practices: A Practical Guide  (NCEE #2008-4027). Washington, DC: National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education.
• Michaels, S. & O’Connor, C. (2012). Talk science primer. Talk Science Project (TERC).
• O’Connor, C. (2012). Academically Productive Talk: Discussion within Word Generation. PowerPoint delivered August 15, 2012, Baltimore Summer Institute.
• Wilkinson, I., Murphy, K. and Binici, S. (2015). Dialogue‑intensive pedagogies for promoting reading comprehension: What we know, what we need to know. In: L. Resnick, C. Asterhan and S. Clarke, Ed., Socializing intelligence through academic talk and dialogue. Washington D.C.: American Educational Research Association, pp.37‑50.