Teaching Discussion Techniques to 7th Graders - Reflection 2

As we all know, students love to talk. They can find just about anything to talk about to distract themselves from the ‘boring school assignments.’ But when it comes to class or group discussions, it’s like pulling teeth to get them to talk on topic! Thank goodness for those rare students who like to talk AND are focused enough to respond on topic. How do I get every student to answer my discussion questions without having to make everyone write down their answers to the questions?

              When my students and I were reading “Harrison Bergeron” the last couple weeks, we would have a little review session each day about what we read the day before. My struggle at the beginning was getting the students to actually take the 30 seconds I gave them to look over the last section to be able to have a small review discussion. I finally figured out that if I put review questions on the board and told them that at the end of their review, they should be able to answer these questions. And then I would use my phone app to pick random students to answer the questions on the board. By doing this, the students were able to remember the important main points of the last section so they can move onto the next section with better understanding. This was also a perfect time for students to ask questions if they were confused about the last question.

              Another aspect of discussion that I have been working on is getting the students to participate in discussing the section they just read by themselves. Harrison Bergeron has many conflicting points that the students like to debate about. According to Bomer, focusing on these differences are a great way to facilitate a discussion that more students are willing to participate in (139). His technique of using the differences of a subject to facilitate a discussion is using the very common fact that when students asked to answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’, they usually agree with the majority of the class. Bomer suggests playing the devil’s advocate and asking them to consider another, less popular point of view. This worked well for me during our class discussions.

One specific time this worked well for me was when I asked them if George going to jail for two years and paying $2000 for messing with his handicap was appropriate consequences. Most of all three of my classes said no because they were unfair consequences. I asked the class to consider the government’s point of view; ‘Why would the government actually give him those consequences?’. With that, they agreed that George did break the law and everyone who breaks the law has to face the consequences.

One important aspect of the teaching great discussion techniques Bomer talks about is “eliminating the evaluation part of the initiation-response-evaluation talk pattern” (138). This is a part that I need to work on; I struggle with getting across to the students who refuse to participate that it is a requirement. I feel like the only way I can guarantee that everyone will participate enough for me to evaluate them all is to have them all write their answers down THEN to have them get up and share with a partner to get that discussion aspect in the activity. What I have seen work well with my MT is to not necessarily threatening per-se, but giving them the opportunity to choose what they do in class. She likes to do little class discussions and tells them that they choose what they are going to do: either everyone participates and shares their two bits or she will stop the discussion and make everyone write down their responses. This usually works in motivating everyone to participate. When I go to try this technique, what I have to work on is holding them to my expectations; if the discussion really is not going well, then I need to stop and have them write. Hopefully, in doing this the future discussions can and will get better over time.