Discussion as a Way of Teaching

Many of strategies in Brookfield’s “Discussions as a Way of Teaching” focused on the comfortability of the student and how they go about engaging in classroom discussions. The discussion is something that can either invigorate and expand on themes and topics in the class or can fail emphatically due to an inability to gain the perspective from the class as whole due to a fear of public speaking as well as dominating the discussion from a select few of confident individuals. The idea of having stations, having smaller group discussions prior to a larger class discussion, as well as allowing less confident students time to formulate ideas are all key to successful class discussion.

A larger fear of public speaking on the part of an individual comes from the fear of how they will be perceived by their peers, general fear of being “wrong” or “challenged”, as well as, a feeling that the silence correlates to the teacher believing the student lacks the same intellectual ability as the more confident classmates puts a distrust in the student that the teacher will value anything they do end up saying because the number of times they speak of pales in comparison to the more confident students. With that in mind I think it then becomes the teacher’s job to not only make sure the class as a whole knows that that isn’t the case, but that silence on a topic also doesn’t lessen an individual’s intelligence.

In any case the overall feel of a discussion should be monitored and checked up on after every session. Having students answer a short questionnaire at the end of each discussion focusing on what went well and what didn’t, as well as, what was helpful and what wasn’t. Ending that questionnaire asking the students to propose a question or idea for the next discussion will all help the students speak up as well as help the teacher formulate ways to always better the experience and inclusion for all students in future classroom discussions.