Discussion Strategies

This is an easily understandable and practical guide to effective teaching for teachers and trainers in all instructional settings: school, further education and training, and higher education. It is particularly useful for students, both as a text for their theoretical studies and as a reference during their practical teaching experiences and their later teaching careers. This second edition has been extensively revised and now includes introductory chapters that provide a strong theoretical base as well as a chapter on outcomes-based assessment.

The activities in this book follow and build upon the strategic conversation skills of the Kehes' book, Conversation Strategies. Discussion Strategies develops discussion skills at high levels of communicative interaction, especially communication in academic settings. Students, in step-by-step procedures, are given extensive practice in a variety of strategies for leading and participating in a discussion. Discussion Strategies provides focused practice with the following discussion techniques: using rejoinders, asking follow-up questions, seeking and giving clarification, using comprehension checks, answering with details, soliciting more details from others, interrupting others during a discussion, recounting something they have heard, volunteering an answer, helping the leader of a discussion, expressing an opinion, referring to a source when giving an opinion, and leading a discussion. Each unit builds on and recycles the previous units. The first twenty-eight units provide controlled practice of the discussion and are for pair groups or triads. Units 29-38 give the students an opportunity to use their new strategies in less structured discussions; they involve large groups or the whole class in open discussion of the articles provided.

If you have ever been apprehensive about initiating classroom discussion, fearing silences, the domination of a couple of speakers, superficial contributions, or off-topic remarks, this book provides strategies for creating a positive learning experience.Jennifer H. Herman and Linda B. Nilson demonstrate how to create the conditions to facilitate deep and meaningful learning as well as to assess the effectiveness of discussions. They identify, analyze, and solve common problems in both classroom and online discussions and in both small and large classes. They take a direct, practice-oriented approach that--in acknowledging common challenges--provides principles, guidance on design, examples of activities and techniques, and eight detailed case studies. These cases demonstrate successful approaches that faculty across disciplines and from a variety of institutions have adopted in their face-to-face, blended, or online courses at the undergraduate or graduate level. The case authors begin by describing the original pedagogical challenge they faced and explain how they addressed it and assessed the results of their innovation. They also offer practical recommendations to readers who may want to try their strategies. Intended for faculty, this book will be equally valuable for educational developers who can use this resource in their programs and private consultations. At the graduate level, this book can serve as a text or workshop resource in college teaching courses and teaching assistant development programs. The final chapter provides a set of resources and activities – including discussion questions on the case studies, writing prompts, and jigsaw formats – that are equally appropriate for individual study or for use in workshop environments. You’ll never again have to suffer such a profound silence that, as described by a contributor to the book, she could hear the crickets chirping outside.

Learning strategies for critical thinking are a vital part of today’s curriculum as students have few additional opportunities to learn these skills outside of school environments. Therefore, it is of utmost importance for pre-service teachers to learn how to infuse critical thinking skill development in every academic subject to assist future students in developing these skills. The Handbook of Research on Critical Thinking Strategies in Pre-Service Learning Environments is a collection of innovative research on the methods and applications of critical thinking that highlights ways to effectively use critical thinking strategies and implement critical thinking skill development into courses. While highlighting topics including deep learning, metacognition, and discourse analysis, this book is ideally designed for educators, academicians, researchers, and students.

What are Conversation Strategies? They are techniques that help the speaker and listener keep a conversation going to its natural and desired conclusion. They are skills that supplement the linguistic and sociolinguistic skills most texts focus on: grammar, vocabulary, and usage. To develop strategic competence, students must learn the words, phrases, and conventions used as two speakers engage in the active give-and-take of conversation. These are the strategies we use to get more information, make comparisons, correct someone politely, agree and disagree, summarize, share information, and make decisions in a business meeting. Students also practice polite forms, rejoinders, clarifications, follow-up questions, getting a response, expressing probability, interrupting, and avoiding conversation killers. Each activity has three parts: a teacher's introduction, a written introductory exercise to be done by students individually, and pair/group practice that makes us!e of information gap and other interactive formats. -- From product description.

This book is written for all university and college teachers interested in experimenting with discussion methods in their classrooms. Discussion as a Way of Teaching is a book full of ideas, techniques, and usable suggestions on: * How to prepare students and teachers to participate in discussion * How to get discussions started * How to keep discussions going * How to ensure that teachers' and students' voices are kept in some sort of balance It considers the influence of factors of race, class and gender on discussion groups and argues that teachers need to intervene to prevent patterns of inequity present in the wider society automatically reproducing themselves inside the discussion-based classroom. It also grounds the evaluation of discussions in the multiple subjectivities of students' perceptions. An invaluable and helpful resource for university and college teachers who use, or are thinking of using, discussion approaches.

Action Research in the Classroom: Helping Teachers Assess and Improve their Work guides teacher-researchers through the process of using action research in their practice to improve students’ learning and teachers’ teaching. The book uses actual classroom examples to assist aspiring, new, and veteran teachers and those who support them (administrators, department chairpersons, and mentors) in using a six-step process L.E.A.D.E.R. to successfully accomplish and share research conducted by actual classroom teachers. Each step in the L.E.A.D.E.R. process -- (1) L=Look at the Problem, (2) E=Examine what we know; (3) A=Acquire knowledge of school problem-solving; (4) D=Devise a plan for improvement; (5) E=Execute the plan; and, (6) R=Repeat steps and processes as needed -- can guide teachers, administrators, and even parents – and students – in solving their own problems and improving their learning and teaching.

Make history in your classroom with an engaging, integrated approach to active social studies learning. You'll motivate your students with powerful strategies for brainstorming, language arts integration, discussion, primary sources, and deductive reasoning. The included Teacher Resource CD features modifiable students pages, and assessment materials. This resource is aligned to the interdisciplinary themes from the Partnership for 21st Century Skills. 304pp.