Discussions With Teachers

For the past 2 decades, the field of social studies education has seen an increase in research on the use of discussions as an essential instructional technique. This book examines the importance of using quality dialogue as a tool to help students understand complex issues in social studies. This edited volume provides a collection of well-known, evidence-based discussion techniques, as well as classroom examples showing the methods in use. While using discussion as an instructional method is widely considered a best practice of civic learning, actual high-quality discussions are rare and notoriously difficult to facilitate. Making Classroom Discussions Work is designed to guide teacher educators and classroom teachers in facilitating equitable and productive discussions that will boost learning and democratic engagement. Book Features: Emphasizes the rationale for using discussion in social studies teaching. Collects strategies that have been proposed in disparate journal articles and books in one convenient volume. Presents research-based challenges and supports for conducting and assessing discussions in the social studies. Includes methods and tips to help teachers make discussions more equitable in their classrooms.

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.

"Written for all university and college teachers interested in experimenting with discussion methods in their classrooms ... [includes] 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"--Back cover.

Opening Up the Conversation leads practicing and preservice K-12 teachers through the process of creating more open, student-centered discourse in their classrooms. Readers are first introduced to types of teacher questions, student responses, and teacher follow-up moves that are associated with both open and closed discourse. Author John Henning then helps readers identify the most likely places for open and closed classroom discourse by examining an entire unit of instruction and by looking closely at three distinct types of discussions—framing, conceptual, and application. Readers are introduced to specific discourse moves, the patterns of discussion, the amount of preparation, and the types of accountability strategies needed to construct each of these discussions. The final chapter of the book shows readers how to videotape and analyze their classroom interactions in a teacher study group.

What type of questioning invigorates and sustains productive discussions? That’s what Jackie Acree Walsh and Beth Dankert Sattes ask as they begin a passionate exploration of questioning as the beating heart of thoughtful discussions. Questioning and discussion are important components of classroom instruction that work in tandem to push learning forward and move students from passive participants to active meaning-makers. Walsh and Sattes argue that the skills students develop through questioning and discussion are critical to academic achievement, career success, and active citizenship in a democratic society. They also have great potential to engage students at the highest levels of thinking and learning. The extent to which this potential is realized, of course, depends on individual teachers who embrace these practices, make them their own, and realize that this process requires a true partnership with students. With that in mind, Questioning for Classroom Discussion presents and analyzes the DNA of productive discussions—teacher-guided, small-group, and student-driven.