Discussion Strategies

Best Practices | Planning

Best Practices

• The Dreaded Discussion: Ten Ways to Start, Peter Frederick. Ideas to start discussions in a quiet classroom and involve different groups of students.
• Effective Classroom Discussions, William E. Cashin, Kansas State University, IDEA Paper #49.
• Literature Discussion Strategies, Kathy G. Short, California State University, Northridge. Ways to start discussions through novels - could potentially work with narrative texts.
• Managing a Discussion in a Large Class, Part of a YouTube channel from Center for Excellent in Learning and Teaching at Iowa State University.
• Teaching Methods and Strategies, Instructor Guide to Teaching and Learning at Brock University. Scroll down past the section on lecturing to find a fanstic list of ideas for using various discussion formats in class.

Planning

• Implementing Interactive Activities in a Large Class to Build Community,  Part of a YouTube channel from Center for Excellent in Learning and Teaching at Iowa State University (see description).
• Norms of Collaboration: Annotated, Center for Adaptive Schools. Expansion on the norms of group work, which naturally expands into group discussions.
• Teaching with Discussions, The Teaching Center, Washington University in St. Louis. Covers getting started, what to do during the discussion, and afterwards. Has additional resources.