"Discussion As a Way of Teaching"

I really enjoyed reading each of these lesson plans that involve discussion as a class, or a group. It made me realize that most of the time, I won’t have to lecture and bore my students. Instead, I can mingle discussion time into my lesson plan. This way the students can get to know one another and hopefully become close knit as a class. I know this applies to my life because when I was in philosophy class back in community college, our professor was one I will never forget. His name was Professor Bagwell and he made sure every class day was student led. He would start off the discussion with a prompt or a question, and would then let our minds run wild with answers and fighting opinions. I always loved going to that class because I knew I didn’t have to listen to someone drone on about dead old philosophy guys. This is how I want my class ran. Where the students perform most of the teaching, and they are teaching one another. Educating my students to be a part of a community is what I strive for because if we aren’t together as one, the whole class will fall apart.

One of my favorite discussion plans was conversational moves. I, as the teacher, would have flashcards that have specific moves on them. For Example, “Use body language to show interest in what different speakers are saying”. Each student will have a specific move, and some can repeat. This idea can be used in a Socratic seminar, and all the students can sit in a circle with a specific move in their hand. They will keep their move a secret until the very end, this will allow students to guess at times in the discussion what they think their peers’ moves are; like an element of surprise. It also teaches students to communicate and think critically with one another. In addition, it builds the discussion to work towards more thoughts and opinions. There were some discussion lesson plan ideas I didn’t like. For example, I thought critical conversation protocol was confusing, I had to read it twice and I still didn’t get it. For something that confusing, I will make sure to model the activity for my class.