Building a Classroom Discussion Community

Student Contributor: B. Pederson
With this tool it’s something that you would be using at the start of the year. Taking time through out the first week to get to know your students and getting your students to get used to talking and sharing their ideas with each other. Getting them used to how it is you are hoping to be running a discussion based classroom. This will be helpful on trying to get the students to be used to sharing their ideas and listening to those ideas from all of their classmates.

This tool is something that can be used to start getting your students into sharing their thoughts and their ideas that they have to the entirety of the classroom through engaging activities to get the students to first start sharing their ideas with the students around them and then sharing what their peers said in their pairs/small groups to get used to having to listen to what their peers are saying and get them used to asking clarifying questions that they might have as well. Doing these simple activities at the beginning of the year allows you to set up and get your students to be able to engage in classroom discussions and listening respectfully to their peers on what they are saying and asking questions to understand what they are saying if they are confused. With this tool i have been able to use it within my own classroom and getting the students to discussion how they were thinking about questions that were posed in class, and they were engaged with the whole idea the entire classroom, and students felt more comfortable sharing and asking questions during the class period

I’m saying this would be preventative phase because it’s activities to start off a school year to get used to what we will be doing in the classroom consistently and easy practice to get the students of how the classroom might flow throughout the class period. It’s Student-Directed & Collaborative because the students are starting off with questions that the teacher might have created for them but moves into the students being the ones coming up with questions that they have for each other as well.

More Information –
Tool Source: I’m pulling this idea from Professor Winer, and his classroom discussions and how he starts off his quarters to get the students to know each other and get used to these discussions that we have consistently.

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