This text is a summary of Chapter 5 of “McKeachie’s Teaching Tips“. The title of the post is the title of the chapter.

Discussion is the “prototypic teaching method” to promote active learning. Discussion is easier to conduct in smaller classes but it can also happen in larger ones. Research shows that having to explain how one thinks is effective in clarifying that thinking and helping one to learn from it. Discussion is a typical way of promoting formative assessment; by discussing, students get a better grasp at what they do and don’t know.

Teaching by discussion requires that instructors perform several tasks. They must help and students prepare for the discussion and get them to engage and keep engaged. They must also direct the discussion so that progress is made and discussion is kept civil and respectful. The class should feel like a safe place to express ideas.

Students who are required to read some materials before a discussion may not do so. One approach to deal with this is to have a quiz in the beginning of the class. If answering the quiz requires them to study beforehand, they will feel more motivated. Alternatively, the instructor can talk to the students in an attempt to understand their motivation for not reading the materials and work out solutions based on their inputs.

Preparing for the discussion

Helping students prepare for the discussion involves giving them questions for reflection. These are typically how and why questions which lead to reflection. If possible, it is better to avoid what questions because they usually require only recollection of information. Another approach to prepare students for discussion is to give them a quiz before class starts or at the beginning of class, prior to discussion. Yet another approach is to promote online discussions before class. In this case, it is particularly engaging if the instructor actually reads all the posts and brings examples to class. This makes the students feel like their work is valued.

Starting the discussion is important. If students prepared well, the discussion is likely to flow easily, but still require an initial spark. This spark can come from a common experience, e.g., a very prominent current event or an experience all of them had. The latter can be stimulated by asking them to watch a short, engaging video. It is also possible to spark discussion by means of controversy, by presenting a problem, or, more commonly, by posing a question and allowing the students some time to think about it. There are many different kinds of questions that can be posed, e.g., interpretation questions, connection and causal effect questions, comparative and evaluative questions, and critical ones. Personally, I find connective questions super useful as a way to emphasize relationships between topics that are not obviously linked, e.g., testing and design patterns.

Conducting the discussion

Possibly the most important attitude an instructor can have during discussion is to listen actively and acknowledge students’ comments. Other tips for conducting discussion include establishing eye contact, smiling, calling students by name, sitting them in a circle, helping students take notes (it is not clear to me how this happens, though), and using the viewpoints and reactions of students as input for the next comments. Finally, it is also useful to establish ground rules early on in the period and involve students in a preliminary discussion about these ground rules.

The worst enemy of a discussion is a group of students who do not participate. This stems from a number of reasons and the book presents a nice list. It cites student habits of passivity, failure to see the value of discussion, fear of criticism or looking stupid, thinking that the instructor expects them to come up with a correct answer, instead of exploring possibilities, and directing students too soon towards a conclusion, without leaving room for them to analyze alternative viewpoints. Furthermore, students may have the feeling that, by engaging in discussion, they are not learning.

In most discussions, a few students will do most of the talking with a large number remaining silent. This my stem from diverse reasons: shyness, boredom, lack of knowledge, and fear of embarrassment. Getting the students to know each other and the instructor can reduce some of these problems. If students feel they belong to the group or that their opinions are shared by at least one colleague, they will feel less resistant to the idea of manifesting themselves. Organizing them in subgroups (may be as small as two people) can improve that sense of belonging. An alternative is to ask students to spend a couple of minutes writing down their thoughts and asking them to express what they wrote. Furthermore, questions during the discussion should not be of the type that accepts a correct answer. Asking them “how does this look to you” or “how do you feel about this” is much less oppressive then asking them “what is the name of this phenomenon”.

Later in the chapter, the author briefly comments on the effectiveness of student-led discussions. The latter tend to be more active, spark more controversy, and produce more curious students. Students feel freer to disagree in this kind of discussion and, as a consequence, potentially learn more.

Helping students to learn through discussion

The book presents a list of tips to help students to learn through discussion, as this is not something that will come naturally to everyone. This is a summary of these tips:

  • Students should understand the importance of the discussion for learning. It should be clear to them that expressing their ideas and actively listening to each other’s improves learning and knowledge retention.
  • Students should learn to listen to each other and not just attempt to refute. One technique suggested by the book is to ask students to, when replying to a comment made by fellow students, to repeat or paraphrase what they just said.
  • Planning the discussion so that it flows during class time. If it spills into after class time, that should happen in a way that is foreseen and planned for.
  • Having short discussions afterwards to reflect on the discussion that just happened, what worked well and what didn’t.
  • Helping with note taking is important. The notes to be taken in a discussion are not linear. They may use a table with multiple columns, one for each viewpoint under discussion, or a mind map, to draw connections among the discussed issues.

To avoid the feeling that some students have of not learning as much through discussion as they would in a more traditional lecture, a couple of students can be assigned the role of note takers. In this manner, at the end of every discussion the students will have a summary of what was discussed that they can use as reference. An alternative is the one (or two or three) minute paper, where each one summarizes for themselves the main points of the discussion.