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EFFECTIVE DISCUSSIONS
An effective way of promoting student active engagement in learning is to provide opportunities for students to process and verbalize what they are learning, so that instructors are able to determine to what extent students are internalizing the information and to provide pertinent feedback when it is most needed. Engaging students in discussing course content is one way to promote active learning. In addition, discussions can provide a socializing mechanism, examine and clarify confusing concepts, and foster critical thinking among students. In general, if used effectively, discussions can be invaluable for any of the following goals of instruction:
- To help students learn to think in ways that are particular to the discipline
- To help students learn to identify and evaluate the logic and evidence that form the basis of their own and others' positions
- To give students opportunities to formulate applications of principles
- To help students identify, formulate, and solve problems using information gained from readings, lectures, and/or life experiences
- To use members of the group as resources
- To gain acceptance for information or theories counter to the beliefs previously held by the students
- To develop motivation for further learning
- To get prompt feedback on how well objectives are being attained
Setting Discussion Objectives & Formats
Well-defined objectives are an important prerequisite to a good discussion. They also help determine the kind of discussion appropriate for the situation. It helps to view discussions along a continuum from targeted discussions, where the instructor carefully controls the discussion and asks questions requiring specific responses, to open-ended discussions, where the instructor allows the students to formulate the questions and control the discussion. If the objective is to assess students' comprehension of course material or review or summarize content, targeted discussions will serve best. If the objective is to promote critical thinking, curiosity about the topic, or tolerance for opposing viewpoints, open-ended discussions are most appropriate. A key difference between a targeted and open-ended discussion is the kind of question asked. Questions asked in a targeted discussion are often structured to produce short, convergent responses. Questions in an open-ended discussion provide more latitude for response. Some examples are:
Targeted questions:
What is the definition of an adjective?
What are the stages of cell division?
Open-ended questions:
What are some ways we might solve the energy crisis?
Given the limited medical data provided, how would you approach diagnosing this patient's problem?
In a targeted discussion, the instructor tends to keep a fairly tight rein on the direction of the discussion. In addition to using convergent questions, the instructor can focus the discussion by intervening after each response to comment upon it, summarize it, or redirect the question; mapping the direction of the discussion on the blackboard or overhead transparency; limiting the duration and number of responses; and moving quickly from one question to another. In contrast, the instructor in an open-ended discussion would act differently by using broader questions, allowing ample time to respond, and encouraging a lateral rather than teacher-directed response pattern (e.g., "Does anyone have a comment on X's response?" or "Feel free to jump in and respond to each other"); and reducing his or her role as authority by sitting down or remaining quiet.
Although the type of discussion questions must be tied to the purpose of the discussion, there are findings to indicate that questions that are middle-range in their openness elicit the highest quality of frequency of response. John Andrews writes, "Perhaps the most important quality to grasp is a subtle blend of structure and freedom which gives a discussion momentum and yet does not let it wander indiscriminately" (1980, p. 147). In a study of questioning behaviors, he found that when instructors used what he called "playground" questions, i.e., questions that designate the intellectual sphere for discussion and then give students latitude for answering, they got better results than when they asked very open-ended "brainstorming" questions, convergent "quiz show" questions, or highly unfocused "general invitation" questions, such as "So what do you think about Plato?"
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