In Almasi's article, A New View of Discussion, she talks of the different roles students can play when having a class discussion and which would be more student orientated rather than teacher led. As we all know, whenever students can take control of a conversation with the class and have the teacher present, yet not disrupt they usually do. However, in my observations with my placement now and in the past I have not seen this happen to frequently. The teacher faciltates most of the discussions and the students listen and raise their hand when a question is asked. I would not know whether the students are understanding what I was saying/teaching or whether they were just staring off into space. When getting them involved in the discussion, whether it be as the inquisitor, respondent, facilitator or evaluator you will get more of them to participate because they usually do like to give their opinions and that is what most of these roles will have the students do.
This 'meaning construction process' (Almasi, p.53) also allows the teacher to assess what exactly the students are getting out of the activities/readings. It also allows them to see each of the students' strengths and weaknesses in order to put them into groups if you want to have small discussions or which students you want to prompt more often to get them more comfortable with speaking out in class.
Overall, I feel as though each class should have at least a few days a week be like this so you can get the students more involved. The more they talk and regurgitate what you are saying, the easier it is for them to remember it and recall it for future uses.
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Katie,
ReplyDeleteI couldn't agree more with your thoughts on classroom discussion. I too do not see much of this in my elementary classroom, and when I do, the students seem disengaged, and uninterested. I think that it extremely important, especially with younger ages, to give the students, a prompt or group work first, and then came back for discussion. This way the students have more of an interest to share what they did/discovered in their group activities. Often when a teacher catches students off guard is when we see shy or uninteresting students. Like you mentioned, whole or small class discussions are important for us to incorporate into the classroom as much as possible because it can help students recall information better if they are introduced to it more then once (during small or whole group discussion). I also think it is important for teachers to know their students, therefore the groups are better put together, and we can trust that good quality discussion will occur, rather then silence.
~Stephanie Buday