Attendance & Business for First Meeting

Present on 12/12:  Susan, John, Kari, Nate H, Brianne, & Dave J (who had to leave early, and will chat with Susan & Admin about future plans) Miriam (came @ 3:50 after parent meeting).

Missing:  Brandon (home sick).

We discussed Susan's circle discussion rules, and talked about how in language classes, discussions is challenging because of the low-level language skills.  We also discussed having students write first before discussion starts.

Brief recaps of conversation points, which group members will describe in a bit more detail in upcoming posts:

• To avoid repetition, John assigns certain students to be the devil's advocate; he also uses extreme/provocative conversation starters.  
• Kari often has students alternate between French & English, at pre-arranged timed intervals.
• Brianne, in her primary source discussions, has students mark up the document before class, and then uses a modified fishbowl discussion technique, with the audience tracking the facts used in the discussion or recording their responses to their facts.
• Kari also uses her "talking dice" on the smartboard (they provide topics, time limits, & required verb tenses), and she arranges the discussion like "speed dating," with students in pairs, and they switch partners at timed intervals.
• Miriam also uses a modified fishbowl discussion technique, with the audience watching(and doing something else--not sure?) an assigned partner as he/she talks, with helpful phrases available to speakers in the circle.
• John does an exercise that is half-presentation/half-discussion on assigned topics in which students are graded on how well they respond to peer-questions about their topics.
• Several folks use Flipgrid...

Our plans for the next meeting on Jan. 9:  We will read and comment on other groups' blog posts before 1/9; we will write up descriptions of our favorite techniques during our meeting on the 9th & briefly discuss our plans for upcoming weeks...Those who need help with using Blogger can see Susan and John for help...