Discussion Skills Across The Curriculum

Susan and I have discussed expanding discussion skills across the curriculum several times in this round of PLCs. We agree on several points:

• effective discussion skills are essential for becoming an educated, responsible adult; it is a life skill as much as an academic skill
• effective discussion skills can be learned through consistent practice in class
• effective discussion skills are best learned when the format combines structure and freedom
• discussion formats will require an acclimation period that will feel awkward at first
• regular practice in a given format is critical for success; it is an evolutionary process
• successful formats are evidenced by the extent to which the students are "running the show"

We also agreed on several important points for teachers:

• teaching discussion skills can feel really awkward for the teacher at first, since you are gradually  turning over class to the students
• that's a good thing
• the students get much more out of the material forming the basis of discussion when they are in charge of discussing it
• appropriate evaluation is best as a combination of individual and group performance

Finally,

• building a facility with group discussions can help build a more intellectually curious environment at Marshall School
• building a facility with group discussions be a difference-maker for a Marshall School education

My Final Post: Fishbowls & Skype Sessions

So, the rest of my group abandoned me…I've been continuing to work on the Fishbowl Discussion technique I've described in previous posts, and I've written some posts about it on my own blog.

You can read about the technique here.

You can then read about how I put it to use in a somewhat different way here where I describe how our Skype sessions with Molly (Richards) Smith went. And, if you're interested, the videos of the Skype sessions are here. (Thanks to Matt W for uploading them to YouTube.)

I look forward to using this technique more next year…I plan to film a discussion or two next year, so other folks can see how it works...I'd also be happy to invite folks in to observe, if they wish.

I'm still not sure what I'm really supposed to do in this series of blog-posts, but I hope this serves the intended purpose somehow...

Update on the Group-grade Fishbowl Technique

I'm loving this new technique! It has the kids who usually have no trouble in discussion working harder, and, more importantly, the kids who never talk are talking!  I will have to re-design the rubric a bit, and when I do, I'll post it here.  I divide each into 2 teams, and each team spends about 16 minutes in the fishbowl, after which the other team has 10 minutes to question them before that second team gets into the fishbowl.  I know it all sounds complicated but it's really working.

I'm finally blogging....

So, this has actually been one of the best PLC experiences I've had this year, and it came at the best time as well. In my mixed Honors 4 and 5AP French class, we've just started reading a lengthy novel by Guy de Maupassant called Pierre et Jean. Inspired by our PLC discussions, I decided from the start to scrap my traditional "read these pages, answer these questions, and spit back your answers the next day" method, and figure out a way to get my students to talk to one another about their own experiences with the novel.

I've decided to do 10 different discussion activities with the ten different segments they will be asked to read. I've added my "traditional" worksheets to our class sophia page for those students who have had me for a few years now and who still like having some vocabulary and comprehension questions that they can refer to, but I am adamant that these questions are not mandatory.

And, while Susan did warn me there might be some awkwardly painful moments of silence (and there were!), I have been over the moon with the results so far.

In the first discussion, students sat in a wide circle and had complete control over the conversation. Using my Smart Notebook software, I was able to set timers for them and gave them the option to alternate between using French and English. Finally, finally.....with two minutes left in class, they got to an in-depth discussion of the hint of jealousy between the two brother, Pierre and Jean.

In the second discussion, students again started in a wide circle and were allowed to lead the discussion in any direction they wished in French. After twenty minutes, I instructed them to look under their chairs where I had taped pieces of paper with various themes written on them. They then separated into pairs and had to discuss (again completely in French) their themes: the representation of the sea, the representation of the women in the novel, the appearance of the social class structure in 19th century France, Maupassant's own intimate connections with the region of Normandy, etc. Again, the students did all the talking, and I simply listened. I think even some of them started swapping slips of paper on their own! There were wanting to talk about these themes.

During Wednesday's class, I instructed them to work together to design a play or video with at least 10 quotations from the novel (and English subtitles) which would prove to me that they had understood the central plot and the characters so far. Although they didn't quite finish this "project" in the 80 minutes they were given, I'm really looking forward to their video portrayal of the second chapter first thing during tomorrow's class. In in all honestly, I'm not concerned with the final product; having listened to the students' conversations about the landscape of Normandy, the personification of lighthouses, and the mysterious Polish refugee character (and why had he fled Poland?) all on their own---that is more than I could have asked for!

I'm excited to try seven more discussion techniques with this group, and I am hoping to "trickle" this down to the Honors 3 students who will begin reading Le Petit Prince next week in class! No more worksheets! :)

Thanks to everyone in our PLC who inspired me to try new things!

p.s. Today, I've also learned that blogging while trying to prepare dinner for three "starving" children does not work very well! Oh well....live and learn!

How Can Students Engage in More Effective Discussions? (Final Report!)

Key ingredients for a good discussion:

• When students have worked harder than the teacher
• When the topics come from the kids
• When the students are well prepared (direct by teacher at first; discussion etiquette; make prep part of the assignment )
• When students are responsible for the participation of their peers 
• When students get immediate feedback on performance

Almost everybody in this group has used the techniques described in the blog-posts in the classroom recently--so read our posts!  We also recommend using Flipgrid as a way to augment in-class discussions.

We've had lots of good conversations during this cycle, and we've tried new things!

Present (2/6/14):  Johnathan, Brianne, Kari, Miriam, Susan

A vision for the year 2025

A vision for the year 2025
Global Challenges

I adapted what I think is an essential question centered lesson plan to be a group discussion activity in my AP Spanish 5 class.  The activity fits into the AP theme of "Global Challenges" and asks students a series of questions which they discuss in small groups to hash out their vision for the future.

The activity has been very successful so far and students have seemed more invested than normal about making sure their opinions are being understood.  I intended the activity to last about 90 min but the students still haven't finished their discussions so I plan to use half of class tomorrow to finish up.

Here is an abridged outline (obviously all of this is in Spanish in the original) If you would like to see the whole thing I'd be more than glad to share it, but I couldn't find a way to upload a document on blogger...

Essential Question:  What do you hope for the future of our planet?
Steps: (Each step is accompanied by some conversation starters but the idea is that the students take the conversation in the direction that fits their group)

1. Brainstorming:  Identify what the group thinks should remain the same and what we should work to change by 2025.
2. Challenges:  Identify major obstacles that could stand in the way of achieving these goals.
3. Looking for solutions:  Deciding what role certain organizations and people should have in confronting these problems to achieve these goals. 
• Educational system, mass media, the government, various industries, the UN, UNESCO, etc. 
4. Considering perspectives:  Students were given a list of quotes that they had come to a consensus on the most important and defend their decision.  The quotes say things like...
• "I am a doctor.  By the year 2025, I hope that everyone, rich and poor, have access to a high level of health care."
• "I am a high school student.  By the year 2025, I hope that students learn more about religions and cultures around the world."
5. Reflection and summary:  
1. How has the world changed in your lifetime?
2. Which of the visions for the future of our world are achievable? 
3.  What role do international organizations, national governments, and individuals have to make positive change in the world?
4. What can teens do to ensure a better world for the year 2025?

January 28, 2014

Present:  Susan, Johnathan, Nate H, Brianne, Miriam, Kari (Brandon was around somewhere...)

We met at lunch on the cold day impromptu professional day and briefly discussed what we had worked on the week before.  Folks should be blogging about it, if they haven't already.  

We won't meet on the 30th!

Fishbowl Discussion (Group Grade)

Gonna try this soon in English 12.  We're starting The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien, and I'll ask students to use the new Reading Journal Format below (to prime the discussion, as Brandon says), then I'll require them to make use of the Question Stems (see earlier post), and we'll use this Group-Grade Fishbowl discussion format (described beneath the Journal format).  It's kind of a combination of Brianne's fishbowl and Brandon's way of grading his Roundtable discussion.  

New Journal Format:  

For this novel, you'll do a journal for each reading assignment (& I may or may not collect it, as before), but I will ask you to choose THREE quotations, three passages from the reading, that you consider to be the most important or significant from the reading.

Keep in mind that each reading assignment will consist of more than one short story in this collection of inter-related stories, so I'm NOT asking for three quotations from each story, or one from each story, but THREE per READING ASSIGNMENT.

We will not be using columns or tables anymore! Instead, I want three paragraphs. Each paragraph should include one of your chosen quotations (properly INTEGRATED into a sentence, with a properly formatted page reference). Each paragraph should explain why you chose the quotation, why you think it's so important, and how it's related to on-going themes and ideas in TTTC. This will be hard to do during the first assignment or two, but then it will get easier.

Group-Grade Fishbowl Discussion

The Fishbowl Discussion is a variant of the Circle Discussion, involving concentric circles:  an outer circle (the bowl) and an inner circle (the fish). 

In order for everyone to have a chance at being a fish, I will divide the class into two “schools” of fish, and each school will have its turn in the bowl.

The school of fish inside the bowl engages in a (face-to-face) discussion, while the remaining school (forming the bowl) listens and takes notes in preparation for a chance to respond to and ask questions of the school that is inside the bowl. 

At points chosen by me, the fish outside the bowl may respond to, and ask questions of, the fish in the bowl.  Halfway through the discussion, I will ask the schools to switch places.

All the usual Circle Discussion rules apply to this exercise, with this twist:  each school gets one group grade for its conversation, and the only way to get a good grade is to make sure EVERYBODY in your school participates in a meaningful way in the discussion.  Their silence is yours!  So think about ways to engage the quieter members of your group! You also improve your score by taking full advantage of your chance to engage with the other fish in the bowl when your school is outside it! Your school is also responsible for how (& how much) the other school engages with you.  

Score	Criteria
10	All contribute in meaningful way	Addresses all key aspects of the text or reading	All ask thoughtful, probing questions	All offer thoughtful responses, using textual support	Discussion evolves from Q&A session into genuine conversation	Audience eagerly engaged throughout	All interact with other school
8	Most…	Addresses most…	Most…	Most…	Mostly rises above Q&A format	Audience evenly engaged	Most…
5	Some…	Addresses some…	Some…	Some…	Evenly divided between conversation  & Q&A format	Audience unevenly engaged	Some…
2	Few…	Addresses few…	Few…	Few…	Does not get beyond Q&A format	Audience is bored	Few…

(Thanks to Ms Vigen & Mr Neblett for inspiration!)

As of 1/29, I've tried this in two class sections, and it worked fairly well.  In my most difficult section, two students who have never yet spoken all year did so!  I asked the kids for some anonymous feedback afterward, and they're not sure they like how I'm judging their conversation in part based on the responses of the audience and on how well they interact with the other group, but I' think we'll stick with that for a while to see if they get better at it.  The first two groups to try it earned grades of 7 & 8 out of 10.  It certainly challenges those who have an easy time talking, and it seems do far to be getting those who never talk to do so!

As of 1/31, I've tried this 5 times now, and 1A improved tremendously, earning an almost perfect score, while 2A got worse.  I've coached the kids a bit after each discussion, speaking with each team about how to improve.  Kids who are used to dominating discussions are struggling (in a good way) to become real leaders who help their teammates do better.  Students who have been silent before this are continuing to make progress, one in particular.  I am thinking of changing the second-to-last column on the rubric, so that groups are judged by how well they behave as audiences, rather than by how interested the other group is...

It's the end of March and I'm still using this in E12 and have just started using it in AP as well, and I'm loving it.  The AP students really like it, as it prevents any one person from dominating, and the group grade gets the egos out of the way...  

Priming Class Discussion

This is one of the simplest and most effective tools I used to develop meaningful conversations in my history classes.

When I first began to intentionally craft my classes around discussion, I discovered pretty quickly that many students, even my best ones, would not initiate or contribute to discussion of the question at hand for two reasons:

• They could not remember many of the points they had developed when reading or reviewing the night before.
• They were nervous being the first student to offer a response.

In short, they just weren't ready. So the objective became getting them ready to discuss well. I call it priming, because it reminded me of painting: if you want the paint to look good, you have to coat the wall with a layer of primer first. You have to get the wall ready for a good paint job. 

Here is what I learned:

1. Deliberate preparation the night before is key. The students need to gather and process the information from their text (or other material) that will help them make good contributions to the discussion. As a result, when assigning homework or preparatory class work, be sure to:

• Provide the question to be discussed clearly and concisely. Ensure that they understand it. Say it aloud at least twice as you review directions for them. 
• Provide reference to specific locations in specific resources (such as page numbers in a text) for where to find the relevant information. 
• Require evidence of close reading and preparation. This could be underlining, highlighting, taking notes or making a summary. (Choices here are important to accommodate different learning styles.) However students do it, the point is that they know they are preparing for the discussion. At the beginning of the discussion, they will know what to say because they have it right there in front of them, ready to go.

2. A few minutes to get organized and on task is key. Allow the students 1-3 minutes to get their "evidence" together and to review it in silence so that their brains are fully refreshed. It is hard transitioning to a history discussion if you have just completed a chemistry lab or if you have just finished a quiz. Transition time is important. 

3. Small group processing makes a big difference. Students are much more willing to talk in a large group if they do it first in a small group because the stakes of making a mistake or speaking awkwardly there are much lower, and they often sit next to friends. Pairs or trios based on proximity work best. Allow them 5-10 minutes to "get the ball rolling" and flesh out some ideas in a less threatening context. 

4. Set the tone of the large group discussion. Take a few minutes to remind the students why the question under consideration is important, especially how it ties into previous and future classes or content. Underscore that there may not be one answer, but that exploring the question together helps to better understand whatever larger topic or theme you are studying. 

In conclusion, it's all about staging the experience. Adolescent brains learn best in discrete, digestible chunks. In this way, you consciously build the conversation by laying a stronger foundation for it. 

Finally - Socrative seminar II

First of all, I really like what we are doing today. I like being able to finish my daily work, have a cup of coffee, and then turn to this project. I work best when the "little things" are taken care of. However, I also like "having" to work on the PLC topic. It is not a kick but a gently push in the behind. Without it, it is so easy to put something else ahead of doing something "extra."
Well, I am using today to finally create reusable big sheets of paper with speech-introducing and other discussion phrases. We will place them as visuals in the middle of our discussion round aka Socrative seminar. I've wanted to try this all school year, and, as said above, it is good to have this time set aside for it.
My plan is to introduce the discussion technique in German III that has the most students traveling to Germany in the summer. They need to constantly work on overcoming their fear of speaking, and this activity will hopefully contribute to that. I will let you know how it goes. mo

1/23 Report & Attendance

Folks worked independently and promised to blog about what they doing/working on...
Kari, Brandon, Brianne, Nate, and Miriam checked in.  Look for their posts in the future!

I worked on planning to more consciously use my question stems, which I have never actually required students to use, and I also hope that we can have discussions in English 12 in the near future about my "Think About It Thursday" blog post about the Duluth lynchings...I also worked on preparing a Flipgrid question related to The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien for one section of English 12.  I haven't used Flipgrid in a while, and the kids and I enjoy it, so it will be good to get back to it.

PLC 1/23/14

Discussion Board

I have been using Discussion Boards with success in the Honors/AP courses for the past couple of years.  I have not used them with the non honors.  So I spent some time earlier this week (because I thought I was going to get to it today in class) putting together directions for the Discussion Board and a question post.  The topic is on the Age of Exploration.  They watched episode 2 of Guns, Germs, and Steel about the encounter of Pizarro and the Incas and will read the Requerimiento.  I created one Discussion Board for both sections and will allow them to respond to someone not in their section or in their section.  I am not sure how the cross section response is going to go, but I thought it would add another dimension for students to hear from someone they have not been in class with all year.

Virtual water cooler

I think we should have a spot for general questions and comments, so I am creating one. I hope you find it useful. In my D2L-based online courses, students have a "water cooler" discussion forum, simulating that coworkers run into each other in such a spot and informally exchange a few thoughts.

As you may have guessed, I have a general comment. I took the time to visit each PLC's blog today and found some of them really interesting. Nonetheless, I experienced the same dilemma that I know from online classes - both from my students and from being the student. As much as responded to some of the posts, I didn't know what to write without repeating things or just agreeing. Those one-to-two sentence responses are poo-pooed in online classes. Sometimes I could have added my two cents of wisdom or a visual, for example to the infographics, but that seemed almost intrusive to me. In other words, even though I understand the intentions of being accountable and encouraged to experience the other PLCs, I am uncomfortable with actually having to post on others' blogs. I want to post only when it's meaningful, and sometimes, it is nice to just lurk. I am interested in hearing what you think about that.

Image: mnenergysmart.com

Socratic Seminar

This is a technique for ensuring quality discussions that I experienced in an AP seminar. I am interested in philosophy but by no means an expert, and I found myself wondering about the name of the technique. I remember the Socratic Method as posing a series of questions that make the discussion partner dig deeper and possibly contradict him- or herself. I googled the term and found a good overview here: Univ. of Chicago Law School  

This discussion technique does not aim at exposing fallacies or inconsistencies. Instead, it encourages foreign language students to speak and practice target vocabulary or phrases. This could easily be adjusted to other content areas. 

Prior to the Socratic Seminar, students prepare strips of paper that contain the phrases or terms to be practiced. These are placed in the middle of the circle so that they are easily visible. In our AP seminar, we used phrases to initiate or respond to questions and to state one's opinion, agreement, or disagreement. 

Students are assigned to sit in either an inner or an outer circle. Kids in the inner circle participate in the discussion; each student in the outer circle is assigned to observe one of the speakers. The observers have check-off sheets with items such as "makes a contribution, uses target vocab/phrase, refers to the text/film etc, asks a question, agrees or disagrees, integrates another discussion member, makes eye contact" (just like in Brianne's post) etc. Observers also note any undesirable behavior as well as the most interesting thing their partner said. The discussion begins the same way as in Susan's contribution. After one round, students switch roles.

1/9/14: Attendance

Present today:  Susan Nygaard, Kari Greenan, Brianne Vigen, Miriam O'Brien, Johnathan Woodward, Nate Harsha, Brandon Neblett.

We talked about strategies we've tried lately and in past classes to improve the quality of discussions.
Talked for a while about giving a group grade for whole-class discussions, getting students to draw out reluctant speakers...the conversation was wide-ranging, so I won't try to reproduce it all here.

We decided to work individually during the next PLC session and blog about what we did.

A mini-discussion activity designed for AP Spanish

La opinión no es tuya (It's not your opinion)

Objectives:  

• Students will use the target language (Spanish) and course content to formulate and support their argument.
• Encourage students to think outside the box and to make and support arguments that they might not necessarily agree with. 

Context: 
This discussion activity took place towards the end of a unit dealing with technology and its role in today's society.  Students had read and listened to a variety of sources on the effects of technology on communities, families, and in education.  The sources came from the United States and from Latin America and were all in Spanish.  Students were then asked to defend statements dealing with the main themes from the in mini-discussions (each lasting about 5 min).

Example content: 
Below are a few examples of statements students were asked to defend in their mini-discussions and their English translations.  The statements were printed on note cards and a student would draw a card, read the statement and then go on to defend it.

• “Tener acceso a Internet es demasiado poder para un individuo.  Los gobiernos del mundo deben limitar el acceso a Internet.” 
  "Internet access is too much power for one individual.  The governments of the world should limit the access their citizens have to the internet."
  

• “Es importante separar la identidad privada y la identidad pública.” 
  "It is important to separate one's private identity from one's public identity."

• “Las redes sociales tienen un afecto negativo en el activismo político.” 
  "Social networks have a negative affect on political activism." 

• “El crecimiento constante de la vigilancia siempre nos hace mas seguros."
  "Increasing surveillance always makes us safer."

• “La obsesión con las redes sociales es una fase breve." 
  "The current obsession with social networks is a brief phase." 

Evaluation:
This was a formative discussion activity intended to provide students with a comfortable context to practice using Spanish in discussion.  I observed groups throughout their discussions but refrained from interrupting the discussions.  The skills practiced here will eventually be formally evaluated in the form of large group discussions and persuasive essays. 

Roundtables

                                                                     Roundtables 

This is the discussion format I used for three years teaching a junior and senior elective on international relations at Sage Hill School. I took the Harkness model of student-centered discussions and modified it to fit the needs of this course specifically. It was the most rewarding activity I have ever conducted in class, and many of my students told me it was the best part of the course for them.

Three objectives:
1. Compel students to think deeply about a question that has significant meaning for the world today. I asked compelling questions that present opportunities for students to study both past and current case studies. For example, Under what conditions should the United States go to war? To what extent is it appropriate to compromise civil liberties in the interest of national security? To what extent does radical Islam present a threat to the United States?
2. Compel students to own the discussion. I gave them plenty of time and resources to prepare their perspective and then turned the entire discussion over to them. Students sat in a large oval so everyone could see everyone else's face (standard format for every class). Half of the final grade was based on how the group as a whole performed, so there was an incentive to conduct the conversation well.
3. Compel students to develop a high level of awareness in a group conversation. Each Roundtable was considered the "test" of the conversation skills we spent the entire year discussing and practicing in day-to-day classes. The students reflected on each Roundtable the class afterwards, and I provided them with my own detailed observations on the process and evaluated them as a group on the process of the conversation.


Context:
A key objective of the course was the development of specific dialogue skills. I was explicit with the students that the class was designed to have adult conversations about adult topics and that I considered them equals in the process of investigating and answering tough questions. I attempted to make the experience one that as closely equated everyday life as possible, so from the first class, we discussed what makes a good conversation and why, and then we put those principles into practice every day. The toughest past was de-programming them from raising their hands when they had a question, but after about five weeks, they got used to it. The fundamental principle throughout the year was that they spoke to each other first and me second; the class was theirs, not mine. This daily practice was important in prepping them to effectively own the Roundtables when they came around.


Time frame:
1. 3 85-minute classes in the library to prepare. Students read and took notes on resources I had prepared (mostly magazine, journal and newspaper articles) that helped them develop a perspective on the question.
2. 80 minutes of an 85-minute period for the Roundtable itself. I gave them 3-4 minutes to get ready, I opened the conversation by asking the question and then I sat back, listened and observed. I did not speak for the next 80 minutes.
3. 20-30 minutes of the next 85-minute period to review the Roundtable. I solicited the students' reflections on how the conversation went and why, and I presented a written analysis of the conversation based on my observations.

Evaluation:
1. The process of the conversation: Students (as a group) were evaluated on the extent to which they effectively responded to each other's questions, posed questions, listen to each other's responses, deferred to each other when two or more spoke at the same time, noticed and acknowledged body language and invited those who had not yet spoken into the conversation. This was 50% of the (group) Roundtable grade.
2. The content of the conversation: Students (as a group) were evaluated on the extent to which they utilized the most important points of the sources they read to prepare for the Roundtable. This was 50% of the (group) Roundtable grade.
3. The Roundtable Paper: Students (individually) were evaluated on their ability to answer the question effectively in a paper they wrote on their own, due one week after the Roundtable. They were expected to use the Roundtable conversation as a means of helping them write the paper.

Final analysis:
The work these students did, during the Roundtables and in their papers, was the best work students have ever done in any classes I have ever taught. The greatest part of it was watching them develop as a team in each Roundtable, seeking not only to make great contributions to the conversation, but seeking to bring out great contributions from each other and holding each other accountable to the standards we had established for the group. It was amazing to watch teenagers talk non-stop for 80 minutes about a question of intellectual merit. They continually raised their own standard for performance, both in content and process,  throughout the year because they saw the value of a class that was organized around their own individual and collective growth and in which they drove the discussions.