{"id":432,"date":"2022-03-23T16:06:04","date_gmt":"2022-03-23T20:06:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/baldwin-clt-teaching-times\/?p=432"},"modified":"2022-03-23T16:06:04","modified_gmt":"2022-03-23T20:06:04","slug":"five-techniques-for-better-class-discussions-by-floyd-cheung","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/baldwin-clt-teaching-times\/teaching\/five-techniques-for-better-class-discussions-by-floyd-cheung\/","title":{"rendered":"Five Techniques for Better Class Discussions by Floyd Cheung"},"content":{"rendered":"

What can we as faculty members do to foster rich scholarly discourse? How can we create \u201csafe enough spaces,\u201d as\u00a0Michael Roth<\/a>\u00a0calls them, for better class discussions? How can we meet students where they are and help them improve their skills?<\/p>\n

Finding a way is crucial. We know from\u00a0research<\/a>\u00a0that diverse perspectives lead to deeper learning and better problem-solving but only if all voices are heard. To make the most of societal heterogeneity and avoid retreating into echo chambers, we must have better conversations. Simple encouragement, however, will not suffice. Instead, I suggest we draw upon decades of research on inclusive teaching to provide onramps for self-censoring students to merge into the traffic of scholarly debate.<\/p>\n

Sources like Stephen Brookfield and Stephen Preskill\u2019s\u00a0The Discussion Book: 50 Great Ways to Get People Talking<\/em><\/a>, James Lang\u2019s\u00a0Small Teaching: Everyday Lessons from the Science of Learning<\/em><\/a>, and Peter Felten and Leo Lambert\u2019s\u00a0Relationship-Rich Education<\/em><\/a>\u00a0provide many ideas.<\/p>\n

From these and other sources, as well as my own experience, I highlight five techniques, all of which should be preceded by\u00a0co-creating community guidelines<\/a>\u00a0with students on the first day of class. While some of the following techniques are designed simply to make students more comfortable with engagement, all can be leveraged to foster divergent thinking.<\/p>\n

1. Warm calling<\/p>\n

2. Half-formed thoughts<\/p>\n

3. Doubting-and-believing squares<\/p>\n

4. Page-number lines<\/p>\n

5. Preparatory notes<\/p>\n

Full article available here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What can we as faculty members do to foster rich scholarly discourse? How can we create \u201csafe enough spaces,\u201d as\u00a0Michael Roth\u00a0calls them, for better class discussions? How can we meet students where they are and help them improve their skills? Finding a way is crucial. We know from\u00a0research\u00a0that diverse perspectives lead to deeper learning and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":104,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured","category-teaching"],"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Kathryn Byrnes","author_link":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/baldwin-clt-teaching-times\/author\/kbyrnes\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/baldwin-clt-teaching-times\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/baldwin-clt-teaching-times\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/baldwin-clt-teaching-times\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/baldwin-clt-teaching-times\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/104"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/baldwin-clt-teaching-times\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=432"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/baldwin-clt-teaching-times\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/baldwin-clt-teaching-times\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/baldwin-clt-teaching-times\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/baldwin-clt-teaching-times\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}