Discourse - the ways of representing, thinking, talking, agreeing and disagreeing - is central to what students learn. The teacher's role is to initiate and orchestrate discourse and to use it skillfully to foster student learning (NCTM) Under this link are articles related to strategies teacher can use to facilitate discussion - skills for listening, responding and questioning to promote student learning.
The Peaks and Valleys of Online Professional Development
Online professional development (PD) fits today’s fast changing K-12 educational environment where demands on teachers and re-certification require teachers to continually learn new and challenging content and pedagogy. This paper draws on two online professional development projects to discuss what is valuable about online PD, identify some successes, some problems, and provide tips for those doing online PD.
"Facilitating Discussion: A Brief Guide" by Katherine K. Gottschalk
Discussion helps students become not just ready receptacles for our wisdom but active participants in learning. They can develop new interests, figure out what they believe, or don't believe, and, in general, gain confidence in their intellectual abilities.
Connecting with Students
Allen N. Mendler shows how to provide acknowledgement without disruption.
Facilitating Equitable Class Discussions in a Multicultural Classroom
Topically focused class discussions potentially offer English learners rich exposure to new vocabulary and usage in their second language, along with opportunities to interact in a variety of academic situations - reporting information, summarizing, synthesizing, and debating. Frequently, however, linguistically and culturally diverse students remain passive participants in whole-class discussions for varied reasons, including insecurity about their listening comprehension, pronunciation, word choice, and culturally appropriate interactional strategies.
How to Respond When Students Give the Wrong Answer
Incorrect answers can often provide clues to what students don't understand. The suggestions provided here can help teachers better understand where their students are having difficulty.
Interaction Skills
Effective communication skills are the building blocks for the development of positive interactions in the classroom. This article discusses the impact of the physical setting, instructor attitude, hints for encouraging student participation, wait-time for questioning, handling student responses to questions, and responding to students' questions.
Talk in the Classroom
Originally published in Instructor magazine (1990) by Brenda Power. This article explores the Initiation-Response-Evaluation trap into which teachers may fall, and examines the role of open-ended questions, rich conversations, and wait time to advamce student learning.
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