Blog post 8

Classroom Discussion

Discuss and learn, this is the best way which enables students to invent, create, imagine and dig for deeper meanings. In this way, students and teacher share their ideas to enrich each other. Let’s look why teachers use it in class. Actually, students construct their own meaning and ıt may be correct or not. However, they may not develop it by themselves so they may need ideas coming from their peers and teachers. In this way, they will differentiate their ideas with other, and they will again construct their own meaning by their cognitive process in a logical way. Also, students will improve their effective thinking process in this way because they will do critical thinking when differentiating their ideas and creating them again. Moreover, this is a group activity so communication skills of students will definitely improve when sharing ideas.

Discussion is a concept belonging to questions so it is really important to find or create correct and effective questions to improve discussion. Question types and their aim changes according to required skills. For example, factual question is more suitable for young children because ın their stage, they need mastery of basic understanding. Factual questions are more concrete so they are better for basic understanding. On the other hand, higher cognitive questions are more effective when basic understanding achieved because it is more suitable for students who are independent and have higher level thinking. It is really important that teacher should identify their students stage, and they should not force students to work on questions which are higher than students cognitive level because it may harm student’s motivation. On the side, discussion needs some wait time. People sometimes cannot give direct answers because of their anxiety or lack of information so teachers should give students approximately 3 second wait time for them to collect their ideas and present it. Also, sometimes teacher ask question and wait for a long time. This should not be done. If students have an answer, s/he does not wait for a long time and tell it to escape from that situation and silence in class. Otherwise, it shows that students do not have any idea about subject, so don’t wait for long time. If necessary, talk with students later.

We learned how to create correct discussion way. Now, let’s look how to create correct discussion plan. Firstly, teacher should choose an approach to support discussion and to go on a controlled way. Secondly, teacher should make a plan including objectives, discussion items and question for discussing. Thirdly, setting an arrangement. This includes how students and teacher will sit in the class environment. How effectively chairs should be designed to control interaction with students to teacher and students to students. Also, there should be empty places in class for teacher to reach every student easily. Lastly, teacher should definitely be careful when creating discussion because discussion should be open for all students to make all students active. Teacher should not focus a specific part of the class.