During the November practicum, some of my lessons had very little interaction between the students. It’s something I want to do differently in the final practicum (that starts tomorrow). I’ve been searching up ideas online for engaging students with each other and found a fantastic blog post on “Cult of Pedagogy” that has some great ideas.

The Big List of Class Discussion Strategies

Here are all the formats listed on the blog:

  • Gallery walk
  • Philosophical chairs
  • Pinwheel discussion
  • Socratic seminar
  • Affinity mapping
  • Concentric circles
  • Conver-stations
  • Fishbowl
  • Hot seat
  • Snowball discussion
  • Asynchronous voice
  • Backchannel discussions (not a fan)
  • Talk moves
  • Teach-OK
  • Think-Pair-Share
  • The TQE Method (Thoughts, Questions, and Epiphanies)
  • Ongoing conversations

The details of each method can be found in the blog. The last four might be my favorite but I’m looking forward to trying some of these methods out during my practicum to have more student-focused lessons.

Here are other discussion types that I’ve learned:

  • Silent Tweets: Students silently circulate among large papers spread throughout the room with different subtopics. They add “tweets” of what they know about the topic or questions they have. It worked well when I added questions to get students to think of different things. This could also be done at the very start.
  • Save the Last Word for Me: Students write a talking point from an assigned reading or other resource on one side of an index card and why they chose it on the back. Then, groups of three are assembled. Student A reads the front of one of their cards for students B and C to discuss before student A shares what they put on the back of the card. This continues with each person taking turns sharing their cards. This creates a strutured discussion format that incorporates ideas from all group members.

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