Facilitating discussions for learning

Setting norms for discussion that promote equitable participation

Factors that inhibit participation

A common concern that instructors have about incorporating more discussions in class is that few or no students participate, or that the same students always talk. Both situations can be frustrating and limit the effectiveness of discussion in promoting learning for all. Addressing the issue of participation requires acknowledging that learning involves social and affective dimensions. People need to feel safe and know that they will not be judged or ridiculed when they talk in order to feel comfortable taking the risk to express their ideas. This is especially critical in introductory courses, in which students may have little to no prior knowledge of the subject area and little previous experience in a college classroom. They are at their most vulnerable, leading many students to remain quiet and protective of their dignity for fear of appearing inadequate.

Norms that promote participation

As the instructor, you can lead a process to establish norms for interactions in your class, ideally on the first day. This can start with a list of expectations in the syllabus, and students should have the opportunity to contribute and add to them as well. Norms can cover both guidelines for ensuring civil discourse and other norms that the group agrees they want to implement.

You can then model how to implement these norms, and ask for other norms that students would like to include, and settle on a final list as a community. This can also be a good opportunity to establish norms around use of AI and other technologies, such as:

• We share our own ideas, questions, and explanations in class, not those generated by AI.

An important component of classroom norms is that they are agreed upon by the community, meaning that everyone is invested in their implementation and day-to-day use in discussions.

Strategies for integrating discussions that promote learning

Once you've laid the foundation for discussions that facilitate learning by establishing classroom norms, you can then implement structured discussion strategies that focus on higher cognitive demand tasks or questions. Higher cognitive demand tasks involve students analyzing data, applying knowledge and skills, and bringing together ideas to make predictions rather than recalling information. In addressing these kinds of tasks or questions, students benefit from time to process and explore ideas with others, and there may not be a single right answer—or it may take intellectual work to determine the best answer. In the best case, these are authentic questions or tasks that scientists might grapple with on a day-to-day basis.

The strategies for engaging students in discussion is different depending on the size of your class, but size itself is not an inhibitor to discussion.

In large classes

Even though large classes are often called "lectures," they are places where discussions that promote learning can happen. Strategies that help integrate discussion into large classes include:

• Using classroom response systems (often called "clicker questions") in a structured way: In this strategy, an instructor asks a question that requires analysis and/or interpretation of data with multiple-choice responses. Students first respond to the question individually; then the instructor prompts them to discuss with their peer(s). After they discuss, students respond again to the same question. Once the responses are in, the instructor asks students to volunteer their answers and ideas, and then provides the explanation. Students are then asked a second, similar question, and asked to respond individually. The instructor then shows the histograms of responses to both questions, with explanations.
• Incorporating in-class group problem-solving: Structured in-class group work with clear instructions and learning outcomes gives students the opportunity to work through problems and synthesize ideas with their peers. Like discussions in general, small-group work benefits from clear guidelines, established norms, and structures that promote participation. Importantly, in-class groups are doing work together in class, and the group work activities may be interspersed with whole-class discussion and lecture.
• Making use of learning assistants: Learning assistants (LAs) are near-peers to the students in your class—undergraduates who took the course previously. They are present during class time to support the learning process, and can help in large classes by working with small groups. Learning assistants are not involved in grading; they are present during class to support and encourage students' active engagement. Important components of including learning assistants are (1) a prerequisite pedagogy-focused seminar for LAs on inclusive teaching strategies and reflecting on their own experiences, and (2) weekly preparation for the discussions that will happen in class.

In small to medium classes

In small to medium introductory classes, discussion may seem more possible, but starting discussions can still be challenging, as students are likely unfamiliar with both the subject matter and the other students in the class. For those reasons, planning ahead can help discussions be more productive and participatory. Strategies that help integrate discussion into smaller classes include:

• Using a just-in-time approach so that students come to class prepared to discuss: In a just-in-time approach, students read or watch a video or otherwise engage in an activity, responding to prompts before class starts. The instructor then collates these responses, and can use them to launch a discussion by sharing everyone's input. Because students have already had time to think about and prepare an answer, they are taking less of a risk in class.
• Using a structured think-pair-share to launch a whole-class discussion: Many instructors are familiar with the think-pair-share approach, in which students are first given time to think individually about a solution to a problem or response to a question, then have the opportunity to pair in discussion with their neighbor, and then share to the whole class. Paying close attention to how the sharing happens is important for promoting discussion. In small classes, every group can be invited to share, rather than asking for volunteers.

Planning discussions around learning goals

Class discussions have the greatest potential to be productive when you have thought ahead of time of what the purpose of a particular discussion is, and where you'd like to be at the end of the discussion. In that way, you can think about designing a discussion the same way you would design any activity, or even your whole course: start with the goal. Then design the prompts and discussion to help you get to that goal.

Goal: Eliciting student thinking to plan for instruction 

When this is the goal of your discussion, you are seeking to draw out student conceptions, their current understanding of processes and phenomena. Knowing more about how they are thinking and how they talk about concepts allows you to adapt instruction to meet their needs. These types of discussions often occur at the beginning of a class, or the beginning of a longer unit, and could be based on a reading (see Incorporating readings that lead to discussion for more information).

Follow-up questions and reactions to student responses are also important to making sure their ideas are understood and accepted. Follow-up prompts can include questions like:

• Tell me more about... (what that was like/what you are thinking).
• What do you mean when you say...

Goal: Making sense of data and developing explanations

These discussions focus on recognizing and describing patterns or trends in data and working to explain those patterns or trends. Rather than simply explaining a graph or map to students, you instead engage them in discussion to develop that explanation collectively, or give them prompts to work through in small groups. These discussions can help students build their skills and vocabulary for describing data, separate their descriptions from explanations, and apply skills and concepts in new situations.

There is a lot of potential for "sense-making" discussions in introductory science courses, as these courses are where students are just beginning to develop discipline-specific skills and language. As a result, follow-up and reactions are important to facilitating discussion. It can be tempting to respond to students by saying, "Yes!" or, "That's right," or "No, not quite." More inclusive strategies that also promote deeper learning and prompt peer-to-peer discussion involve responding by saying:

• What do others think about that explanation?
• It sounds like you focused on X in developing your explanation. What did others do? 

Of course, sometimes student explanations are based on errors or miscommunication that you want to correct before continuing the discussion—perhaps they used the wrong units, or misinterpreted a word or abbreviation. In those cases, it can be important to acknowledge that they made a mistake without turning it into a failure.

Other discussion goals

You may have other potential discussion goals. You may want students to:

• Conduct a thought experiment
• Connect a particular explanation or dataset to a larger scientific concept or theory
• Plan for conducting an investigation

All of these (and more) are reasonable goals that benefit from time spent in-class discussing as a whole group, in small groups, or a combination.

Examples in the TIDeS materials

Every unit and sub-unit of the teaching materials for Earth science and physical science include prompts for discussion.

Both also include an introductory unit that sets expectations for discussions and how learning occurs:

• Physical science, Unit 1.1: Introduction to learning
• Earth science, Unit 1.1: What is science and what do scientists do

These lay the groundwork for productive discussions throughout the course.