Classroom Discussions

Within the community of my classroom, a vast majority of conversations taking place are very interactive between the students and the teacher. The most dominant form of conversation I see on a regular basis is instructional based, where my CT leads, guides, and supports the students. She will address issues and concepts and raise questions relating to the context. Once she poses a question, she encourages all her students to answer and will restate what they said to exhibit her knowledge of what the students are saying. Sometimes from this, other students will say they agree with the last person to talk and will continue to provide their own answer. During this setting, the conversation is welcome and contained within a safe learning environment. Another from of discussion I have seen includes more one one on attention between my CT and a few students or one student. Within this setting, the conversation and instruction is more personalized and catered to each student's needs, while at the same time providing them the opportunity to participate in a more "safe" environment. On occasion, I will also see mini discussions pop up among the students when they are talking to one another. They question one another and will also to a certain extent offer support and build off of one another's comments. Discussion does occur within this classroom and I would say functions as an important aspect of the learning that happens within the classroom.

With regard to scaffolding, some aspects that may help implement better response-centered discussion may include building questions. I feel if the students have a solid foundation they can build upon discussion wise they will be able to do a better job of talking and participating. Perhaps a way my teacher could incorporate this would be to find topics of interest that will draw the student's interest as some of the articles we read suggested. If the students are interested in what they are potentially talking about, I think it would allow them to be more outspoken with their thoughts as well as inspired to learn and explore the topic further. Another aspect I may suggest would be to allow plenty of wait time because as of now, my teacher does a decent job doing this, however I feel if there was more time for the students to think, their responses would be better thought out. For specific students in my class who have learning disabilities, I feel this would be extremely helpful and beneficial for them. Perhaps rewording or guiding the response-centered discussion would help these students be more successful, positive learning participants in the discussion.

In my classroom, I feel discussion is important, but at the same time needs to be tailored to support the students within the classroom. Support, presentation of questions and information in my opinion are the most important aspects of a successful discussion, as well as student participation.