Meredith - Reading Notes #3

Both Lang and Davis offered some important information regarding the use of discussions when teaching. Lang discussed the need to clearly explain the role of discussion to students (p. 88) and make sure that discussion is included early and often enough to emphasize to students the importance of it in the course (p. 88). He suggested using “low-stakes writing” (also mentioned by Davis on p. 99) to allow students an opportunity to think about and plan their response to discussion questions (p. 89-92). I really liked this suggestion because I feel it levels the playing field for all students. Some students, whether because they are shy or simply just slower in formulating responses, can lose out if other students shout out responses right away. Having students write first gives them all a chance to think about their response and offers everyone an opportunity to share, especially since students can read right off their paper if need be (Lang, p. 92). 

While I feel both Lang and Davis offered some good suggestions for incorporating discussion, their focus seemed to be more on small enrollment courses. Therefore, I think further discussion on how to incorporate discussion in an efficient and effective manner in larger classes would be beneficial. More specifically, I am interested in discussing how much or how often (if at all) discussion should be used in a large enrollment course and how best to incorporate it so that all students have an opportunity to participate. 

I was particularly interested in the suggestions regarding how to incorporate online discussions using learning management systems (Davis, p. 112). Davis offered some helpful tips regarding how instructors should split up the class into groups (p. 113) and facilitate rather than dominate discussion (p. 115). This advice is helpful in encouraging student contributions to discussion board and preventing them from being overwhelmed. However, what are the best strategies for instructors to use in order to avoid getting bogged down with reading and facilitating several groups’ discussion board conversations? 

I felt the explanations and examples of levels and types of questions provided by Davis were very relevant as we think about how best to incorporate discussion into our courses. She highlighted the need to include different types of questions in order to challenge students to use different cognitive skills (p. 119-120). While I found this information helpful, I still wonder how is it possible to pose questions to students in a course where a certain amount of material needs to be covered and there are only so many class periods to cover it? Varying the types of questions on the exam might work, but how is it possible to incorporate higher-level questions into a course that is already full in terms of content and still allow students an opportunity to discuss these questions in class? Perhaps the best solution is to assign questions as homework, but then the opportunity for students to learn from each other seems lost.