277. Why and How to Start Classroom Discussions Now

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In this solo episode, host Lindsay talks about the significance of initiating classroom discussions early in the academic year. Drawing insights from Jane C. Lo’s anthology, "Making Classroom Discussions Work," Lindsay emphasizes the urgency and benefits of fostering discourse among students. 

Through these discussions, students develop critical thinking skills, engage in genuine inquiry, and gain confidence to voice their thoughts beyond the classroom. With a focus on practical steps and educational research, this episode offers educators actionable strategies to enhance classroom discourse.

Why? 

Engaging students in classroom discussions offers a multitude of benefits. Civil discourse and student-led discussions encourage students to elaborate on topics, respond to different viewpoints, and construct knowledge through complex thinking. This deepens students' skills in civil dialogue and increases their confidence to engage in discussions outside of class. 

What?

To implement effective discussions, educators can focus on key aspects including the tools, topics, and techniques used in the classroom.

Step 1: Start with something to talk about. Choose topics that resonate with current curriculum needs and align with students' knowledge and interests. These can include values like justice, freedom, and responsibility, which can be part of many subject areas. 

Step 2: Next, give them a reason to talk about it. Motivate students by tying discussion topics to real-world civic actions or community-oriented prompts. You can frame discussions to show their significance beyond just academic grading, adding a layer of real-life implications and importance.

Step 3: Give students a way to talk about the topic. Equip students with clear ways to engage in discussions by creating specific discourse prompts that cultivate necessary skills. Encouraging discussions around fiction or non-fiction can open up dialogues on significant societal issues and values.

Step 4: Cultivate an environment where deliberation on problems is encouraged. This could range from global laws to local issues that impact them directly. Guide students through stages of identifying issues, developing solutions, and analyzing options to foster a deeper understanding and practical decision-making.

Step 5: When students present their discussions, ensure that audience members are also engaged by asking thought-provoking questions. These questions could include: What are the implications of a decision? What are the benefits of this choice? Are there any potential drawbacks?

Final Tip

As the educator, modeling the discussion process and gradually introducing roles and frameworks can facilitate more meaningful and structured conversations in the classroom.

To help you implement today’s takeaways, I’m sharing my Discourse Moves Resource Bank with you for free. And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 277 of the Time for Teachership podcast. If you’re unable to listen or you prefer to read the full episode, you can find the transcript below.

Quotes: 

• 2:47 “We have seen in the research that when we do this in class, kids are more likely to bring it elsewhere, whether it’s to families, friend groups, community groups, or social media.” 
• 13:24 “There’s dialogue, where we're seeking to understand and grow the possibilities of ideas. Discussion, where we’re critically thinking about the ideas that are shared … And then we have deliberation, which is more of a ‘what should we do?’”

​If you enjoyed this episode, check out my YouTube channel where you can learn about more tips and resources like this one below:​

TRANSCRIPT 
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Lindsay Lyons: Welcome back to another episode of the Time for Teachership podcast. This is episode 277, and we are talking about why and how to start classroom discussions now in September. Many of you have just started a few weeks ago. Um, some of you have been maybe in school for a while, and some of you may be listening at later points in the year or in future years.
But the idea is that wherever you are, whenever you are, you can start class discourse now. And so we're gonna start with a little bit of why and a little bit of the how, and just naming that we are pulling from the book, the first half particularly of the book, Making Classroom Discussions Work. This is a volume of chapters that is edited by Jane C.
Lo. This is an excellent book. I'm really excited about the possibilities in here, and I'm really excited to have maybe some of the authors come on in future episodes and talk to us. So let's get started Why have class discussions? Now you may be already bought in. You're like, "Let's fast-forward the episode for five minutes," totally fine.
If you are a person who is a leader or in a leadership role in any way, um, have colleagues that are maybe a little skeptical of student-led discourse particularly, this could be helpful. Um, also maybe as a justification, maybe you have leadership that is hesitant to spend, you know, so much time on discourse, and you firmly believe in it.
Here could be the justification for why. So, uh, Lowe talks about in her introduction to the book key attributes of discussions. We've talked a lot about discourse before, so I'm gonna run through these pretty quickly. But students are elaborating in a discussion. They are responding to each other, providing different points of view.
They are constructing knowledge, doing some complex thinking, and they are engaging in genuine inquiry. So these are the hallmarks of discussion. We are not talking about a turn and talk here. We are talking about, like, a lot going on. So when we get clear on what type of discussion or attributes of discussion is high quality, that's what we're talking about.
She writes, "The goal of quality discourse is to allow students to voice different evidence-based assertions so that all students engaged in the discussion might learn something new through the co-construction of knowledge." End quote. Chapter two of this book, uh, involves researchers, I believe all of them are based out of Circle.
Um, but Dr. Kawashima, Ginsburg, Daniels, and Hyatt, I believe are referencing the various benefits for teaching discourse, which includes allowing students to reflect on and communicate about content, deepening skills of civil dialogue across disagreements. We know that's really important in our communities.
Student confidence to talk outside of class about issues. So this is huge, right? We want to, and we have seen in the research, that when we do this in class, kids are more likely to bring it elsewhere, whether it's to families, friend groups, community groups, social media. Like, they are more willing, um, and confident to talk about stuff outside of class, which is the goal, right?
We don't want it to just live inside of a classroom. Um, and it is, uh, facilitating student knowledge of each other and fostering a shared experience of learning through disagreement. So there's that kind of positive feedback loop. This went well in class. I'm willing to try elsewhere, and I'm building my skills.
Um, Bruce Larson talks about in the, the next chapter, or another chapter, uh, that discussion is useful for the last three levels of Bloom. So if you have a school that is, or a district that's really into Bloom's Taxonomy as a way to think about learning, analyze, evaluate, and create are the last three.
They are typically, you know, the highest. All are important, but the, the highest. And examples of discussion being possible here is that you could critique policy. We had a previous episode on that this month. Um, create a stimulus package, right? There's so many different things that you could do. They often share very social studies examples as I do.
But these are some of the things that you could do as you're discussing. There are so many parallels with inquiry. So again, subject agnostic here, inquiry is a great practice for pedagogy, and discourse pairs really well with it. This comes from McAvoy and colleagues, that the inquiry arc really has the same building blocks for discussion, and there's actually an entire chapter about that in the book as well.
So inquiry and discourse are, like, really, um What's the word I'm looking for? Synergistic. They are not a pick one, it's both/and. Um, and finally, Bruce Larson talks about some ... He gives various lists of things that you can look for, and kind of listen for, notice, uh, in a class situation, um, and also for students to kind of self-assess.
He gives a little list. Two I wanna highlight. One, a self-assessment question. Are we developing a shared understanding of the issue? Right? So we want students to reflect and say, "Are we doing this? Is this what we're doing? We are developing a shared understanding." A thing similarly that teachers can notice, are students building off of classmates' comments, and not just saying, "I agree with so-and-so, and," or, "I ins- agree with so-and-so because."
We are taking a nugget of an idea, and we are expanding it, or we are contradicting it, or we are complexifying it. That is not a word, but you know what I mean, like, adding complexity to it and nuance, um, interrogating it, asking a question about it. So we're actually deepening the thinking, as opposed to just saying, "I heard what you said, and I agree."
Right? Um, it's, it's bigger than that, right? And that, I think that is the goal, really, of what I wanna do in this season and future seasons moving forward on the podcast, to think about how we r- really deepen student thinking, as opposed to just talk at one another. Okay, I really wanna use the rest of our time today, um, to think about the how.
I'm gonna say a couple more things about the why, but, uh, Terrence Beck t- uh, is the author of Chapter 3, and specifically here, Dr. Beck is talking about younger students. I do think this is valuable for everyone. As a former high school and college professor, uh, this is helpful for everybody, so keep that in mind, that it is particularly useful for younger students, because it has been written as such.
So his argument, uh, is really that you can't afford to wait till high school to have these civil discourse opportunities. So he says, quote, "Fostering democratic dispositions requires teachers to regularly conduct civic discussions so that students experience the power of engaging skillfully in discussion," end quote.
Another one. Loving the quotes here. Quote, "Civic discussions are concerned with creating dispositions in students to act democratically when they are no longer under the gaze of the teacher." End quote. Okay? He goes on to talk about how dispositions are, quote, "Patterns of thinking and behaving that are not learned through transmission, but rather through practice in a supportive social environment."
End quote. That actually comes from, um, sorry, Reddy and colleagues from a 1998 publication. But the, the point here is that what we are trying to do is cultivate students' ability to talk to one another outside of the classroom, and that what that requires to do it well is to regularly have civic discussions.
So how do we do this? So what he talks about is, um, he really starts with a sociocultural approach, which comes from Werch, and this idea of mediated action requiring actors and tools, which could be physical. It could be like a Google Doc or, um, it could be a cultural, like a idea or a way of engaging with one another, a belief system.
Like this idea that what we do when we wanna change students' action. So for the example he gives, a teacher wants to change how students engage in academic discussions. Okay. The most productive thing that Werch says is to focus on changing the tools being used and not trying to change the people So instead of trying to, you know, have-- encourage, I think that's the example he gives.
Instead of saying, "Okay, y- talk more. Come on, y- I'm gonna give you points if you talk more." Actually, what we need to do is change the tools that students use to enable them to be more effective. So he talks about how discourse really or discussion talks-- demands three types of tools. Something to talk about, right?
So this is, um, as he explains it, the sweet spot where curriculum meets student knowledge and interest. So it has to be engaging, it has to be high interest, and it has to be related to the actual curriculum you're supposed to teach. B- but this is like the prompt, right? What are we actually talking about?
Let's pick the curriculum we're talking about, and let's-- Typically, I would say also the discussion prompt itself, like the phrasing and the languaging is also important. So that kids are kinda jumping out of their seat to actually talk about it. Uh, values that he discusses as opportunities to explore in curriculum.
Um, generally, we're talking about humanities curriculum here, but you can think about this in any, any format or any curriculum area. Justice, freedom, honesty, responsibility, right? Think about any value that your discipline has, your subject area has, and think about how you might create, uh, a discussion prompt rooted in content that is also highly engaging and meets kind of where students are at knowledge-wise, give them a little bit of background, they're ready to go, as well as interest.
So that's one thing. Something to talk about. That's a tool. The second thing, a reason to talk about it, right? Again, um, maybe this is more of the discourse prompt, but this is like the high interest topic, and like frame why it matters. So typically, we could-- I have enjoyed doing something civic, so some sort of civic action prompt.
Like, uh, what class policy could we craft to address this issue, right? Something where it's like we are gonna do something. We're gonna put forward a proposal to the school around how we do assessment in our district or whatever the thing is, but we are going to give them a real reason, like there is an impact beyond the grade here, uh, that this will have, right?
Or maybe we're discussing a current event, and we've had a lot of chatter about it in families or social media or the friend groups, and okay, so this has an impact beyond the class because now you're gonna be able to talk about this in these other spaces really generatively and thoughtfully. And so, uh, something to talk about, a reason to talk about it, and number three, a way to talk about it.
So discourse prompts, cultivating those skills that they're building Right? Um, he talks about how dis- discussions are often most productive when they center around fiction or non-fiction texts that raise important issues, ideas, or values. So yes to the humanities, right? We can totally think about fictional texts.
Many characters are grappling with important issues, ideas, or values. We can definitely bring in current events, right, the non-fiction texts. There are a lot of spaces, uh, to do this. And actually, the author cites how literacy has a lot more research on this than any social studies research does, particularly with the younger kiddos.
And so there's some research around collaborative reasoning. Uh, this is where they kind of read a story, discuss questions around a moral dilemma or difficult decision. Um, they could explore the character's motivation. But there's a, a lot more research on, um, kind of the value there that, again, if you are in a leadership position and you need to borrow some research, that's a good space to look.
Um, but examples of this, right? If we're talking about how to do this, examples. Um, we could talk about topics such as, he says family obligations, trust, environmental stewardship, personal responsibility. Again, with younger kids, you could see these come up a lot in picture books, in various themes that are content connected.
Social studies, uh, you could talk about, you know, the Declaration of Independence and the political values there. Are we living those out? There's a lot to do with that. You could get back into kind of fairy tales, Jack and the Beanstalk. He gives a great example over the course of three pages around Jack and the Beanstalk prompts, uh, where the civic issues at play are really trust, right?
Does Jack trust the, the giant in the clouds at the top of the beanstalk? And does the giant trust him? Um, does he trust that, like, when he exchanges the beans for the cow, that, like, that seller is, is doing, um, you know, what's in his best interest? Uh, and also the concept of, like, when do the ends justify the means?
Like, is it okay to lie? Is it okay to steal, in what situations? Right? Um, and considering kind of like the motivation behind all of these and the risk. These are all themes that kids are gonna face in life. They are present in the fairy tale, and they could also be applied to future readings of novels, fiction texts, non-fiction texts, current events, historical events.
There's a lot of lift here despite just being about, you know, a fairy tale. So, uh, the, the topics that we choose, particularly early on, right? We're recording this, um, so that it airs in September. You're early on in the year. Having kind of like a high interest engager where maybe a lot of folks in the room, a lot of students have background knowledge about the story of Jack and the Beanstalk, or that could be conveyed very quickly and interestingly with a quick picture book, that really sets the stage for ongoing thinking about these issues throughout.
So whatever you're choosing as the, one of the first prompts, think about the values behind it and choose a value ideally that's going to continue to show up in your fiction or non-fiction texts through the year So when we think about discussions, we're typically thinking about, we've talked about this before on the podcast, there's like kind of dialogue where we're seeking to understand and kind of grow the possibilities of ideas.
Discussion, where we're kind of critically thinking about the ideas that are shared, kind of analyzing them, breaking them down. Um, and then we have deliberation, which is more of a what should we do? I mentioned this might be something like we are going to have a discussion that results in a policy proposal for our class or our school, our community.
So a deliberation is where we really are focusing on an issue or problem rather than a text. So let's come back to that for a little bit. Deliberation problems are gonna deal with either really big things like laws and pe- human rights or, you know, really local concerns like how do we spend the money in our school's budget?
This could even be like the grade, like our, our sixth grade class has a budget 'cause we did some fundraising, and like how do we spend that? Um, it could also be responding to an issue, so we had an instance of hate speech in our school, like how are we gonna respond to that? Right? That is a very real thing we need to address, and like y- go, your class is like, needs to come up with some ideas, and we're gonna land on something.
We're actually gonna take action based on what we come up with, right? So again, a very real, um, prompt for students or a purpose beyond the grade Teachers can also, this is a really good tip from the author, uh, teachers can identify when they notice deliberation in life. So encourage teachers to identify when it has come up, um, for themselves in staff meetings, maybe, um, in their families, when it works and doesn't work.
This helps them, uh, get in the mindset of like, "Okay, this is what deliberation looks like. Here are the hallmarks of good deliberation. Here's where it could go wrong. I'm gonna bring this to my students," maybe not to directly instruct, but to help create a container for really generative discourse. "I'm gonna choose a protocol based on this information.
I'm gonna language my prompt this way based on my observations." And of course, you can also encourage students to do the same thing. When have you all decided to do something, right? "Oh, how did you decide what was for dinner last night? Did you have a deliberation?" Right? And you don't need to use the word deliberation, but we want to start having kids and adults notice when it's happening, and start to collect and write down or verbally share what works and what doesn't work.
And sometimes what you'll notice is that what works in one context doesn't really work that well in another context, right? What works for, uh, two people deciding how to have dinner is not gonna work for deciding what, you know, 20 people are gonna eat for the class lunch, for pizza party or whatever. So it, it could be really generative just to have kids notice, note the thinking, and bring it back, right?
Um, okay. So again, this author, uh, Terence Beck, talks about s- three steps. These are adapted from Parker and, um, Zumeta in 1999. And he talks about that when we are doing deliberation, and he encourages people to do these in small groups, 'cause again, that's, that's easier than like a whole class. Um, but we have to identify a problem and common understanding.
So for example, um, is the problem a question of fairness or justice, or is it one of the common good? So like this is a question from Hover, who just like says, "Okay, there are some different values that could be applied. Which one is it?" Right? So identify kind of the problem and common understanding or maybe the underlying value.
Then the next step is to develop possible solutions and analyze the options. So once we know what the problem is, we have a good understanding of it, now we're gonna think about, okay, here's the possible steps we could take. Here's the possible policies. Here are the possible actions. Um, m- what ... Are these good or b- or like which one is the best, right?
Like, what are the potential implications of each of these? That kind of thing. So we're really in analysis mode. I would say like step one is really the dialogue, right? Growing the common understanding, um, getting a lot of ideas out there, and trying to figure out where we are. Two is, is let's analyze the options.
We're in discussion mode. And then three is the deliberation or the decision-making where we're gonna decide what to do. Okay, so these are three steps, common. We've talked about these a lot in the podcast. Um, but, but basically what we're doing is that- Beck says what we typically do actually, is we say, "Okay, uh, small groups, do your thing, and then you're gonna present to the class."
And what often happens is this devolves into one group presenting, and then the teacher responds, and then the group interacts with the teacher, and then the rest of the audience is just kind of silent. What we want to have happen is that small groups are doing their discussion, they're reporting out, but the rest of the students are audience members that are asking questions.
And he has a really good chart, um, on page 55 of the book where he talks about, um, some question stems, and he has them based on different subject areas. But for civic question stems, like, what do you think the problem is? What are the good things about this choice? So they've made a ... They're making their proposal to the class.
They're presenting it, right? Well, what are the good things about the choice you made? Is there anyone who might be hurt by your decision? So these three questions are three questions that audience members can ask, and what he's saying happens is actually because the presenters know that the audience is gonna be engaged in this way and possibly asking these exact questions, they can also prepare accordingly.
"Oh, we're gonna be asked, like, what are the good things about the choice, so we gotta make sure we, we have that ready to share." So again, those three question stems for civics: What do you think the problem is? What are the good things about this choice? Is there anyone who might be hurt by your decision?
Really good to think about in any deliberation. So this could be an easy anchor chart that just stays in your class for the whole year Right. Um, and this is, this is coming from Herrenkohl who talked about this idea of intellectual role-taking in the audience when you're supporting, uh, deliberation. So thinking about these different roles, you could like divide up, okay, this is gonna be, uh, the, the group that thinks about like the problem, this is the thing-- the group that thinks about the good things in terms of audience, um, interaction.
A final tip as you think about rolling all this out, so the teacher is gonna model first, then introduce the roles gradually. You can use that problem chart or anchor chart to visually know the problem statement, the nature of the problem, right? Is this an issue of fairness? That kind of thing. Um, and again, you could scaffold, so at first you just have a couple choices, and then it grows to something, um, much bigger.
But this idea in general, what I wanna leave you with today, is this idea of discourse is important, and we can do this by, uh, changing the tools that we offer, whether that is the content we select, the way the prompt is phrased, a way that we're framing talking about it, uh, the purpose beyond the grade, right?
And that we can talk about and discuss important issues or values that come up in fiction and nonfiction text. We could also talk about, uh, deliberation or focusing on a problem or issue rather than a text. Again, what is the problem? Is there a value underlying it? Um, what are the possible solutions? And analyze those.
What's the good thing about that choice? And then, uh, pursuing a solution, considering, right, anyone, any implications. Is there anyone who might be hurt by the decision? So think about what you have coming up. What might be a really good kind of starter conversation? And think about if there is like an easy lift text that is like laden in a value that will come up again and again in the year, and try this out.
Whether it is a text... Sorry, a text would be discussion-based, like he's talking about issue-based or, sorry, values-based, idea-based, or a deliberation that is issue or problem-based rather than a text. So either choice. Would love to hear what you come up with, would love to hear any challenges or questions that come up for you as you plan, and get excited for the rest of the season.