B.

Ed Course Code 8601

Unit: 6 Part 2
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PLANNING THE
DISCUSSION
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OBJECTIVES OF THE UNIT
 After studying the unit, it is hoped that you will be able to:

 1. Explain the structure of classroom discussion.

 2. Discuss characteristics and different types of classroom discussion.

 3. Understand the procedure of planning an effective classroom discussion.

 4. Develop rules to organize classroom discussion.

 5. Discuss rationale and different types of questions in classroom discussion.

 6. Evaluate the tips for asking and answering questions during classroom
discussion.

 7. Identify advantages and disadvantages of discussion method.

 8. Specify the rules for improvement of classroom discussion.

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STEPS OF PLANNING THE
DISCUSSION
 1. Determine the goals of discussion.

 2. Assess prior knowledge and experiences of students.

 3. Assess and build your background knowledge on the topic.

 4. Provide a supportive environment for discussion.

 5. Offer your viewpoint, when necessary, to build knowledge or

correct misinformation.

 6. Allow for alternative viewpoints to agree or disagree.

 7. Plan meaningful connections between the discussion, over

the content, and real-life experience.
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Physical Space
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ORGANIZING THE DISCUSSION

 1. Teacher as a Facilitator:

 Creating Classroom Community:

 Accommodate Multiple Learning Styles:

 Remain Objective: Focus on Student Contributions:

 Be Honest: Criticize Constructively:

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ORGANIZING THE DISCUSSION

 2. Stay on Track

 Plan “Goal-Oriented” Discussions

 Ask “Goal-Oriented” Questions

 Avoid Being Derailed

 Deal Irrelevant Questions and Comments

 Refocus Attention: Write to Learn

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ORGANIZING THE DISCUSSION

 3. Thinking on Your Feet

 Be Well Prepared

 Learn to Stall

 Be Honest

 Don’t Fear the Silence: Respect and Use It

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ORGANIZING THE DISCUSSION

 4. Gauging Comprehension
 Avoid Yes or No Questions

 Summarizing and Paraphrasing

 Using Quizzes
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ORGANIZING THE DISCUSSION

 5. Suggestions to Organize Classroom Discussion

 Give the students a chance to be prepared for discussion

 Give yourself plenty of preparation time before class

 Ask questions at a variety of taxonomic levels during class

 Provide encouragement and praise for correct answers

 Occasionally the use of a blind quiz will help to encourage

class review

 Maintain a warm, outgoing, friendly atmosphere in class

 Summarizing the main points

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PRACTICING IN ASKING QUESTIONS

Teacher may ask variety of questions to stimulate students’ thinking

and guide discussion. There may be definitional questions like
“what does it mean?” there may be evidential questions i.e. “what
reasons can you give to defend your point of view?” or there may
be policy questions i.e. “what should be done?” (Larson and Keiper,
2010).

The type of the questions should depend upon the educational

objectives and the students.
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There are some typical types of open questions:

 Hypothetical: "What you will do if...?"

 Speculating: "How can we resolve this issue?"

 Defining: "Can anyone give additional elaboration about the

feasibility of that idea?"

 Probing: "Why do you feel that?"

 Clarifying/Summarizing: "Am I exactly saying what you think

that...?"
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Questions According to Bloom’s
Taxonomy
 Knowledge: In this domain, questions entail students to simple recall previously learned
material. If teacher’s purpose is to stimulate this domain, questions should be based
accordingly.

 Comprehension: In this domain, questions entail students to restructure or restate material

in a way to demonstrate their understanding of important meaning.

 Application: In this domain, such questions are asked which entail students to apply
previously learned material to solve problems in new situations.

 Analysis: Questions that demand students to split a concept into its constituent parts for
logical analysis.

 Synthesis: Questions that require students to combine their ideas into a statement, plan,
product, and so forth, that is new for them

 Evaluation: Questions that require students to judge something based on some criteria
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1. Probing Questions

 Exploratory questions:

These questions are asked to explore facts and probe basic knowledge of
students.

 Challenge questions:

 These questions are solicited to check assumptions, conclusions, and

analysis.

 Relational questions:

These questions check students’ ability to compare different themes,

thoughts, or
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1. Probing Questions

 Diagnostic questions

These questions probe students’ motives or causes.

 Action questions

These questions call for a conclusion or action.

 Cause-and-effect questions

These questions are solicited to ask students to develop causal relationships

between events, ideas or actions.


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1. Probing Questions

 Extension questions

These questions are asked to expand the discussion.

 Hypothetical questions

These questions asked to examine students’ ability to pose a change in the facts or
issues.

 Priority questions

Through these questions, teacher tries to recognize the most important issue.

 Summary questions

Mostly these questions bring forth synthesis.

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2. Tips to Ask Effective Questions

 Discuss the Elements of a Successful Discussion

 Brainstorm

 Pause

 Rearrange Your Classroom

 Avoid unproductive questions

 Recall questions

 Yes or no questions

 Leading questions
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2. Tips to Ask Effective Questions

Ask the kinds of questions that stimulate discussion

 Questions for students’ input: Keeping in view the remedial measures to stop

pollution, what steps you will take?

 “How” and “why” questions: How might this argument be made more

persuasive? Why do you think that____ made this argument?

 Evaluative questions: How convincing is the Iqbal’s poetry?

 Prediction questions: If ozone layer will destroy, what will happen next?

 Justification questions: What confirmation compelled you to wrap up that…?

 Rationale questions: Can you give the reason for your point of view?

 Generalization questions: How you will generalize your opinions?

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2. Tips to Ask Effective Questions

 Facilitate, don’t orchestrate:

 Ask other students if they agree or disagree with the previous

student’s comments.

 Collect multiple responses to the same question.

 Ask students to comment on a previous student’s comments.

 Redirect a student’s question to the other students.

 Encourage students to respond to one another.

 Give students the opportunity to lead a discussion.

 Build in reflection.
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PRACTICING IN ANSWERING
QUESTIONS
 1. Keep all students on-task.

 2. Teacher should avoid answering his own questions because it hinders

students’ to answer.

 3. Seat students in a semicircle.

 4. Get a student to take the initiative if the group is experiencing

momentary lull.

 5. Respond to student answers positively and constructively.

 6. Some students don’t like criticism, this hinders them to answer.

Praise rather than criticize.
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PRACTICING IN ANSWERING
QUESTIONS
 7. Use active listening.

 8. Encourage students’ input.

 9. Student may not give answers due to fear of mistakes, so

teacher should accept students’ mistakes.

 10. Encourage students to use variety of responses.

 11. Encourage quiet students.

 12. Sometimes students may not response due to shortage of

time, teacher should provide wait time.
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ASSESSING THE DISCUSSION

 Follow-Up Discussions:

Teacher should make formal and mental notes

 Grading Classroom Discussion:

Quantity or quality?

 One method is to give bonus points to students

 Second method is to use discussion as a springboard for a reflective

writing assignment. In this method, students are given a post-discussion
writing essay in which they reflect in words what the discussion meant
to them.
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RULES FOR DISCUSSION

 Explain the ground rules for participation.

 Ask students what makes an excellent class discussion.

 Give pointers on how to participate in class discussion.

 Ask students to think of some principles for discussion, which they

think everyone should follow.

 Teacher should write all of these suggested principles where every

student can see them. If suggestions are not obtained from
students, teacher can suggest some of the following principles for
the students:
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RULES FOR DISCUSSION

 Pay attention to the participant who is speaking;

 Only one participant speaks at a time;

 Before saying something, raise hand;

 When someone is speaking, don’t interrupt;

 In case of disagreement with a response, be careful that there

should be criticism on the response, not on the person;

 Don't mock on the person who is responding during discussion;

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RULES FOR DISCUSSION

 Give confidence to every student to participate.

 Copy the list of rules neatly and hang it where participants can
refer, add, or make changes to it as necessary.

 Set the norms for discussion in the first week of class.

 Conduct think-pair-shares on specific issues.

 Use small group assignments and have a group scribe or

reporter from each group share with whole class.
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RULES FOR DISCUSSION

 Divide class into teams for informal “debates” (teams prepare outside of
class or one class period prior to the debate).

 Use concentric circles to stimulate discussion.

 Have students share their individual concept maps in groups and write a
group concept map.

 Give students a complex question to consider. Have each write on this

question for 5-15 minutes. Then discuss in small groups or with the whole
class.

 Divide the material among students or groups of students. Require each

group to teach their peers the material they have studied.
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ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF
DISCUSSION METHOD

Advantages:
 1. The information acquired through discussion method is meaningful and helps students to
develop critical thinking and problem solving skills.

 2. Discussion technique leads students towards attitudinal change through self-awareness.

 3. Discussion technique can help the student to develop a positive self-concept.

 4. During discussion, student maintains high degree of mental alertness. Thus, discussion puts
positive effect upon students’ mental activity. This alertness is one reason why discussion is often
praised as being a motivator.

 5. Discussion gives the teacher information about the student which can help in a better
understanding of students, individually and collectively.

 6. If teacher is carefully observing the discussion session, it can provide him information about the
social, psychological, emotional, and skill development of the student.
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ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF
DISCUSSION METHOD

 Disadvantages:

 1. Discussion requires much time. That’s why this technique is usually time
consuming.

 2. Discussion often becomes a confused, meaningless activity because of some

boring topics or lack of students’ interests.

 3. In discussion, some students may never participate while a few may tend to
dominate.

 4. Long and/or frequent periods of silence can occur in a discussion. Such

silence often leads the teacher to take over the class in pursuit of the topic.
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ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF
DISCUSSION METHOD

 Disadvantages:

 5. During discussion, there is always a risk of controversial ideas which

disturbs the purpose of discussion.

 6. Teachers often become irritated because discussion may fail to lead to a

suitable conclusion or a desirable conclusion.

 7. Students usually don’t have sufficient informational background about the

topic or maturity to contribute to a meaningful discussion.

 8. Finally, there is the problem of evaluation. Teacher always face problem

to device measures to accurately measure the contribution of students
during discussion.
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GUIDELINES FOR MAXIMUM
UTILIZATION
 There should be an atmosphere of acceptance between
teacher-student and student- student relationship .Students
must feel free from threat in order to speak openly.

 The teacher must be fully familiar with the discussion topic. So

preparation of teacher is necessary.

 Preparation of students is also important for higher level of

participation. In this regard, the teacher must plan sufficient
learning activities prior to the discussion and encourage
students to participate.
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GUIDELINES FOR MAXIMUM
UTILIZATION
 Discussion should be used when learning objectives are
considered worth the extra time required. Generally, the
objectives appropriate to the discussion process would involve
higher- level cognitive, affective, and skill learning related to
discussion.

 The topics for discussion should be properly stated.

 Teacher should introduce the discussion topic by writing it on the

board.
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GUIDELINES FOR MAXIMUM
UTILIZATION
 When introducing the topic, teacher should take time to clarify
terms, establish the relevance of the topic, and create a sense
of psychological safety in the classroom.

 Variety of discussion types may be employed i.e. panels,

forums, debates, or buzz- sessions.

 When discussion is in progress, the teacher plays his role as

moderator by clarifying concepts, making tentative summaries,
stating conclusions, and keeping the discussion on track.
Teacher should realize his role with responsibility.
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GUIDELINES FOR MAXIMUM
UTILIZATION

 Dominance of the overly eager students may be handled by

discouraging them privately.

 When discussion is over, a summary of the discussion by the

teacher is desirable, but it is better if it is presented by students.

 Follow-up activities should be planned to enhance students’

learning.

 Lengthy responses and fully developed answers should be

encouraged.