Successful Classroom Discussions Begin Long Before Anyone Speaks
The idea that laying the groundwork for creating positive classroom discussions is often something we miss in the grander scheme of worrying about these hot moments. This piece appropriately addresses that.
For many students, speaking up in class was never easy, and it seems even harder after learning in isolation or via screens for many terms. Add to that the pressures of a hyper-polarised political climate, where students and faculty fear censure and tread lightly to avoid offending others, and the result is an environment in which facilitating classroom discussion can feel like pulling teeth.
While classroom discussions have never been easy, they seem especially important for students’ academic learning and social development following the pandemic lockdowns. Since the 1970s, research has accumulated showing that engaging people in classroom discussions about important issues grows their critical thinking and communication skills, civic knowledge and interest, comfort with conflict, and commitment to democratic values such as tolerance, diversity and equality. Such discussions don’t undermine or take away from content teaching but enhance it, studies show, by placing it in broader contexts and demanding that students make meaning out of what they have learned.