Speaker 1: The focus of this month's videos has been on small ways of making your teaching life easier. So I started by talking about how you can make your grading process go faster, and then I shifted to dealing with problematic student behavior, especially laptop and cell phone use and how you can make it into a positive thing. And then this week I want to talk about some in-class discussion designs that will make your students more interested in engaging in your discussions. And then next week I'll finish off by having kind of a plan with me video to show different spreads and layouts you can use to make again your teaching life a bit easier. So let's get started with today's video. So just like my video on how to make grading faster, today's video is based off of older blog posts that I've already written, and I'll have that linked below just to make it easier for you to find. And so basically in that blog post I go over five designs of in-class discussions that my students tend to enjoy and engage with more than just me asking them questions and them answering. The first design is very common. It's called a think-pair-share. You might have heard of it, but basically it's a three-part activity in which first you have your students think individually about some kind of prompt or question or scene from a novel, etc., and write down some notes on their own about what they think about this question or this scene, etc. And so this could just be a few minutes of them brainstorming their thoughts on this thing. And after that you head to the pair element of it. And so they pair up with a partner and they kind of go back and forth sharing what they thought in answer to this question or to this prompt. And so again, that's a few minutes of time where they compare and contrast notes. Maybe they come up with new ideas in regard to what you want them to be thinking about. And then you follow up with the share portion. And so this takes up the most time because of course now you're sharing it with the whole class. And so they can partner up and share as partners or you can just have them who wants to share what they thought about this thing. And so in this way, rather than ask them a question and then hoping somebody answers immediately in front of the whole class, you have some time to build their confidence by having them think individually and then with a partner. And so this can help you get more answers rather than a lot of silence when you ask questions in class. Another in-class discussion style that works well are small group presentations. So small group activities I'm sure are very common and you've heard those, but specifically having your students break up into small groups and again, discuss some kind of question or do some type of activity. But then instead of just opening up the room to like who wants to now discuss what we just said aloud to the whole class, have each group present their findings or their ideas to the class as a whole. And so they can do that while sitting down or you can have them come up to the front of the class and present. So I would suggest doing that second type if you know that they have individual presentations coming up later, so they can have some practice doing that with partners so they can feel less anxious about it. And so I definitely recommend presentations in small groups and not just, you know, who wants to respond to this, right? Have them all respond because in that way you can be ensuring that you're hearing from all types of students and not just the ones who usually speak up in class anyway. Now if a think-pair-share or even the group presentations, it's too slow a process for you because it involves too many steps before you get to the whole class discussion. Then you're going to do something shorter like a write and then share, right? Instead of a think-pair. So similar to a think-pair-share, you'll have students answer something, but you'll have them do it in written form. So answer a series of questions, create a concept map, whatever it is you want them to do, write an analysis of a scene. And then once they do that, then you open it up to the whole floor. So there's no partner version, right? And there's no group element where they have to introduce themselves and talk amongst themselves for a while. It's just individual to the whole class. One advantage of this is potentially you can have them do the writing portion and collect that before you discuss it. So in that way you know on their own this student was able to think of this, right? And I never heard them speak in the discussion, and so I know at least what they could do on their own, right? In a similar manner, you can say, okay, well, this student said this in writing, but then as the discussion progressed, they made this great point, but it only happened once there was a discussion going on. They couldn't seem to see it by themselves, at least not according to its written portion. So you can just go write and then share rather than the think-pair-share or the group discussion presentations. And the fourth design that's actually the one my students like the most is what I call the survey debate. And so I use Kahoot for this because, of course, I mention it all the time, and I've linked it again below. But basically on Kahoot, the website, you can create a survey. And so you're limited to the characters, but you can have either a question or a prompt, and then there can be up to four answers to that question or prompt. And so I'll create a list of questions related to a topic or to the novel, and they have obviously a variety of answers. And in class, they all take out their cell phones and they log into the Kahoot game. And so I ask the question, they can read the answers on the projected screen, and then they pick what answer they either believe is right or the opinion that they agree with. And then once all of them answer, on the board it shows how many chose each of these answers. And so once that happens, the game pauses, and I say, okay, well, let's debate it. Those of you who said answer A, what proof do you have that this is how she's characterized in this novel? Those who chose B, why do you think that is? What proof do you have of this? And so we actually get into a debate using the questions. And again, I've had students say, I really like this because it gave us a starting point that we didn't have to come up with for the debate. And then we could actually see, well, 15 people agree with me, so if I answer it, I probably won't seem strange because I know for a fact that other agrees with my answer. So that's kind of a way to ensure confidence as well in debates, which again can be hard for some students to be confident in their opinion or in the facts that they see when doing the activity. And then finally, the last activity, and this one I use more rarely, is called the fishbowl activity. And so there's various ways of this working out. You can look it up online. But basically how I did it is you break up the class into groups, and then let's say there's five groups of six people. Then you're going to ask six questions, right? And so for the six questions, each question is assigned to one group member. And so they have time to, let's say, discuss question one, but the one who's been designated to be the question representative, once they finish the discussion, those individual students come up to the front of the class, and they represent their group in saying, okay, well, we came up with these answers, we came up with this proof. And then as a class up there, they kind of show what their group members had to say. And then they go back to their group, and then question two starts. And then the student who represents question two comes up to the class, and again, they share their answers to the class as a whole. And so in this way, every single student speaks in this activity. And of course it takes basically the whole class period to do so. So I don't like forcing students to speak in class, but I've had success with this, right? Like they seem to feel less put on the spot, because they know everybody is speaking. And they know in advance, I'm only speaking about one question, I don't have my classmates and my group mates to tell me, you know, what should I say in front of the class, I don't have to do it by myself. And so this could be an idea too, if you want to get a sense of all of your students, and their grasp of the concepts and other material. And then just as a bonus example, that's not talked about in the blog post, one thing that also works very well, is of course using your chalkboard or your marker board in class, for your discussions. And so many a time, I'll come up with a design, and just break up the board into either different concepts, or into different groups, or different students, whatever the case may be. So for example, if we're talking about the fairy tales, that they've read for homework, then I might have on the board, okay, well here's Little Mermaid, and here's Sun, Moon, and Talia, and here's Sleeping Beauty, and here's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, you know, they're all on the board. Now I want each of you to go up there, and write one fact about the female characters, in these fairy tales, right, that you want to discuss. And so they go on the board and they write. And they come down, and then I lead discussion, looking at, okay, all of you, you know, do you think this element is important? Why? You know, I noticed nobody mentioned this element of Little Mermaid, why? And so you get into a discussion. And then you can erase the board and say, alright, you know, now let's talk about the male characters. And again, they go up and go back, etc. And so again, that can get them moving, which can get them more engaged, right? And it also gives them a sense of, alright, well I can kind of influence where the discussion goes, depending on where I write on the board. And so it gives them a bit more power there. And so I do think, use your resources in the classroom, right? Get them up and moving, if at all possible. And so that's another design that seems to work well with my students too. Because they like being able to see it on the board, and some of them take notes so they have that, you know, in mind as we go forward in the discussions, you know, after that fact. And so those are six types of in-class discussion designs that I've used in my classroom with a lot of success. And so I recommend checking them out, and trying them out in your own classroom, especially if you teach literature. But even if you don't, there are definitely ways of adapting it to whatever field that you teach in your courses. So if you found this video helpful, I would appreciate you clicking the like button below. And if you want to make sure not to miss out on any future teaching tips and tools, then I suggest clicking the subscribe button as well. I'll see you next week. Thank you.