Tag: discussion
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Four corners strategies: Using the room and movement to your advantage
When you first enter your classroom, what do you notice? Is it the location of all the exits, the types of seating, or the technology opportunities? Is it something else? Have you thought about the walls? This strategy helps us to use the corners in the room to help students to work through questions and…
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Generating buzz with buzz sessions
I don’t know about you, but sometimes a lesson is falling flat or students are struggling to bring the engagement for the day. So this quick post is a quick strategy to get them going again: Buzz Sessions. What it is: Students come together to generate ideas about a specific topic that are then used…
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Read-around for peer feedback
Providing a space for meaningful peer feedback is often difficult, especially given students come to it with negative experiences in their minds. We probably also come to the planning of peer review with our own negativity bias. I have had my fair share of unfortunate experiences where I walked away feeling wasted time with zero…
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The power of nonverbals
Entertainers are known to be able to “read the room.” The same can be said for public speaking. Yet, do we think the same about educators? I believe that having my undergraduate degrees in education and journalism (from the Diederich College of Communication) afforded me the perfect mix of reading and adjusting to the room.…
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Learning more about students with four corners
Sometimes I want students to share more of themselves with the class, but I also acknowledge that doing this may be difficult if we focus on individual call-and-response. This activity gives you the opportunity and flexibility to get to know your students in a way that will help them feel seen yet still part of…
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Keeping up with the conversation: Assessing your discussion leadership
The fifth strategy of a five-part post about discussion strategies. These five strategies will help students to improve small-group communication while also allowing them to synthesize important course content in large-group discussions. It is appropriate and fair to see setting up discussions as one of the most difficult instructional strategies in our lessons. The easiest…
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Keeping up with the conversation: Fishbowls
The fourth strategy of a five-part post about discussion strategies. These five strategies will help students to improve small-group communication while also allowing them to synthesize important course content in large-group discussions. It is appropriate and fair to see setting up discussions as one of the most difficult instructional strategies in our lessons. The easiest…
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Keeping up with the conversation: Speed dating
The third strategy of a five-part post about discussion strategies. These five strategies will help students to improve small-group communication while also allowing them to synthesize important course content in large-group discussions. It is appropriate and fair to see setting up discussions as one of the most difficult instructional strategies in our lessons. The easiest…
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Keeping up with the conversation: Affinity mapping
The second strategy of a five-part post about discussion strategies. These five strategies will help students to improve small-group communication while also allowing them to synthesize important course content in large-group discussions. It is appropriate and fair to see setting up discussions as one of the most difficult instructional strategies in our lessons. The easiest…
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Keeping up with the conversation: The jigsaw
The first strategy of a five-part post about discussion strategies. These five strategies will help students to improve small-group communication while also allowing them to synthesize important course content in large-group discussions. It is appropriate and fair to see setting up discussions as one of the most difficult instructional strategies in our lessons. The easiest…
Patrick R. Johnson, Ph.D., MJE 