Few psychologists would claim that the lecture is dead but those who aspire to be good or even great teachers rely on this method less than their own teachers did. What’s taken its place? Engaging ...

So the day of the text-based discussion has arrived and all of the students have had time to think about their ideas, write them down and pair-share in preparation for a vibrant and meaningful student ...

My research on teaching and learning in higher education began when I was hired as a graduate assistant at the Searle Center for Teaching Excellence, at Northwestern University, back in the late 1990s ...

Discussion is a large part of teaching and learning. We want to see and hear our learners engaged in conversations about the course content, making connections to their lives or to other aspects of ...

Class participation is an important component of all Core Humanities courses. Being able to clearly and confidently express your ideas orally is a valuable skill, and it can only be learned through ...

The image used in this post is of a small group of students sitting in a room together, (seemingly) energetically talking about the issues at hand. This is an example of synchronous discussion—the ...

Why Are Class Discussions Challenging? There are a variety of reasons that class discussions are challenging. It’s not necessarily just students being “lazy”. There could be a lot of real issues and ...

As we approach the fall semester, one thing everyone who is returning to in-person teaching should be thinking about is how they will run discussions. Class discussions have always been complicated, ...

For many students, participating in online class discussions feels like a chore—a box to check off for participation points rather than a lively dialogue. “I go in there and do it because I have to,” ...

At some point in their career, every teacher will find themselves having a difficult discussion with their students. My first took place not long after I began teaching. It involved one of my students ...

The new question of the week is: What are the best ways to organize and lead classroom discussions? Part One featured responses from Rita Platt, Adeyemi Stembridge, PhD, Jackie Walsh, Doug Lemov, and ...

This seems to be the common rule in most classrooms. It is easily explained in a lecture setting. Indeed, everyone must be focused on what the professor is saying. A discussion would only create a ...