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Jessica Parrish
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As the semester progressed, I mixed up the way group discussion groups work. Sometimes it was a small group discussion with their table group. Sometimes I assigned small groups a certain thing to look for in a chapter, they have a discussion with their group members, and then do a jigsaw activity where they then meet up with one person from each of the other groups to discuss each of their assigned topics together. Sometimes we came together for an old fashioned Socratic Seminar. Occasionally, we had days that are simply individual read days. Regardless of what discussion looks like on any given day, the most notable things is that, “Discussions are made up of engaged students interacting with content and co-creating learning” (Istas, 2017, para. 12).
What I have found is they have taken more ownership of their learning than before. They are held accountable because they know there is a group counting on them for contribution and insight. They seem to be enjoying their novels more, overall. All this is not to say that there are not days where discussions do not go as smoothly as I would have hoped, but overall I have seen great improvement in the understanding of our readings as well as analyzation and comprehension skills.
References
Henning, J. (2007). The art of discussion-based teaching: Opening up conversation in the classroom. New York, NY: Routledge.
Istas, B. (2017). Increasing student engagement through student-led discussions. Retrieved from https://www.learnersedgeinc.com/blog/increasing-student-engagement-through-student-led-discussions
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