Planning a Discussion

Boy, did that lesson flop. It was bound to happen; I hear even the most experienced teachers have lessons that flop. But you have to just pick up the pieces, figure out what went wrong and how you can make it better, and keep going.

We were discussing teaching strategies in one of my college courses. To see some of the basic strategies new teachers should have in their repertoire, the professor put us into groups of 5-6 and assigned us a teaching strategy. The strategies assigned were: direct instruction, cooperative learning, problem based learning, and discussion. As I sat crossing my fingers for cooperative learning, my name was called for discussion.

In retrospect, it was good to be assigned something I didn't want to do. Why? Well I didn't want to do it because I didn't feel confident doing it and I don't have experience doing it. I've organized and successfully taught cooperative lessons, so naturally that would be easy for me to present. Of all the strategies I probably had the most to learn from planning and leading a discussion.

We could construct our lesson on any topic we wanted. I chose to discuss teacher planning because I thought, since we were just assigned readings on this in class, my 'students' would have a decent amount of background knowledge and would have seen planning in their practicum so therefore would have things to discuss.

Rule# 1: Don't assume anything about your students.

Turns out most of my students didn't do the reading so when I wanted them to "think about the 4 main benefits and consequences of teacher planning discussed in our assigned reading," I got blank faces.

Back to the beginning though.
I got up in front of the group and thought I had a decent anticipatory set. We talked about summer coming up, and if anyone knew someone getting married.... what kind of wedding was it, how long did they plan it... what would they have to sacrifice if they didn't take the time to plan it. Then tied it to teacher planning and the effects of not planning.
I then explained we were going to discuss benefits and consequences of planning. There were 4 categories discussed in the text  and as the students came up with ideas and examples I was going to write them on the board in the 4 categories then have them identify those categories. I threw a question at them, well actually it was my first 3 questions mashed into one. I got some confused looks as I was asking the question so I just kept talking and it ended up being 3 questions mashed into one. The confused looks though, now that I think back about it, were not because the question was confusing, it was because I hadn't given them any rules or format of the discussion. I had planned that, but forgot to say it! It was a struggle but we slowly got the discussion going but the questions I was asking wasn't yielding the responses I was looking for. There wasn't much discussion back and forth between students, it was more just my asking a question and one of them answering. I got through it the best I could, wrapped it up by summarizing the 4 points, then realized I didn't do the other part of the lesson I had planned. They were supposed to have had pencil and paper during the discussion and write down one thing they learned and will use in their teacher planning then share with the group. And.... I didn't do that either.

Epic Fail

Here is where I went wrong in the lesson:
1. I assumed students had done the reading assignments and were prepared. The reading were assigned by the professor but they didn't know they would be discussing it, so naturally they were not prepared to do such an activity.
2. I didn't follow my own plan! At the time I began my lesson presentation the professor had come to our room and I got nervous with her watching me and I forgot some important aspects of the plan, which then confused the students and it went down hill from there.
3. I had bad questions, I didn't have enough questions.

Here is what I would do different next time:
1. Follow my plan. Sounds obvious but a teacher can't afford to get nervous and forget the plan if a principal comes in to observe. I should have had a copy of my plan out, or some notes to make sure I followed each step of my plan.
2. I would have given the students time to brainstorm ideas or talk with a partner before holding a class discussion. That way, if they were not prepared, they would have time to form or borrow ideas from classmates.
3. I would have made more questions, and better questions. More open ended, more "why?" or "what do you think?" Most of my original questions I had answers in my mind I wanted them or expected them to say. I would form questions where I wouldn't necessarily be able to anticipate their response because if I have questions where I expect them to say something, and they don't, then I'm stuck. My plan cannot be so rigid.

I would be interested to hear about your experiences planning and holding discussions in your classrooms! Please share!