Making Sense with Guided Discussions
A while back, we started looking at sense-making activities for the presentation phase of a lesson. Our first post introduced the idea; our second listed types of sense-making activities with brief examples. Now, we are slowly making our way through each type with more detailed examples and potential usage guidelines.
So far, we’ve looked at games for sense-making, objective exercises, information gap activities, and audio/visual prompts. The focus of this post is on guided discussions. As you read through the examples and guidelines below. Keep in mind:
Our Definition of Sense-Making Activities: Here on Master Teaching, we’re defining sense-making activities NOT as practice exercises or tasks that follow up on the presentation of new material. Rather, they are presentation phase activities that guide students to make sense of new information before or in place of a lecture or explanation given by the teacher or textbook.
Your Participation: We’d love to hear from you about your sense-making activities. If you’d like to submit an activity or report on one you’ve used, you can post a comment below or communicate with us privately through our contact us page.
Now, let’s talk about using guided discussion as sense-making activities during the presentation phase of a lesson.
Definition
Sense-making discussions are guided interactions between teacher and students in a whole class setting or between small groups of learners with specific prompts that lead or build toward correct conclusions about content. Although they are often used in combination with other types of sense-making activities, they can also stand alone.
In my recent planning, designing guided discussions according to an hourglass structure has been helpful. First comes a broad question or two in order to activate learners’ background knowledge, engage them in the topic, and begin to elicit the new content. Then at the neck of the hourglass where new information is “presented,” questions narrow. Finally, in order to check understanding and lead into the practice phase of the lesson, questions broaden back out, perhaps returning to the background knowledge from the top of the hourglass or pulling in other ideas including learners’ experiences and opinions.
Guidelines
When using a guided discussion as a sense-making activity, leading learners toward specific goals and particular conclusions takes planning and patience. Following the guidelines below may help.
1. Preparing questions ahead of time ensures that the discussion guides learners to specific conclusions.
2. Using a mental flow chart is one way to keep the discussion on track. For example, if the broad opening question doesn’t take learners toward the neck of the hourglass, one of the potential follow up questions from the flow chart will turn learners the right direction. Or, if learners get stuck in the neck, other questions from the flow chart may break a concept down into manageable pieces until they find their way out.
3. Taking notes can help you monitor learners’ progress through the hourglass. You can also use their ideas (rather than yours) to ask next questions that lead them through the neck.
4. Different types of questions serve different purposes.
- Broad questions on either end of the hourglass leave room for a wide range of answers to choose from as you aim for the neck or bring the discussion to a close. Questions at the neck are more specific especially when breaking a difficult concept down for learners to figure out.
- In order to reach the goals of sense-making, questions teachers already know the answer to (sometimes called display questions) may be necessary. When appropriate for learners and the situation, however, some creative wording might be more empowering, than directly asking for known information, for example: a) What did you take away from the previous activity? b) What is your understanding of…? c) How would you explain…? d) How does this work in your experience/culture? e) What is easiest/most difficult to understand about…?
5. A few considerations to encourage all learners to participate, regardless of level and affective factors:
- How could chairs, desks, or students be moved so that everyone can hear and make eye contact with one another?
- Who will readily volunteer to join the discussion? Who has ideas but needs to be called on? Who might need encouragement to hold back? Who needs to answer easy questions or be called on last so that they have time to prepare mentally and emotionally?
- How might a think/write-pair-share set up give learners time for preparation (think/write) and practice (pairs) before participating in a whole class discussion (share)?
- How much wait-time do learners need?
Examples
In preparation for this post, I gave myself the task of following my own advice while preparing for two discussions on opposite ends of the spectrum, one in a community ESL class in the U.S., the other in an online course on second language acquisition for Chinese students. The links below will take you to the results.
1. Community ESL Class: The questions on my list provided a guide to ensure I stayed at the learners’ level and within their learning zone.
2. Online SLA Course: When I led this discussion, I didn’t ask the exact questions on my list although they did provide a guide which kept me from taking over and giving answers rather than asking questions.
Further exploration
- For developing learners’ discussion skills: Developing Students’ Discussion Skills or Discussion Skills.
- Strategies adaptable to guided discussion: Discussion Strategies or Diamond Discourse.
Try it out
How do you structure guided discussions to help learners figure out new information? What hourglass examples do you have? Or what other structure do you follow, and how does it work? You can respond in the comments below or in a private message through our contact us page.
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