Effective Class Discussions
Discussion offers the opportunity to hear student perspectives and engage in debate and dialogue, but it also presents challenges like encouraging participation among a wide variety of students, ensuring a variety of ideas and points of view are heard, and helping students engage in civil dialogue about difficult topics. Here are some of our favorite resources to help improve the experience and increase learning:
- Designing Effective Discussions
- Online Discussion Boards
- Padlet – an interactive discussion board
- How to use Padlet in your class?
- Improving Breakout Room Discussions in Online Teaching by Using Collaborative Documents
- Watch UTSA faculty discuss utilizing Zoom breakout rooms in their courses
- How to Find the Power of Dialog Online
- Scaffolds and Hashtags for Student Engagement in Online Discussions
- For news from left, center, right, direct students to allsides.com
- How to Lead a Discussion
- The Big List of Class Discussion Strategies
- What Does Research Tell Us About Class Discussion?
- How to Build a Better Class Discussion
- Classroom Discussions: How to Apply the Right Amount of Structure
- Class Discussion: From Blank Stares to True Engagement
- Getting Students to Discuss by Channeling the Affective Domain
- Two Minute Teaching Tip: How to Use Note Cards to Create Dialogue
- Two Minute Teaching Tip: Create Dialogue with a Personal Response System
- Civil Discussions in the Classroom
- Civil Discourse in the Classroom
- Balancing Classroom Civility and Free Speech: Lessons from a history classroom. An Essay by UTSA History Professor, Catherine Nolan-Ferrell for AAUP
- Free Speech Resources
- Tips for Managing Emotional Discussions in the Classroom
- Facilitating Class Discussions and Navigating Difficult Conversations
- Teaching the Art of the Difficult Classroom Conversation
- Seven Bricks to Lay the Foundation for Productive Difficult Dialogues
- Difficult Dialogues
- Controlled Fission: Teaching Supercharged Subjects
- Let’s Talk! Discussing Race, Racism and Other Difficult Topics with Students
- Dangerous Speech Project
- The Benefits Of Saying “Ouch”
- Heterodox Academy