The majority of the talk that I see within my placement is
recitation. My mentor teacher asks the class pretty superficial questions, with
one specific answer, and a student raises their hand and answers. Typically the
same handful of students respond while the rest of the class is not engaged in
what their classmates and teacher are saying. I think that with this particular
group in order for discussion to take place it would be important to keep the
group on task. My students have a difficult time staying on a specific topic. I
think that it would also be difficult for them to build off of other students
responses. They would have meaningful contributions but they would act more as
statements as opposed to opinions that build and deepen the conversation. In
the reading they mentioned that it is a good idea for the teacher to facilitate
this and tell the students that it is important to listen as well as respond to
others responses. I think that my students would find it easy to come up with
things to say in general though. They are a very talkative group and would want
to contribute anything that they can. The only downfall would be that these
things may not follow what the goal of the discussion is. The other thing that
the reading mentioned that I think is a good idea to keep in mind when having a
classroom discussion is telling your students what the main goal of the
discussion is. This way they can focus down on specific comments and have an
easier time making connections within the discussion. I think that my class
would be able to have productive and meaningful discussion, but with some guidance
with how to appropriately respond to what is being said.
Is your teacher using the recitation for new topics, or for all of the readings that they are doing? I feel that discussions would provide students with a lot more of an in depth learning experience because they would find value in what they are doing by contributing to the discussion rather than asking dry one answered questions. How as a teacher would you facilitate a discussion? I think that it is often difficult for teachers in the elementary school years to give the reigns over to the kids and allow the students to discuss what they are reading on their own without much input. Would you have some backup opinion based questions handy to pose to your class, or would you just to remind the classroom of the goals and to listen to one another? I think that there may be some situations where the students need some guidance where the teacher can fuel the fire by posing opinion based questions. One thing that I have seen that was successful in a classroom that I worked in was book clubs, where each student much like in our reading had assigned roles and would use those roles to discuss the book that they were reading. I think that this really helped the kids talk about some in-depth topics because there was a smaller group and they were more comfortable to talk with one another than in a large group. It also allowed the struggling readers a better opportunity to engage with a book without feeling intimidated, and gave them the opportunity to have a voice. Would this be something that you would see as a valuable book discussion or do you think that a whole group discussion would be a better technique to have meaningful book discussions?
ReplyDeleteMy MT uses recitation for all readings, not just new topics. I actually haven't seen my class do a discussion in any subject all year. I definitely think that as a teacher it is good to be able to fuel the discussion and not just remind the students to listen to each other and stay on task. I think that sometimes children have a hard time clearly vocalizing what they think and as a teacher it is important to guide them through this and help them become stronger at it. I definitely would not want to just sit back and let the kids do everything, especially with a younger aged group like my class. I like the idea of the book clubs. I think it would allow more students to participate and to feel more comfortable since it is not the whole class they are speaking to. How did the teacher in the classroom that you saw this in handle guiding the students? Did they go to a different group each day? Or spend a few minutes with each group? I like the idea of the smaller groups but I'm not sure how as a teacher I would be able to guide all the different discussions that were taking place.
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