Discussions: Effective Discussions

Owned by Liam Mason (Unlicensed)
Oct 04, 2021
3 min read

  • Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers." - Voltaire

  • "My greatest strength as a consultant is to be ignorant and ask a few questions." - Peter Drucker

  • "We thought that we had the answers, it was the questions we had wrong." - Bono

  • Demonstrate content knowledge

  • Build 

    • Community

      • Autobiography

      • Portrait

      • Interview

    • Consensus

  • Reflection

  • Practice (student-led)

    • Facilitation 

    • Giving feedback 

Let’s Discuss

  • Looking at your course(s), what is your desired purpose for the discussion?

  • Convergent (closed)

  • Divergent (open)

  • Evaluative (judging)

  • Descriptive (is)

  • Prescriptive (should)

  • Deepen

  • Clarify

  • Redirect

McKeachie (2002)

  • Comparative (compare, contrast)

  • Evaluative (judging)

  • Connective-Causal (linking)

  • Critical (validating)

Momentum Questions

  • Marshall and Rossman

  • Bloom’s Taxonomy

  • Brookfield and Preskill

  • Descriptive

  • Exploratory

  • Explanatory

  • Emancipatory

Let’s Discuss

  • Looking at your course(s), what types of questions would be most appropriate for your content and outcome?

  • Web Field Trips

    • Museum Walk

  • Brainstorming

    • Delphi-ish Technique

  • Writing Groups

    • Peer Review

    • Collaborative Writing

  • Case Analysis

    • History Repeats Itself

    • Anywhere in the World But Here

  • Problem Solving

    • Reply to self

  • Debate

    • Point-Counterpoint

  • Summarizing

    • Takeaways

    • Clearest, Muddiest Points

  • Good old questions

    • Ask and answer

    • Initial post, X replies

Let’s Discuss

  • What types of activities match your content and outcomes? How is the activity influenced by the type of question being asked? Does it even matter?

Let’s Discuss

  • What PICA are you most concerned about? How can you design the experience to reduce the concern?

Let’s Discuss

  • What facilitation are you most concerned about? How can you take action to reduce the concern?

Let’s Discuss

  • What upsets you about discussions? How can you make positive steps to change the results? 

Let’s Discuss

  • What about faculty workload and discussions?  What do you know? What do you want to know?

    • Past

    • Present 

    • Future

Let’s Discuss

  • How will you design and implement your discussion to [combat, reduce, overcome] student difficulties?