Discussion-based approaches to instruction, coupled with challenging academic demands, are positively related to students’ literacy performance, a recent study has found. The study examined the way ...

Early this year, after the pandemic had moved my classroom online, a student asked if we could try “silent meetings” in a course I was teaching. At first I assumed that, like many of us, he was just ...

As we approach the fall semester, one thing everyone who is returning to in-person teaching should be thinking about is how they will run discussions. Class discussions have always been complicated, ...

One of Kevin Gannon’s favorite class discussion activities doesn’t involve much talking. Inspired by complete-the-story games in which players each write a line of a tale that builds off a previous ...

Why Are Class Discussions Challenging? There are a variety of reasons that class discussions are challenging. It’s not necessarily just students being “lazy”. There could be a lot of real issues and ...

As an undergraduate, I took a seminar dedicated entirely to Ulysses by James Joyce. Joyce’s modernist novel is mystifying, so question marks hung on the ends of students’ contributions. As we ...

Academic instructors, hired for their content expertise, are rarely trained in skills like classroom facilitation or community-building. But successful collaborative learning requires a degree of ...

This week's ouster of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and the resulting turmoil on Capitol Hill has made for some very timely discussions in high school civics classes. This week's turmoil on Capitol ...