Assesment and Evaluation

Assessment and evaluation tasks appropriate for discussion consist of finding ways to follow up on discussions and to grade students for their contributions.

A. Follow up Discussion

Experienced teachers make both formal and mental notes for themselves following discussions. These notes can help determine subsequent lessons, for example :

• A discussion identifies some serious gaps in students’ knowledge about a topic
• Learning this might prompt a teacher to plan a presentation on a particular topic that came up in the discussion or to find suitable reading materials to assign students.
• A discussion can also identify aspects of a topic in which students are particularly interested.
• Teachers use the information they gain during discussions to plan lessons that will take advantage of this natural interest.
• The conduct of the itself will give the teacher information about the strengths and weaknesses of students’ thinking processes as well as the group’s ability to engage in purposeful dialogue.
• Future lessons can then be planned to strengthen areas targeted for improvement.
• Another aspect of following up a discussion is obtaining formal information from students about what they thought of the discussion and their role in it. The rating scale ilustrated in figure below can be an effective tool for gathering this type of assessment information.

How did you feel about today’s discussion ? Class treatment of issues superficial                                 1       2       3          4          5              thorough and deep Helpfullness of discussion to your understanding low                                              1       2       3          4          5                       high The class’s overall level of engagement low                                              1       2       3          4          5                       high Quality of your own participation poor                                            1       2       3          4          5                    excellent

B. Grading Classroom Discussion

Teachers use two ways to grade a discussion :

• give bonus points to students who consistently appear to be prepared for discussions and who make significant contributions.
• use the discussion as a springboard for a reflective writing assignment. The grade in this instance is given not for participation but for the student’s ability to reflect on the discussion and put in words that the discussion meant to him or her.

Classroom Discourse Patterns

A Final Thought

There is almost universal agreement among scholars and researchers that for real learning to occur, a different discourse pattern than the one currently found in most classrooms must be established. When asked about how they are going to teach, most beginning teachers will attest to the importance of providing opportunities for students to discuss important topics and to exchange ideas with each other and with the teacher.

Yet year after year, classroom observes say this is not happening. Teachers continue to dominate the talk that goes on in classrooms by presenting information and giving directions for students to follow. From research that teacher dominance of classroom discourse patterns and the rapid pace of this discourse are harmful.

Although most teachers agree that classroom discussions are an important part of the learning process, actual discussion time is often quite limited.

Managing the Learning Environment

The most important management tasks are those aimed at improving discussion and discourse patterns in the classroom. The following points explain several skill and norms which is critical for classroom discussion.

A. Slow The Pace and Broaden Participation

In some cases, we find that less than a half of student in the class become very active participant or we can say that those student dominate the discussion. To broaden participation and get real discussions going requires substantial changes to this limited pattern of discourse. The pace must be slowed down and the norms about questioning and taking turns modified. There are several strategies which usually used by experienced teachers.

1. Think-Pair-Share

Think-Pair-Share is not only used to increase student participation, but also used to slow down the pace of a lesson and extend student thinking.

2. Buzz Groups

When using buzz groups, a teacher asks students to form into groups of three to six to discuss ideas they have about a particular topic or lesson. Each group assigns a member to list all the ideas generated by the group. Then, the teacher asks the recorders to summarize for the whole class the major ideas and opinions expressed in their group. This method can change the dynamics and basic pattern of classroom discourse and are easy for most teachers to use.

3. Beach Ball

The teacher gives the ball to one student to start the discussion with the understanding that only the person with the ball is permitted to talk. Other students raise their hands for the ball when they want a turn. This method is recommended for younger students.

B. Increase Interpersonal Regard and Understanding

An open and honest communication process is perhaps the single most important variable for promoting positive classroom discourse and discussion. Fortunately, teacher’s leadership can be greatly influence the way discourse occurs in classroom.

Since communication is essentially a process of sending and receiving messages effective communication requires the sender of a message to express clearly what he or she intends to communicate and the receiver to interpret that massage accurately. The meaning intended in the sender’s mind may not be accurately expressed in a manner that does not fit the receiver’s prior experiences. This is called communication gap.

Following are four communication skills described by Schmuck and Schmuck. Two of these skills assist the sender, two assist the receiver.

1. Paraphrase

Paraphrase is a skill for checking whether or not you understand the ideas being communicated to you. Any means of revealing your understanding of a message constitute a paraphrase.

2. Describe Behavior

This skill occurs when one person reports specific observable behaviors of another person without evaluating them or making inferences about the other’s motives.

3. Describe Feeling

There are people who rarely describe how they are feeling. It would be better for those people act on their feeling so that the other could draw inference from it.

4. Check Impressions

Checking impressions is a skill that complements describing your own feelings and involves checking your sense of what is going on inside the other person.

C. Use Tools that Highlight Discourse and Thinking Skills

Frank Lyman and James McTighe have written extensively about the use of teaching tools, particularly visual ones, that help teachers and students learn discourse and thinking skills.

1. Visual Cues for Thinking-Pair-Share

Old habits, such as responding to teacher questions before thinking, blurting out answers without waiting, are difficult to change. Lyman and teachers working with him have developed various way of teaching students how to employ think-pair-share, especially how and when to switch from one mode to another.

2. Thinking Matrix

McTighe and Lyman (1988) also studied how to get students and their teachers to ask more questions that promote higher-level thinking and to analyze the nature of responses made to various types of questions. Lyman (1986) recommends that teachers create symbols that illustrate the various thinking process described in Bloom’s Taxonomy.

Planning and Conduction Discussion Lessons

Effective discussion require that teachers perform planning, interactive, management, and assessment task. Planning and conducting discussion are described in this section.

A. Planning for Discussion

There are two misconceptions held by many teachers in planning classroom discussion. First, planning for discussion requires less effort than planning for other kinds of teaching. Second, discussion cannot really be planned at all because they rely on spontaneous and unpredictable interaction among students. The truth are planning for a discussion necessitates every bit as much effort, perhaps more, as planning for other types of lessons, and even though spontaneity and flexibility are important in discussions, it is a teacher’s planning beforehand that makes these features possible.

1. Consider Purpose

Although the particular uses of discussion are practically infinite, teachers generally want their discussion to accomplish one of three purposes:

a. to check for student understanding of reading assignments or presentations through recitations

b. to teach thinking skills

c. to share experiences

2. Consider Students

Experienced teachers must consider their students’ prior knowledge and students’ communication and discussion skills. They consider, for instance, how particular students in the class will respond differently to various kinds of questions, they predict how some will want to talk all the time whereas others will be reluctant to say anything. It is also important to devise ways to encourage participation by as many students as possible, and to be prepared with questions and ideas that will spark the interest of a diverse student group.

3. Choose an Approach.

There are several kinds of discussions. The approach which is chosen by teacher is based on the teacher’s purpose and the nature of the students. Three approaches here are:

a. Recitations

One important use of this approach is when teacher ask students to listen to or read about information on a particular topic. Teacher generally ask students to read or listen with a definite purpose in mind. Brief question and answer sessions (recitation discussion) about assigned reading materials or a lecture can provide teachers with a means of checking students understanding as well as motivating students to complete their reading assignments or to listen carefully when the teacher is talking.

b. Inquiry or Problem Based Discussion

Discussions are sometimes used to engage students in higher order thinking and, thereby, to encourage their own intelectual investigation.

When using this approach, teachers encourage students to ask questions, to generate empirical data, and to formulate theories and hypotheses to explain the puzzling situation. In this type of discussion, teachers help students become conscious of their own reasoning processes and teach them to monitor and evaluate their own learning strategies.

c. Sharing-Based Discussion

Often teachers hold discussions for the purpose of helping students develop shared meaning from common experiences  or to confront one another with difference of opinions. Sharing – based discussion help students to form and to express thought and opinions independently.

4. Make a Plan

A lesson plan for discussion consists of a set of objective and a content outline. The plan also include the targeted content, well conceived focus statement, the description of a puzzling event, and/or a list of questions. If the discussion is to follow a lecture, it is likely that the teacher already has the content firmly in mind and has explored the important conceptual relationship. When the discussion follows assigned readings, experienced teachers know that they must have extensive notes about specific facts, main idea, points of view, and key relationships highlighted in the reading.

Sometimes teachers find using the conceptual web. It provides a visual image of the characteristics and relationships around a central idea.

For some types of discussions, asking student questions become a key feature. In preparing their questioning strategy, teachers need to consider both cognitive level of questions and their level of difficulty. Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives can be used for classifying the cognitive level of teacher questions in classroom discussion.

Table 3. Six Question Types According to Bloom’s Taxonomy

Level		Cognitive Processes	Examples of Questions
1	Knowledge	Recalling factual information	What is the formula for the area of a circle?How many sides does a pentagon have?
2	Comprehension	12 Using information	Find the area of a circle which has a radius 7 cm! 13 Find the area of the triangle above !
3	Application	Applying principles	Solve for x: x2 + 2x – 3 using the technique of completing the square?By the substitution method, find the solution of this equation:x + y =5 2x + 3y = 6
4	Analysis	Explaining relationship or making inferences	Pencils come in packages that contain 12 each and cost $2.00 each. John has $5.00 and wishes by 24 pencils. How many packages does he need to buy? “Which numbers are needed to solve this problem? (a) 12, $2.00, $5.00, 24, (b) 12, $2.00, $5.00, (c) 12, $2.00, 24, (d) 12, 24.”
5	Synthesis	Making predictions	What alternative methods could you use to find what whole numbers yield 60 when multiplied together?How is the way to find combination r element from n element ?
6	Evaluation	Making judgement or stating opinions	Judging whether it is better to find all prime factors of 60 or to produce an algebraic equation to solve the problem “what are the possible ways you could multiply to whole numbers to get 60”.Reduce this binomial using Pascal’s method and binomial Newton! Then, compare both of them! Which one is more effective? (x+3y)4 (x+3y)11

Beginning teachers should keep in mind one important truth, that is, that different questions require different types of thinking and that a good lesson should include both lower and higher level questions.

5. Use Physical Space Appropriately

Another planning task involves making arrangements for appropriate use of physical space. The best seating arrangements for discussion are the U-shape and the circle formations. Both seating patterns allow students to see each other, an important condition for verbal interaction. Both have some advantages and disadvantages that should be considered.

The U-shape seating pattern, gives a bit more authority to the teacher, an important feature when working with groups of student who lack discussion skills or where behavior management is a problem. This shape also allows freedom of movement for teachers to the chalkboard or flip chart, which may be important during the course of a discussion, and they can move into the U to make closer contact with particular students when that is needed. The disadvantages of the U is that it establish some emotional distance between the teacher, as discussion leader, and students. It also puts considerable physical distance between students who are sitting at the head of the U and those sitting at the end.

The circle seating pattern, on the other hand, minimize both emotional and physical distance among participants and maximize opportunities for students to talk freely with one another. The disadvantage of the circle is that it inhibits the teacher from moving freely to the chalkboard or among students.

B. Conducting Discussion

For whole-class discussion to be successful, some rather sophisticated communication and interaction skills are needed on the part of both teachers and students. It also requires norms that support open exchange and mutual respect. The syntax for most discussion consist of five phase : establishing set, focusing the discussion, holding the discussion, bringing it to close, and the briefing  As discussion leader, teacher also responsible for keeping the discussion on track by refocusing student digressions, encouraging participation, and helping to keep a record of the discussion.

Table 1. Syntax for holding Discussion

Phase	Teacher Behavior
Phase 1. Clarify aim and establish set	Teacher goes over the aim for the discussion and gets students ready to participate
Phase 2. Focus the discussion	Teacher provides a focus for discussion by describing ground rules, asking an initial question, presenting a puzzling situation, or describing a discussion issue.
Phase 3. Hold the discussion	Teacher monitor students interactions, ask questions, listens to ideas, response to ideas, enforces the ground rules, keeping record of the discussion, and expresses own ideas.
Phase 4. End the discussion	Teacher helps bring the discussion to close by summarizing or expressing the meaning the discussion has had for him or her.
Phase 5. Debrief the discussion	Teacher asks students to examine their discussion and thinking processes.

Hold the discussion.

As a whole-class discussion proceeds, many circumstances can get it off track. In some cases, students will purposely try to get the teacher off the topic, as, for instance, when they want to talk about last Friday’s ball game instead of the causes of World War. Talking about Friday’s game is fine if that is the objective of the lessons, but it is not appropriate if the aims is to encourage student reasoning.

A second example of wandering is when a students expresses an idea or raises a question that has little or nothing to do with the topic. This happens often, particularly with students who have trouble concrete-ting in school. It also likely to happen with younger students who have not been taught good listening and discussion skills.

In both instances, effective discussion leaders acknowledge students’ offtrack remark and then refocus their attention to the topic.

Keeping records.

Verbal exchange during a discussion proceeds more orderly if teachers keep some type of written record of the discussion as it unfolds. Writing student’s main ideas or points of view on the chalkboard or flip chart provides this written record. Or it may consist of constructing conceptual webs that illustrate the various ideas and relationship being discussed.

A dilemma faced by beginning teachers in keeping a discussion record is how much detail to include and whether or ot all ideas should be written down. These decisions obviously, depend on the nature of the students involved and the purpose of the discussion.

If the teacher has asked students specifically for their theories or ideas about a topic, it is important to list all ideas and treat these equally, regardless of their quality. On the other hand, if questions focus on direct recall of right answers, then only right answer should be recorded. How to respond to incorrect responses will be discussed in a moment.

Listening to Students’ ideas.

A favorite discussion technique used by many teachers at the high school and college levels is “playing the devil’s advocate”. Teacher using this technique purposely take the opposite point of view from that being expressed by individual students or groups of students. Event though this approach can create lively exchange between a teacher and few of the more verbal students, it does not work well with younger students or with many older students who lack good verbal and communication skill. Debate and argument arouse emotions, and despite their motivational potential may divert the student’s attention from the topic. They also cause many-less articulate or shy  students to shrink from participation. If the teacher’s goal is to help students understand a lesson and extend their thinking, then the teacher should listen carefully to each students’s ideas. In this case, the teacher should remain nonjudgmental and inquiry-oriented, rather than challenging or argumentative.

Using Wait-Time.

Earlier we discussed how many teachers do not give the students sufficient time to think and to respond. There are probably several reasons for this. One is the strong cultural norm in our society against silence. Silence makes many people uncomfortable and, consequently, they jump in to keep the conversation moving. Although many contextual conditions influence wait-time, the general recommendation are for beginning teacher to practice waiting at least three second for a student’s response, to ask the question again or in a slightly different way if there is no response, and never to move on to a second question without some closure o the first. The amount of wait-time should probably be less for direct recall questions and more for questions aimed at higher-level thinking and more complex content. After a student response, teachers should also wait a sufficient time before moving on.

Responding to student Answer.

When student respond correctly to teachers’ questions. Effective teachers acknowledge to the correct answer affirmations such as, “ That’s right”, “ Oke”, or “ Yes”. They do not spend time providing overly gushy praise. Most teacher learn these behaviors quite quickly. However, responding to incorrect or incomplete responses is a more complicated situation. There is the guide :

a. Dignify a student’s incorrect response or performance by giving a question for which the response would have been correct.

For example, “George Washington would have been the right answer if I asked you who was the first president of the United State”.

b. Provide the student with an assist, or prompt.

For example, “ Remember, the president in 1828 was also a hero in the war of 1812.”

c. Hold the student accountable.

For example, “ You didn't know President Jackson to day, but I bet you will tomorrow when I ask you again.”

Responding to student Idea and Opinions.

Although the art of questioning is important for effective discussions, other verbal behaviors by teachers are equally important, especially those for responding to students’ ideas and opinions. These are responses aimed at getting students to extend their thinking and to be more conscious of their thinking processes. Statements and questions such as the following provide illustrations on how to do is.

Expressing Opinions.

Many beginning teachers are uncertain about whether or not they should express their own ideas and opinions during discussion. Although teachers do not want to dominate discussion or make it appear that they are the only ones with good ideas, expressing ideas appropriately can be beneficial. It provides opportunities for teachers to model their own reasoning processes and to show students the way they tackle problems. It also communicates to students that the teacher sees himself or herself as part of a learning community interested in sharing ideas and discovering knowledge.

End the Discussion.

In the end of the discussion some teachers ask students to summarize the discussion by posing a final question such as, “ what is the main thing you got from our discussion today?” or “ What do you thing was the most provocative point made during our discussion?”.

Debrief the discussion.

From time to time discussions should be debriefed. Here, the focus is not the content of the discussion but on the way the discussion proceeded. To conduct a successful debriefing, teachers must teach students the differences between the discussion itself and the debriefing and then pose questions such as :” How do you think our discussion went today? Did we give everyone a chance to participate? Did we listen to one another’s ideas? Were there times when we seemed to get bogged down? Why? What can we all do next time to make our discussion more stimulation or provocative?

Theoretical and Empirical Support of Classroom Discussion

A. Theoretical Support

Courtney Cazden (1986) wrote that “ spoken language is the medium by which much teaching take place and in which student demonstrate to teacher much of what they have learned”. Spoken language provides the means for students to talk about what they already know and to form meaning from new knowledge as it is acquired.

Marry Budd Rowe (1986) said that “to ‘grow’ a complex thought system requires a great deal of share experiences and conversation. It is in talking about what we had done and observed, and in arguing about what we make of about experience, that ideas multiply, become refined, and finally produce new questions and further exploration.

B. Empirical Support

Laurent Resnick and Leopold Klofer (1989) observed that the social setting provides occasions for modeling effective thinking strategies. Skilled thinkers (often the instructor, but sometimes more advanced fellow students) can demonstrate desirable ways of attacking problem, analyzing text, or constructing argument, but most important of all, the social setting may let students know that all the elements of critical thought -interpretation, questioning, trying possibilities, demanding rational justification- are social value.

Larry Cuban (1984) documented how the recitation pattern emerged early in the history of formal schooling and how it persisted throughout the twentieth century at almost all levels of schooling and across all academic subject.

Ned Flanders (1970) documented the teacher dominance of classroom communication. He concluded that in most classrooms, 2/3 of the talk is by the teachers. John Goodlad (1984) in his extensive study of school made essentially the same observation.

Richard and Patricia Schmucks (1989) visited and collected information on rural school in US. They studied twenty-five school districts in twenty-one states. They interviewed 212 teenagers about their school experience and observed lesson in over thirty high school classroom. In twenty-two out of the thirty classroom, they reported seeing mainly recitation lessons. The Schmucks (1994) reported teaching talking ¾ of the time and commented this was more than the 2/3 teacher talk Flanders observed three decades ago.

Mark Gall (1970), who has on several occasions reviewed and research on questioning, highlighted how frequently questions are asked in classroom and, like Cuban,  illustrated how a persistent pattern has existed large portion of school time talking ted overtime, mainly that teachers spend a large portion of school time talking and asking questions.

Barak Rosenshine was prepared to challenge the conventional wisdom when teachers provided immediate feedback about the correct and incorrect answers.

Redfield and Rousseau (1981), reported that asking higher-level and thought-provoking questions had positive effect of the student achievement and thinking.

Gall (1984) interpreted his research in the following way:

• Emphasis on fact questions is more effective for promoting young children’s achievement, which involves primarily mastery of basic skill.
• Emphasis on higher cognitive questions is more effective for students where more independent thinking is required.

Jere Brophy and Tom Good (1986) concluded that three guidelines should be considered by teacher when deciding how difficult to make their questions:

• A large proportions (perhaps as high as three-fourth) of a teacher’s questions should be at a level that will elicit correct answers from students in the class.
• The other one-fourth of the questions should be at a level of difficulty that will elicit some response from the students, ever if the response is in complete.
• No questions should be so difficult that students will not be able to response at all.

Mary Budd Rowe (1974)

Wait time is the pause between a teacher’s questions and the student’s response and between the response and the teacher’s subsequent reaction or follow up question. Mary Budd Rowe (1974) observed and concluded that the additional of wait time will increase the student’s response.

Overview of Classroom Discssion

Classroom discussion and discourse are key ingredients for enhancing student thinking and uniting the cognitive and social aspects of learning. When experienced teachers refer to classroom discourse, they often use the label discussion to describe what they are doing. Classroom discussions are characterized by students and teachers talking about academic materials and by students willingly displaying their thinking processes publicly.

Discussions are used to help students construct their own understanding and to improve communication and thinking skills.

Discussion are used by teachers to achieve at least three important instructional objectives :

• Discussion improves students’ thinking and helps them construct their own understanding of academic content. Discussing a topic helps students strengthen and extend their knowledge of the topic and increase their ability to think about it.
• Discussion promotes student involvement and engagement. It gives students public opportunities to talk about and play with their own ideas and provides motivation to engage in discourse beyond the classroom.
• Discussion is used by teachers to help students learn important communication skills and thinking processes. Because discussions are public, they provide a means for a teacher to find out what students are thinking and how they are processing the ideas and information being taught.