Reading over your posts prior to the semester, particular Susan’s and Neil’s, I’m struck by the reliance on “discussion” as taking up most of the class time. I want to spend some time thinking about what we mean by this, to think about how we might pay attention to what actually happens, and even to experiment with different ways of holding discussions during class time.
What, for example, might a “constructivist discussion” look like? When you all write we have “discussions”, what exactly does this mean? Can you describe it, what it looks like, sounds like, what happens in the room, what doesn’t happen in the room, what a successful discussion is?
How do you design a discussion? Give the class one question? Or several? Do you have them write prior to opening up the floor for oral conversation (something I highly recommend and can talk more about)? How do you organize the interaction? Are you always the one who chooses who speaks next? Have you experimented with, for example, organizing a discussion so that after someone speaks they are to choose who goes next, either through the raised hand model or just picking someone at random?
I ask all these questions out of my curiosity around statements like Neil's "I'm used to discussions on readings taking up most of the time. Although useful, it's not totally 'constructivist'" and Susan's "We then had a discussion, sort of 'in character,' about the reasons for these motivations and the messy realities of governing."
Peter
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