Oral Language

(a) Please reflect back on your middle school, high school, and college-level experiences in your content area. Then, please choose one discussion in your content area that stood out to you because it was especially striking, compelling, interesting, thought-provoking, or enjoyable. Please describe that experience. What did the teacher do to facilitate the discussion? How did the teacher's facilitation of the discussion compare to the "five elements of effective discussions" recommended in the Van De Weghe article?

I loved my college drafting class instructed by Trevor Robinson.  It was different because most of the time in a self-paced class, there is very little discussion, especially as a whole class.  But he really tried to get us thinking about the industry and our place in the field.  He asked authentic questions, not just questions that he found at the back of the chapter, that he already knew the answers to.  He genuinely wanted to know our opinions.  Knowing that I was already very experienced in the drafting industry, he often encouraged me to share my point of view with the class.  This gave me an opportunity to feel valued and respected as a class member and also as a professional.  It gave students the chance to see a small snapshot of what I did on the job on a daily basis.  I also was able to learn from the other students in my class as they asked questions about drafting that I had never thought about.  Getting to experience their creativity and imagination in their designs, I became a better draftsman, and was better able to think outside the box at work.

I especially liked the discussion we had in that class about roof styles.  We were able to discuss the pros and cons of different roof styles, and which eras and styles they originated from.  He really could have just showed us a quick worksheet and called it good, but instead, he really encouraged us to think about the styles and discuss them and their unique characteristics.  That class period lasted for three hours, but it really flew by for me, because it was so engaging and enjoyable.

To facilitate the discussion, he had a slide show with lots of images that were interesting to look at.  He allowed us time to discuss each image, and never made us feel rushed, so we felt encouraged to ask all the questions that we had.  Some of the questions he asked us, were simple, but a lot of them were very open and authentic, meaning that he had a good reason to ask:  he did not know what we would come up with, and he was curious to find out what our ideas were and what we were thinking.  He also encouraged us to think at a higher level and asked many probing questions to get us thinking more deeply about the curriculum.