The Big List of Class

Discussion Strategies
OCTOBER 15, 2015

JENNIFER GONZALEZ

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 Listen to this post as a podcast:

When I worked with student teachers on developing effective

lesson plans, one thing I always asked them to revise was the
phrase “We will discuss.”
We will discuss the video.
We will discuss the story.
We will discuss our results.
Every time I saw it in a lesson plan, I would add a note: “What
format will you use? What questions will you ask? How will you
ensure that all students participate?” I was pretty sure that We will
discuss actually meant the teacher would do most of the talking;
He would throw out a couple of questions like “So what did you
think about the video?” or “What was the theme of the story?” and
a few students would respond, resulting in something that looked
like a discussion, but was ultimately just a conversation between
the teacher and a handful of extroverted students; a classic case
of Fisheye Teaching.
The problem wasn’t them; in most of the classrooms where they’d
sat as students, that’s exactly what a class discussion looked like.
They didn’t know any other “formats.” I have only ever been
familiar with a few myself. But when teachers began contacting
me recently asking for a more comprehensive list, I knew it was
time to do some serious research.
So here they are: 15 formats for structuring a class
discussion to make it more engaging, more organized, more
equitable, and more academically challenging. If you’ve struggled
to find effective ways to develop students’ speaking and listening
skills, this is your lucky day.
I’ve separated the strategies into three groups. The first batch
contains the higher-prep strategies, formats that require teachers
to do some planning or gathering of materials ahead of time. Next
come the low-prep strategies, which can be used on the fly when
you have a few extra minutes or just want your students to get
more active. Note that these are not strict categories; it’s certainly
possible to simplify or add more meat to any of these structures
and still make them work. The last group is the ongoing
strategies. These are smaller techniques that can be integrated
with other instructional strategies and don’t really stand alone. For
each strategy, you’ll find a list of other names it sometimes goes
by, a description of its basic structure, and an explanation of
variations that exist, if any. To watch each strategy in action, click
on its name and a new window will open with a video that
demonstrates it.
Enjoy!

HIGHER-PREP DISCUSSION
STRATEGIES
GALLERY WALK >
a.k.a. Chat Stations
Basic Structure: Stations or posters are set up around the
classroom, on the walls or on tables. Small groups of students
travel from station to station together, performing some kind of
task or responding to a prompt, either of which will result in a
conversation.
Variations: Some Gallery Walks stay true to the term gallery,
where groups of students create informative posters, then act as
tour guides or docents, giving other students a short presentation
about their poster and conducting a Q&A about it. In Starr
Sackstein’s high school classroom, her stations consisted of video
tutorials created by the students themselves. Before I knew the
term Gallery Walk, I shared a strategy similar to it called Chat
Stations, where the teacher prepares discussion prompts or
content-related tasks and sets them up around the room for
students to visit in small groups.

PHILOSOPHICAL CHAIRS >

a.k.a. Values Continuum, Forced Debate, Physical Barometer,
This or That
Basic Structure: A statement that has two possible responses—
agree or disagree—is read out loud. Depending on whether they
agree or disagree with this statement, students move to one side of
the room or the other. From that spot, students take turns
defending their positions.
Variations: Often a Philosophical Chairs debate will be based
around a text or group of texts students have read ahead of time;
students are required to cite textual evidence to support their
claims and usually hold the texts in their hands during the
discussion. Some teachers set up one hot seat to represent each
side, and students must take turns in the seat. In less formal
variations (which require less prep), a teacher may simply read
provocative statements students are likely to disagree on, and a
debate can occur spontaneously without a text to refer to (I call
this variation This or That in my classroom icebreakers post).
Teachers may also opt to offer a continuum of choices, ranging
from “Strongly Agree” on one side of the room, all the way to
“Strongly Disagree” on the other, and have students place
themselves along that continuum based on the strength of their
convictions.

PINWHEEL DISCUSSION >

Basic Structure: Students are divided into 4 groups. Three of
these groups are assigned to represent specific points of view.
Members of the fourth group are designated as “provocateurs,”
tasked with making sure the discussion keeps going and stays
challenging. One person from each group (the “speaker”) sits in a
desk facing speakers from the other groups, so they form a square
in the center of the room. Behind each speaker, the remaining
group members are seated: two right behind the speaker, then
three behind them, and so on, forming a kind of triangle. From
above, this would look like a pinwheel. The four speakers
introduce and discuss questions they prepared ahead of time (this
preparation is done with their groups). After some time passes,
new students rotate from the seats behind the speaker into the
center seats and continue the conversation.
Variations: When high school English teacher Sarah Brown
Wessling introduced this strategy in the featured video (click
Pinwheel Discussion above), she used it as a device for talking
about literature, where each group represented a different author,
plus one provocateur group. But in the comments that follow the
video, Wessling adds that she also uses the strategy with non-
fiction, where students represent authors of different non-fiction
texts or are assigned to take on different perspectives about an
issue.

SOCRATIC SEMINAR >

a.k.a. Socratic Circles
Basic Structure: Students prepare by reading a text or group of
texts and writing some higher-order discussion questions about the
text. On seminar day, students sit in a circle and an introductory,
open-ended question is posed by the teacher or student discussion
leader. From there, students continue the conversation, prompting
one another to support their claims with textual evidence. There is
no particular order to how students speak, but they are encouraged
to respectfully share the floor with others. Discussion is meant to
happen naturally and students do not need to raise their hands to
speak. This overview of Socratic Seminar from the
website Facing History and Ourselves provides a list of
appropriate questions, plus more information about how to prepare
for a seminar.
Variations: If students are beginners, the teacher may write the
discussion questions, or the question creation can be a joint effort.
For larger classes, teachers may need to set up seminars in more of
a fishbowl-like arrangement, dividing students into one inner
circle that will participate in the discussion, and one outer circle
that silently observes, takes notes, and may eventually trade places
with those in the inner circle, sometimes all at once, and
sometimes by “tapping in” as the urge strikes them.

LOW-PREP DISCUSSION
STRATEGIES
AFFINITY MAPPING >
a.k.a. Affinity Diagramming
Basic Structure: Give students a broad question or problem that
is likely to result in lots of different ideas, such as “What were the
impacts of the Great Depresssion?” or “What literary works
should every person read?” Have students generate responses by
writing ideas on post-it notes (one idea per note) and placing them
in no particular arrangement on a wall, whiteboard, or chart paper.
Once lots of ideas have been generated, have students begin
grouping them into similar categories, then label the categories
and discuss why the ideas fit within them, how the categories
relate to one another, and so on.
Variations: Some teachers have students do much of this exercise
—recording their ideas and arranging them into categories—
without talking at first. In other variations, participants are asked
to re-combine the ideas into new, different categories after the first
round of organization occurs. Often, this activity serves as a good
pre-writing exercise, after which students will write some kind of
analysis or position paper.

CONCENTRIC CIRCLES >

a.k.a. Speed Dating
Basic Structure: Students form two circles, one inside circle and
one outside circle. Each student on the inside is paired with
a student on the outside; they face each other. The teacher poses a
question to the whole group and pairs discuss their responses with
each other. Then the teacher signals students to rotate: Students on
the outside circle move one space to the right so they are standing
in front of a new person (or sitting, as they are in the video). Now
the teacher poses a new question, and the process is repeated.
Variations: Instead of two circles, students could also form two
straight lines facing one another. Instead of “rotating” to switch
partners, one line just slides over one spot, and the leftover person
on the end comes around to the beginning of the line. Some
teachers use this strategy to have students teach one piece of
content to their fellow students, making it less of a discussion
strategy and more of a peer teaching format. In fact, many of these
protocols could be used for peer teaching as well.
CONVER-STATIONS >
Basic Structure: Another great idea from Sarah Brown Wessling,
this is a small-group discussion strategy that gives students
exposure to more of their peers’ ideas and prevents the stagnation
that can happen when a group doesn’t happen to have the right
chemistry. Students are placed into a few groups of 4-6 students
each and are given a discussion question to talk about. After
sufficient time has passed for the discussion to develop, one or
two students from each group rotate to a different group, while the
other group members remain where they are. Once in their new
group, they will discuss a different, but related question, and they
may also share some of the key points from their last group’s
conversation. For the next rotation, students who have not rotated
before may be chosen to move, resulting in groups that are
continually evolving.

FISHBOWL >
Basic Structure: Two students sit facing each other in the center
of the room; the remaining students sit in a circle around them.
The two central students have a conversation based on a pre-
determined topic and often using specific skills the class is
practicing (such as asking follow-up questions, paraphrasing, or
elaborating on another person’s point). Students on the outside
observe, take notes, or perform some other discussion-related task
assigned by the teacher.
Variations: One variation of this strategy allows students in the
outer circle to trade places with those in the fishbowl, doing kind
of a relay-style discussion, or they may periodically “coach” the
fishbowl talkers from the sidelines. Teachers may also opt to have
students in the outside circle grade the participants’ conversation
with a rubric, then give feedback on what they saw in a debriefing
afterward, as mentioned in the featured video.

HOT SEAT >

Basic Structure: One student assumes the role of a book
character, significant figure in history, or concept (such as a
tornado, an animal, or the Titanic). Sitting in front of the rest of
the class, the student responds to classmates’ questions while
staying in character in that role.
Variations: Give more students the opportunity to be in the hot
seat while increasing everyone’s participation by having students
do hot seat discussions in small groups, where one person per
group acts as the “character” and three or four others ask them
questions. In another variation, several students could form a
panel of different characters, taking questions from the class all
together and interacting with one another like guests on a TV talk
show.

SNOWBALL DISCUSSION >

a.k.a. Pyramid Discussion
Basic Structure: Students begin in pairs, responding to a
discussion question only with a single partner. After each person
has had a chance to share their ideas, the pair joins another pair,
creating a group of four. Pairs share their ideas with the pair they
just joined. Next, groups of four join together to form groups of
eight, and so on, until the whole class is joined up in one large
discussion.
Variations: This structure could simply be used to share ideas on
a topic, or students could be required to reach consensus every
time they join up with a new group.

ONGOING DISCUSSION
STRATEGIES
Whereas the other formats in this list have a distinct shape—
specific activities you do with students—the strategies in this
section are more like plug-ins, working discussion into other
instructional activities and improving the quality and reach of
existing conversations.

ASYNCHRONOUS VOICE >

One of the limitations of discussion is that rich, face-to-face
conversations can only happen when all parties are available, so
we’re limited to the time we have in class. With a tool like Voxer,
those limitations disappear. Like a private voice mailbox that you
set up with just one person or a group (but SOOOO much easier),
Voxer allows users to have conversations at whatever time is most
convenient for each participant. So a group of four students can
“discuss” a topic from 3pm until bedtime—asynchronously—each
member contributing whenever they have a moment, and if the
teacher makes herself part of the group, she can listen in, offer
feedback, or contribute her own discussion points. Voxer is also
invaluable for collaborating on projects and for having one-on-one
discussions with students, parents, and your own colleagues. Like
many other educators, Peter DeWitt took a while to really
understand the potential of Voxer, but in this EdWeek piece, he
explains what turned him around.

BACKCHANNEL DISCUSSIONS >

A backchannel is a conversation that happens right alongside
another activity. The first time I saw a backchannel in action was
at my first unconference: While those of us in the audience
listened to presenters and watched a few short video clips, a
separate screen was up beside the main screen, projecting
something called TodaysMeet (update: TodaysMeet has shut
down. Use YoTeach! instead.) It looked a lot like those chat
rooms from back in the day, basically a blank screen where people
would contribute a few lines of text, the lines stacking up one after
the other, no other bells or whistles. Anyone in the room could
participate in this conversation on their phone, laptop, or tablet,
asking questions, offering commentary, and sharing links to
related resources without ever interrupting the flow of the
presentations. This kind of tool allows for a completely silent
discussion, one that doesn’t have to move at a super-fast pace, and
it gives students who may be reluctant to speak up or who process
their thoughts more slowly a chance to fully contribute. For a
deeper discussion of how this kind of tool can be used, read this
thoughtful overview of using backchannel discussions in the
classroom by Edutopia’s Beth Holland.
TALK MOVES >
a.k.a. Accountable Talk
Talk moves are sentence frames we supply to our students that
help them express ideas and interact with one another in
respectful, academically appropriate ways. From kindergarten all
the way through college, students can benefit from explicit
instruction in the skills of summarizing another person’s argument
before presenting an alternate view, asking clarifying questions,
and expressing agreement or partial agreement with the stance of
another participant. Talk moves can be incorporated into any of
the other discussion formats listed here.

TEACH-OK >
Whole Brain Teaching is a set of teaching and classroom
management methods that has grown in popularity over the past
10 years. One of WBT’s foundational techniques is Teach-OK, a
peer teaching strategy that begins with the teacher spending a few
minutes introducing a concept to the class. Next, the teacher
says Teach!, the class responds with Okay!, and pairs of students
take turns re-teaching the concept to each other. It’s a bit like
think-pair-share, but it’s faster-paced, it focuses more on re-
teaching than general sharing, and students are encouraged to use
gestures to animate their discussion. Although WBT is most
popular in elementary schools, this featured video shows the
creator of WBT, Chris Biffle, using it quite successfully with
college students. I have also used Teach-OK with college students,
and most of my students said they were happy for a change from
the sit-and-listen they were used to in college classrooms.

THINK-PAIR-SHARE >
An oldie but a goodie, think-pair-share can be used any time you
want to plug interactivity into a lesson: Simply have
students think about their response to a question, form a pair with
another person, discuss their response, then share it with the larger
group. Because I feel this strategy has so many uses and can be
way more powerful than we give it credit for, I devoted a whole
post to think-pair-share; everything you need to know about it is
right there.

TWO MORE YOU’LL LOVE

Since writing this post, I have learned about two more discussion
strategies that teachers are finding to be incredibly effective and
powerful for getting students to talk, especially about books and
other texts:

THE TQE METHOD >

This protocol has students come up with their own Thoughts,
lingering Questions, and Epiphanies from an assigned reading.
Teachers who have used this method say it has generated some of
the richest conversations they have ever heard from students!

ONGOING CONVERSATIONS >

This strategy places students into one-on-one conversations,
getting them to learn each others’ names better and create a track
record of what they talked about. Excellent for classes where you
want to assess for discussion and help students get more
comfortable with each other.