Classroom Discussion is a valuable learning tool in that it:
- It helps students explore a diversity of perspectives.
- It increases students’ awareness of and tolerance for ambiguity or complexity.
- It helps students recognize and investigate their assumptions.
- It encourages attentive, respectful listening.
- It develops new appreciation for continuing differences.
- It increases intellectual agility.
- It helps students become connected to a topic.
- It shows respect for student voices and experiences.
- It helps students learn the processes and habits of democratic discourse.
- It affirms students as co-creators of knowledge.
- It develops the capacity for the clear communication of ideas and meaning.
- It develops habits of collaborative learning.
- It increases breadth and makes students more empathic.
- It helps students develop skills of synthesis and integration.
- It leads to transformation.
Stephen D. Brookfield and Stephen Preskill, Discussion as a Way of Teaching (2d edition, 2005, John
Wiley and Sons), 21-22.
Assignment
Step #1: Respond to the following Discussion Prompt
“Explain the difference between and EMPLOYEE and an INDEPENDENT CONTRATOR and the tests that help us in that determination.”