Facilitating Engaging Class Discussions

If dialogue is essential to a participatory democracy, then college classes play an important role in teaching and practicing respectful and productive discussion. In this workshop, we’ll consider the purposes of discussion before moving to the more practical: strategies for engaging students in dialogue with each other. We’ll identify types of effective discussion questions and a variety of facilitation techniques for involving students in conversation. During the session, you’ll have time to plan for an upcoming class discussion, using the approaches shared in the workshop. This workshop is appropriate for teaching in any modality.

By attending this workshop you will: 

• *Consider 4 purposes of discussion and identify those most salient for your course(s).
• *Compare and contrast effective vs ineffective questions.
• *Browse 15 approaches for facilitating in-class discussions.
• *Utilize a Discussion Facilitation Framework to design engaging in-class discussions.

Important: Attendees must register for this event. Please do not add the workshop to your calendar until the registration process has been completed.

Facilitated by: Jen Garrett-Ostermiller, Director of the Center for Teaching & Learning Innovation