“The aim of argument, or of discussion, should not be victory, but progress.”
- Joseph Joubert

When students discuss their questions, ideas, and insights, they both learn from each other and clarify their own thinking. In participating in a class discussion or debate, they are challenged to organize their ideas and convey them in a way that adds value to the class. Whether in whole class or small group settings, structured or more free form, discussions and debate can be powerful learning opportunities for students.

Key features of the strategy
Discussions and debates can serve as helpful learning activities for students to apply and grapple with new ideas they’ve encountered through readings, lectures, or other activities. In the process of exchanging ideas with their peers, they deepen their knowledge and learn from each other. For these activities to be effective, however, the instructor should carefully identify the particular goals for the exchange, pick the structure or format that would most likely help students develop their knowledge, employ strategies to encourage as broad participation as possible, and then assess the efficacy of the activity, and possibly individual student participation. The following examples illustrate some of the options for faculty to consider.

Examples and Variations
Barbara Gross Davis (2009) offers a number of helpful strategies and approaches in Tools for Teaching. She begins by encouraging faculty to clearly articulate the ground rules for discussion, expectations, and tips to help student successfully contribute to discussion activities. She lays out a number of activities to build rapport and community in the class to facilitate the free exchange of ideas including, encouraging students to learn each other’s names and interests, engaging in icebreaker activities, and assigning students roles within the groups to guide their participation.

In Teaching Naked, Bowen (2012) argues that “Discussion is an outstanding way to make the most of face time with students and to promote higher-order learning, but leading a good discussion that results in learning outcomes you want can be much harder than delivering a competent lecture” (p. 196). He suggests creating a system that assesses students’ individual contributions in a way that encourages quality over quantity. One way to do this is to capture and post the comments or questions that were most useful in leading to new insights and understanding, and offering extra credit to the contributors. He also suggests having students monitor the progress and analyze the quality of the discussion. In a similar activity, students sit in two concentric circles. The inner circle actively participates in the discussion while those in the outer circle observe. After a period of time, the students in the outer circle analyze the quality of discussion within the inner circle. The groups then switch as the discussion continues. These strategies can work in both face-to-face and online discussion formats.

Perhaps even more than some of the structured discussion strategies noted above, engaging students in debate activities in the classroom demand active learning and a high degree of engagement. Kennedy (2007) outlines a number of different options to structure in-class debates, including role-playing debates in which students are assigned particular points of view on an issue and have to argue from that perspective. In the fish bowl format, the class is divided into three groups. Two of the groups each take different sides of an issue, while the third group serves as an audience and asks questions. In a problem-solving format, two teams of four students debate an issue wherein each student plays a particular role. One student from each team presents the historical and philosophical background on the issue from their perspective; a second pair argues why changes should or should not be made relative to the issue; the third pair each suggest a plan; and the final pair summarizes the position of each team.

Connections to 21st Century Skills and Technologies
Discussions and debates can be powerful strategies to encourage both knowledge construction and collaboration. As noted above, when students prepare for and engage in discussion and debate, they engage actively with the course content, perhaps leading to more “durable” learning. In addition, if students work together in groups, particularly if they have structured and interdependent roles, they have authentic opportunities to build their skills in collaboration.

Technologies can enhance discussion and debate in a few ways. First, for face-to-face classes, discussions and debates can be required (either audio or video) for further analysis, archiving, or just to make them available to students unable to attend class. For online courses, threaded discussion boards, audio or video conference utilities, and even group chats can encourage rich discussion at a distance. Many services in learning management systems also enable users to record the session or export a transcript of a chat to explore further. Finally, for either face-to-face or online discussions, students can use Web-based resources to prepare for and pull up data during the debate to provide further evidence for their position. This can be a challenge, though, as students may be more attuned to their computers or devices than on the content of the discussion. To mitigate this challenge, instructors may assign a single student (or a student from each team) to fulfill this role for the whole group.

What strategies have you used to help make discussions and debates effective in your classes?
Please post your comments below.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive an “affiliate commission.” I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Links and Resources:

• Community-Project-Based-Learning from Betina Malhotra
  
• Cognitive Wrappers from Jose Bowen via Kathryn Cunningham
  
• Center for Teaching and Learning Excellence at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University

“Before I came here I was confused about this subject. Having listened to your lecture I am still confused. But on a higher level.” 
― Enrico Fermi

Few topics on teaching and learning are more polarizing on the effectiveness of and approach to lecturing. I’ll bet that you’ve experienced both very effective and very ineffective lectures. You may even have delivered lectures that could fall into either category. The same could be said for conducting a demonstration. They can certainly be evocative experiences, but they can also be confusing or disconnected from the learning goals of a class session. I think that what may be productive is to consider how best to implement lectures and demonstrations to optimally support student learning.

Key features of the strategy
One critical feature of an effective lecture or demonstration is the organization and flow of ideas presented. Without clear organization, transitions between topics, explicit connections to related ideas, and clarity, the specific delivery strategies or format don't matter. These are the foundational elements upon which you can build to create an effective experience. One thing that is critical in formulating an effective lecture or demonstration is to avoid what Chip and Dan Heath call “the curse of knowledge” in their book, Made to Stick.  Essentially, this refers to the fact that we all have considerably more knowledge of the content than our students do. For this reason, we need to be careful to explain things in a way that someone with far less background and conceptual knowledge of the topic can understand it. They suggest using concrete language, stories to illustrate ideas, and clear demonstrations to thwart this curse. Additionally, you can draw on some of the strategies below to ensure that your lectures and demonstrations are helpful for your students.

Examples and Variations
Gross Davis (2009) offers extremely helpful tips in Tools for Teaching. She begins by suggesting that faculty consider the lecture as only a part of the class period. Rather, it’s helpful to change pace every fifteen minutes or so to keep students’ attention. She also suggests varying the types of lecture, including expository, interactive, problem-based, demonstration oriented, and discussion based approaches. She finishes by encouraging faculty to budget time both for questions/discussion as well as a brief summary of the key ideas.

Similarly, Light, Cox & Calkins (2009) offer some excellent ideas and tips related to developing effective lectures in their book, Learning and Teaching in Higher Education. They begin by outlining two models of lecturing – those that focus on transmission and those that focus on engagement. They identify a number of different structures, including the traditional linear lecture, a problem-oriented approach, comparison or sequence-driven structures, as well as concept maps and case studies. They argue that, whatever the structure selected, lectures should be planned with the students and learning goals in mind. The authors also suggest that lectures build in activities that assist students to process the information, similar to the strategies outlined in the Take Notes post on this blog.

Finally, it’s key to get feedback from students on the effectiveness of your lectures and demonstrations. The Stanford University Teaching Commons offers helpful suggestions on how to “read the room” and elicit suggestions from students. First, they suggest observing students’ non-verbal communication during the lecture to determine when you might slow down, stop and approach something from a different direction, or shift to a different learning activity. Asking students to respond to a “minute paper” at the end of class can be a useful way for you to learn what students took away from the lecture or are still confused about. Finally, periodic quizzes and anonymous, mid-term teaching evaluations can also help to see your lectures through your students’ eyes.

Connections to 21st Century Skills and Technologies
Lectures can help students to construct their knowledge of the course topic. Knowledge construction activities require students to generate ideas and understandings that are new to them – which can be difficult if the lecture is of a more passive nature. The best approaches to lecturing can be to combine brief lecture periods with other, complementary learning activities like group discussion, developing a model, or engaging in a simulation. These kinds of activities help to move the content from the lecture to a higher level of application.  

Technology can support lecturing in a number of ways. First, the effective development of slides, handouts, and other materials can support and scaffold learning in lectures. Second, the use of brief video clips in a lecture can help to represent the content in different ways, appealing to diverse learners in your class, or to bring in more visual or nuanced demonstrations. Student response systems (or “clickers”) can help you to receive formative feedback during a lecture, using true/false, scales, multiple choice, or even open response questions to assess student understanding. If you don’t have a set of clickers available, you can use apps for mobile devices like Poll Everywhere or Nearpod to leverage the mobile devices students bring to class. Finally, online modules or courses can be supported with videorecorded lectures or demonstrations, including screencasts developed with tools like Office Mix, Camtasia, or Screenflow. Bear in mind, however, that the same principles of effective face-to-face lectures apply online as well.

What strategies have you used to help make your lectures or demonstrations effective in your classes?
Please post your comments below.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive an “affiliate commission.” I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

“He listens well who takes notes.”
- Dante

As students encounter new information, ideas, and concepts through readings, lectures, discussions and course activities they can internalize the ideas and record their insights by taking notes. While the structure, format and even purpose for note taking can vary, this activity helps student process new material in order to make connections to what they already know and understand. In this second installment of the Higher Education Learning Activity Types taxonomy, we explore multiple strategies to engage students in effective note taking.

Key features of the strategy
Note taking is an excellent way to not only record, but to process information. This focus on processing and understanding both during and after note taking is a key element of success.  The University of Reading offers some helpful tips on note taking practices for university students that highlight the difference between passive and active note taking:

Passive note-taking includes:

• underlining words
• cutting and pasting from online documents
• trying to write everything you hear in a lecture
• copying slides from the screen
• copying lots of direct quotes rather than putting the ideas in your own words 
• writing notes on everything you read, because you're not sure what will turn out to be important 
• not evaluating or critiquing the sources you use, but just accepting them as suitable evidence 

Active note-taking means:

• thinking about what you want to get out of your research before you start
• looking for answers to any questions you may have about the topic
• looking for connections within the topic you're studying, and to other topics on your course
• writing notes mostly in your own words - your own explanation of what something says or means
• recording direct quotes only when it's important to have the exact words that someone else has used (i.e. when how they say something is as significant as what they say) 

By providing students with specific strategies like the ones below, students can actively engage with lectures and learning materials.

Examples and Variations

• Nilson (2010) suggests teaching students specific structures and approaches to note taking including creating formal outlines, using the Cornell system, and organizing ideas with concept maps. 
• Weimer (2013) suggests beginning class with a question that can be answered by the end of the class session, providing skeletal notes, offering a list of key terms that would be covered in a lecture, and providing charts, tables, or graphics that help students synthesize information. 
• Gross Davis (1993) suggests stopping class at strategic intervals to review their notes from previous class sessions to help them to make connections between ideas. At the end of class, the instructor can encourage students to review the notes they’ve taken for the day and highlight or underline particularly important concepts or to paraphrase some of the essential takeaways. 
  
  

Connections to 21st Century Skills and Technologies
Student note taking can support the development of two key 21st century skills – knowledge construction and self-regulation. As students take, synthesize, transform and review their notes, they are building their knowledge relative to the concepts and ideas presented in class or through texts and other materials.  Less obviously, perhaps, effective note taking processes can help students with self-regulation. By actively and strategically taking notes in class, students help to focus their attention and remain engaged in the learning experience. As they use their notes to actively process information and prepare for papers or exams, they are developing the discipline and habits of mind to support their learning.

Digital and non-digital technology tools can be extremely helpful in the note taking process. Many students prefer (and studies support) taking notes by hand. The limitation of course, is that these notes are not as easily searchable as digital notes. Fortunately, with the optical character recognition built into many software applications like Evernote and OneNote, when students scan their handwritten notes, they can be archived and searched within the software programs. Of course, these same tools (and many more) can be used to capture notes directly. These software applications have the added benefit of being able to include supporting materials (including digital images, audio files, presentation slides, etc.) to supplement notes taken during class and readings. Finally, both Evernote and OneNote have Web clipping features that enables users to capture whole Web pages or selections to a particular notebook.

What strategies do you use to help students take more effective notes in your courses?
Please post your comments below.