Some of us have been there. You have a room full of 30+ students, and you wonder how it is possible that so many kids or teenagers could actually be that quiet. Many avert their eyes, thinking that if ...

So the day of the text-based discussion has arrived and all of the students have had time to think about their ideas, write them down and pair-share in preparation for a vibrant and meaningful student ...

My research on teaching and learning in higher education began when I was hired as a graduate assistant at the Searle Center for Teaching Excellence, at Northwestern University, back in the late 1990s ...

The image used in this post is of a small group of students sitting in a room together, (seemingly) energetically talking about the issues at hand. This is an example of synchronous discussion—the ...

Academic instructors, hired for their content expertise, are rarely trained in skills like classroom facilitation or community-building. But successful collaborative learning requires a degree of ...

For many students, participating in online class discussions feels like a chore—a box to check off for participation points rather than a lively dialogue. “I go in there and do it because I have to,” ...

Discussion is a large part of teaching and learning. We want to see and hear our learners engaged in conversations about the course content, making connections to their lives or to other aspects of ...

Student engagement in the classroom can be influenced by discussion management, case content, and instructor teaching style. It is important to recognize that instructors do not need to generate high ...

As we approach the fall semester, one thing everyone who is returning to in-person teaching should be thinking about is how they will run discussions. Class discussions have always been complicated, ...

Here are some of the questions that I would ask If I were a potential student evaluating the quality of an online degree program: 1. Does the class have a regular live online meeting scheduled? 2. How ...

The new question of the week is: What are the best ways to organize and lead classroom discussions? Part One featured responses from Rita Platt, Adeyemi Stembridge, PhD, Jackie Walsh, Doug Lemov, and ...