How Can I Enhance the Quality of Class Discussions Using Shared Documents?

It’s common for a class discussion to be dominated by a small group of students. This can serve as both a positive and negative as these students can inspire other students to participate more and facilitate a different level of understanding. Yet, other students might rely too much on the dominant few for understanding, missing out on developing their own critical thinking skills. It’s often found that students may not have the confidence, knowledge, or framework to engage meaningfully in classroom discussions. How do we get all students to engage in the topic more deeply and encourage more active discussions?

In this Magna 20-Minute Mentor, Norman Eng, EdD, offers a simple solution: get students to write using shared online documents before they discuss. By leveraging shared documents, students can actively contribute their thoughts and responses in real-time, fostering focused discussions and enabling diverse perspectives to emerge. Participants will learn strategies to effectively manage shared documents, including pre-assigning prompts for students to respond to before class, highlighting and calling on varied perspectives to enrich dialogue, and navigating potential challenges such as access issues and technical glitches.

By the end of this 20-minute program, not only will participants be able to use Dr. Eng’s template for planning and conducting more effective and engaging whole-class discussions, they’ll also gain insights into their students’ understanding levels, enabling them to adjust discussions more effectively using the provided tool.

Learning Goals

After viewing this Magna 20-Minute Mentor, participants will be able to:

• Identify the benefits of using shared online documents for classroom discussions
• Explain how pre-assigning prompts can enhance the quality of student contributions
• Utilize Dr. Norman Eng’s template to help students engage with the topic
• Analyze the impact of diverse perspectives on classroom dialogue
• Design and implement classroom discussions that foster critical thinking and engagement

Topics Covered

• Whole class discussions
• Shared documents
• Student participation
• Student engagement
• Informal assessment
• Student preparation
• Critical thinking

Audience

This program will benefit:

• Faculty teaching in any modality
• Faculty Developers

Product Code: PM24NA