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Orchestrating Whole Classroom Discussion

This course offers strategies that can lead to richer, more productive, whole-class discussions in their classrooms. Focusing on how to prepare for discussion, this course is for anyone who leads, wants to lead, or is interested in how teachers lead discussion. Across the 4 sessions in this course, we’ll learn more about what teachers and students need to do to prepare for rich discussions, including understanding: 1. What is (and isn't) discussion, and why discussion is important 2. How teachers set goals for discussion, and establish explicit norms that support these objectives 3. How teachers select texts and prepare text-based questions to guide the conversation 4. How teachers – based on these goals, norms, texts, and questions – then prepare students for the whole-class discussion The course consists of short videos interspersed with various thinking tasks—such as reflecting on videos of classroom discussions in action, and designing and receiving peer feedback on aspects of a Discussion Plan, a plan for a discussion you’ll lead in your own classroom.

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Rating 4.6★ based on 3 ratings
Length 5 weeks
Effort 3-4 weeks of study, 3-4 hours/week
Starts Jul 17 (40 weeks ago)
Cost $49
From University of Pennsylvania via Coursera
Instructors Pam Grossman, Lisa M. Barker
Download Videos On all desktop and mobile devices
Language English
Subjects Social Sciences Education
Tags Social Sciences Education

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What people are saying

input / intervention eventually

Getting a whole class to participate in a discussion, taking turns and keeping it going, needs far more and this course teaches you how to set up discussion norms, get students to respond to each others' points and conduct a discussion with fairly minimal teacher input / intervention eventually.

set up discussion norms

rather shocked about

In fact, I was rather shocked about how primitive my skills in this area were when I started doing the quizzes and assignments, but that was great because I was really learning and I immediately started putting the course's ideas and techniques into practice in my own classes (it will take me some time to improve but I am working on it!)

techniques into practice

then chatting away

I think many teachers believe a 'whole class discussion' means the teacher asking the class / individual students questions and then chatting away (at least that is what many of my colleagues over the years have seemed to be satisfied with).

very underrated skill

This is a very underrated skill in my view (hence many teachers may bypass the course) - I advise to give it a go if you are a new teacher or an experienced teacher who wants to fine tune this area of your teaching: think, are your classes really having discussions?)

immediately started putting

individual students questions

colleagues over

depth courses

and I hope there will be more in depth courses on this topic forthcoming.

fairly minimal

fine tune

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Rating 4.6★ based on 3 ratings
Length 5 weeks
Effort 3-4 weeks of study, 3-4 hours/week
Starts Jul 17 (40 weeks ago)
Cost $49
From University of Pennsylvania via Coursera
Instructors Pam Grossman, Lisa M. Barker
Download Videos On all desktop and mobile devices
Language English
Subjects Social Sciences Education
Tags Social Sciences Education

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