Teaching Tip Tuesday: Discussion Questions Made Fun

Teaching Tip Tuesday: Discussion Questions Made Fun

Last weekend, I was working with my mom to help spice up her discussion questions. Her class had just finished reading a story, and they needed to answer some discussion questions. She had about 27 questions, and she didn’t want to take it for a grade. She also had no intention of embarrassing a student for not knowing the answer. The goal of the discussion was for her students to understand the story better.

While browsing for ideas, I came across this blog post from Edutopia by Dr. Richard Curwin. I liked the third way he mentioned in his article, and we adapted it to fit our needs.

This how we set it up-

1. Let your students form groups of 2-3 students. Too many students in a group can lead to off-task behavior, and letting students choose their group, they will likely work better with their teammates.

2. Number each group off, and put the group number on a note card.

3. Put one discussion question per slide and a timer on each slide. Display the slide for all students to see.

*My favorite trick- use a YouTube countdown timer on each slide, so the students know how much time they have. Here's an example (there are a lot more to choose from on YouTube)-

4. The teacher reads the question and then gives the students 1-2 mins on the timer (you can adjust the time to the level of complexity of your discussion question).

5. During this time, the students discuss amongst their group what the answer is.

6. When the timer goes off, the teacher pulls a note card from his or her stack to reveal a group number. That group has to explain their answer to the rest of the class.

7. Other groups can add in if they want.

8. After that question, the notecard is placed back in the stack so the group can be called on again. This holds all groups accountable for discussing because no group is safe from not being called.

9. The next question appears on the slide, the timer is set, and it starts all over again.

It is great to use this method when discussing a story, discussing a science experiment, discussing events in history, discussing trade routes, discussing a lab, discussing vocabulary, and discussing writing ideas. Let us know how you use it!