Discussion that Opens

I was always very quiet in coursework as a student. I have always had some measure of social anxiety, and I felt it especially acutely when pressured to participate in the service of a grade. This was a constant in every course I took except one: in graduate school I took a course with David Vander Meulen on textual editing, and I felt more engaged and free to do so than ever before or after. While David was an exceptional teacher, there were other specific reasons I credit with the vibe in the room: it was a three hour seminar and there were only four students in the room. I could not hide and, perhaps most importantly, in a group that small there was a real sense that we were in it together, that we were accountable to each other for keeping the conversation alive. The social anxiety persisted after the course, but I’ve always remembered that group dynamic fondly.

Did I mention the course met Friday mornings at 8:00AM? We really depended on each other to stay awake.

We’re trying a new thing this year in the Praxis program to bring something of this same spirit into the room, to encourage the students to feel more direct accountability for each other in discussion. In the past, whenever we’ve run unmoderated discussions I’ve generally facilitated them myself or in the company of a couple other Scholars’ Lab staff. Even when the students present their individual research projects for a design jam, a staff member serves as primary respondent and facilitator. This generally works fine, and the students are usually up for it. But the result is that the students are most accountable to the staff. This year I am going to experiment with rotating this role through the room a bit more, to spread the accountability around a bit more intentionally. For each session that will have discussion, I’ve assigned one or two students as primary facilitators. For sessions where a student will present, I’ve assigned another student as a respondent.

I’m trying not to overthink this too much: the real goal of this is to encourage collaboration, co-teaching, and collective buy-in in ways that might not take place if the students only feel accountable to the staff. But Jeremy wisely noted that not everyone might know how to facilitate a discussion. I come from the English department, where I’m used to teaching and learning based around open-ended conversation. But not every discipline is structured that way. Jeremy suggested I make a few notes about how I approach running discussions. What follows is my own starter pack for running a conversation. I have our own students in mind as the primary audience, but I imagine there is something useful here for others as well.

• Questions not answers. This one comes from my literary studies background. I tend to see my role as a discussion facilitator as primarily about opening rather than closing, about shaping doors and inviting the group through. They can choose to enter or not, as distinct from other approaches to teaching that might pull the group along in a specific direction. When I write lesson plans they are almost always lists of questions to ask. Note that this is different from a project meeting, which has a specific goal and purpose! More on that in a different post.
• Other shapes. I am not the sole giver of knowledge in the room. Instead of an arrow that I carve into the ground, what other shapes can the group draw together? How can we design our own ways of building knowledge together? Everyone has something to contribute, and I am there to learn as much as everyone else. The experience is not unidirectional. It twists, turns, folds back.
• Give space. More than you think. I like to count silently to make room for others. When in doubt, sit quietly. Thinking is hard work, and hard work takes time. Don’t mistake silence for confusion or lack of engagement. Your silence can be a gift.
• Be mindful. Who has spoken a lot? Who has not? How can you enlist the aid of the sturdy talkers in making room for others? How can you draw in the quiet ones? Pay attention to where you’re going as well as where you’ve been. Don’t think of yourself as yanking the group towards an end goal. Can you point the way and then follow? Can you help draw connections among various things that have already been said? At the end, can you sum up where you’ve gone together? I often like to drawn on the board to visually represent the flow of our conversation.

It should be clear from all this that my approach is as much about community building as an end in itself as it is about the actual material. That is to say—I like my students and my discussions to live out a specific kind of learning experience together using the material as a vehicle. We discuss the material too-quite deeply-but the particular manner in which we do so is as important to the learning goals as any particular message about the specific topic of conversation. When Jeremy asked me to write this post I immediately wanted to turn the question back around. How does he run a discussion, coming from history? How does Ronda’s own background as a life coach and project manager change her angle of approach? Everyone brings their own selves to running the classroom, and I think there is beauty in this diverse range of teacherly identities. I would love to hear how others take on this role and how they approach the difficult task of developing group identity, making space for other voices, and building up a collective teaching experience.