Creating Engaging Discussions: Strategies for "Avoiding Crickets" in Any Size Classroom and Online

If you have ever been apprehensive about initiating classroom discussion, fearing silences, the domination of a couple of speakers, superficial contributions, or off-topic remarks, this book provides strategies for creating a positive learning experience.

Jennifer H. Herman and Linda B. Nilson demonstrate how to create the conditions to facilitate deep and meaningful learning as well as to assess the effectiveness of discussions. They identify, analyze, and solve common problems in both classroom and online discussions and in both small and large classes. They take a direct, practice-oriented approach that--in acknowledging common challenges--provides principles, guidance on design, examples of activities and techniques, and eight detailed case studies. These cases demonstrate successful approaches that faculty across disciplines and from a variety of institutions have adopted in their face-to-face, blended, or online courses at the undergraduate or graduate level.

The case authors begin by describing the original pedagogical challenge they faced and explain how they addressed it and assessed the results of their innovation. They also offer practical recommendations to readers who may want to try their strategies.

Intended for faculty, this book will be equally valuable for educational developers who can use this resource in their programs and private consultations. At the graduate level, this book can serve as a text or workshop resource in college teaching courses and teaching assistant development programs. The final chapter provides a set of resources and activities – including discussion questions on the case studies, writing prompts, and jigsaw formats – that are equally appropriate for individual study or for use in workshop environments.

You’ll never again have to suffer such a profound silence that, as described by a contributor to the book, she could hear the crickets chirping outside.

Jennifer H. Herman is Director of the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Associate Professor of Practice in Education at Simmons College and develops and facilitates research-based faculty development opportunities around teaching and scholarship and provides structured support for curriculum design at all levels. She has been a grant co-PI or curriculum designer on many high-impact initiatives, including open-source assessment modules for NILOA, programs for the U.S. Department of State, the New York State Small Business Development Center’s online Entreskills program, and a STEM teaching institute for Harvard Medical School, as well as course design institutes and inclusive excellence seminars. Herman received her Ph.D. in Higher Education from the University at Buffalo and her M.A. in International Training and Education from American University.

Linda B. Nilson is founding director emeritus of the Office of Teaching Effectiveness and Innovation (OTEI) at Clemson University and author of Teaching at Its Best: A Research-Based Resource for College Instructors, now in its fourth edition.

Stephen D. Brookfield is Distinguished Scholar at Antioch University, Adjunct Professor at Teachers College, Columbia University, and Professor Emeritus at the University of St. Thomas (St. Paul, Minnesota). He has written, co-written or edited nineteen books on adult learning, teaching, critical thinking, discussion methods, critical theory, leadership, and teaching race, six of which have won the Houle World Award for Literature in Adult Education. His academic appointments have included positions at the University of British Columbia, Teachers College Columbia University (New York), Harvard University and the University of St. Thomas in Minneapolis-St. Paul.