Whole-class discussions can be open, unstructured discussions or can use a range of structures or protocols to shape the format of the conversation. Your choice of format will depend on your goals for the conversation, including your goals for the type of thinking you want to occur and for the discourse skills you want students to build. Regardless of the format, you will want to pick a rich, open-ended prompt, and prepare for talk moves to deepen the discussion. You will also want to consider options for expression and communication and plan for scaffolds and strategies to encourage equitable participation.
| Structure | Description and Resources |
|---|---|
| Socratic Seminars |
A Socratic Seminar is a text-based discussion in which students explore open-ended questions. The teacher provides the resources and the prompts, but the discussion is mostly student-led. A Socratic Seminar can be held with all students in one large circle or as a “fishbowl” with an inner circle and an outer circle. In a fishbowl, the outer circle typically provides some kind of feedback to the inner circle and then they switch. |
| Debates |
In a debate, individual students or groups of students take sides in response to a prompt. Students may choose their side or be assigned. Students present their answer or claim and provide evidence and reasoning to support their claim. Their goal is to convince others in the class of their argument. Debates reinforce the uncertainty present in science and the need for evidence to support your claims. |
| Town Hall Circle | This strategy mimics the process of a town hall meeting, where community members take the floor to share their perspective on a topic of concern. Using this format, students have the opportunity to share their different perspectives by tapping into and out of the group conversation. Students often come away from this experience with a greater appreciation for how our perspective can limit the facts we have at our disposal and the opinions we hold. By listening to others' ideas, students broaden their understanding of the world in which they live. |
| Fishbowl | In a Fishbowl discussion, students seated inside the “fishbowl” actively participate in a discussion by asking questions and sharing their opinions, while students standing outside listen carefully to the ideas presented. Students take turns in these roles, so that they practice being both contributors and listeners in a group discussion. This strategy is especially useful when you want to make sure all students participate in a discussion, when you want to help students reflect on what a good discussion looks like, and when you need a structure for discussing controversial or difficult topics. A Fishbowl discussion makes for an excellent pre-writing activity, often unearthing questions or ideas that students can explore more deeply in an independent assignment. |
| Four Corners | A Four Corners debate requires students to show their position on a specific statement (strongly agree, agree, disagree, strongly disagree) by standing in a particular corner of the room. This activity elicits the participation of all students by requiring everyone to take a position. Use this as a warm-up activity by asking students to respond to a statement about a topic they will be studying. It can also be an effective follow-up activity by asking students to apply what they have learned when framing their arguments, or you can use it as a pre-writing activity to elicit arguments and evidence prior to essay writing. |
| Barometer | The Barometer teaching strategy helps students share their opinions by asking them to line up along a continuum based on their position on an issue. It is especially useful when you want to discuss an issue about which students have a wide range of opinions. Because a Barometer activity gets many arguments out on the table, it can be an effective pre-writing exercise before an essay assignment. |