According to Lev Vygotsky, a 20th century educational philosopher, a learning-centered classroom is one where both the student and the teacher are responsible for the learning. They work in a partnership using a four-step approach that Jeffrey Wilhelm calls "explicit teaching": 1. The teacher models and thinks-aloud while the students watch. 2. The teacher models and the students help. 3. The students practice while the teachers help. 4. The students practice independently (Wilhelm 11). This model of teaching is not simply giving instructions, but is instructing students by scaffolding the learning. Further, Vygotsky suggests that children learn to read and think by speaking aloud as they do something, by processing the learning (following the teacher's modeling). When they speak aloud, they make visible their voices - the ones the represent their making-meaning, their connections - in essence their thinking.
The set-up of my classroom is a direct reflection of my pedagogy: my desk is in the back corner and the desks are in a circle including the one I sit in. When I need to teach mini-lessons I stand in the front of the room or in the middle of the circle near my overhead projector. When we are having class discussions using a seminar-based approach, I sit in the circle as a participant. The hardest part of facilitating a true seminar is shutting up and letting the kids talk - really talk. Only then can they begin find their voices. When I do speak as part of the discussion usually it is to model a kind of technique I want the students to use or one I see them forgetting about, like looping back to what a couple of people have said and making connections among classmates. I also teach students
how
to have a discussion and when I interrupt them I stand up so they know I'm not a participant at that moment. I model ways which we can use our voice through discussion.
Mike Schmoker in his book Results Now: How We Can Achieve Unprecedented Improvements in Teaching and Learning discusses the importance of discussion or what he calls "argumentative literacy" when he quotes Gerald Graff, noted professor: "Talk - about books and subjects - is as important educationally as are the books and subjects themselves" (65). Schmoker continues his support of discussion when he quote Mike Rose, an education professor at UCLA: "All students need opportunities to talk about what they're learning: to test their ideas, reveal their assumptions, talk through the places where new knowledge clashes with ingrained belief" (66). Along with journaling, class discussion is a place where we can take the voices of our society, of our parents, of our teachers, of our media, of our texts and wrestle with them to make sense of our world for ourselves.
What do I mean by a class discussion? I mean a true discussion where the class talks about and explores something orally
with
each other - where students can learn they do have a voice; they do have something to say, and they can practice the skills to use that voice effectively. Typical class discussions are the teacher asking a question and then a student answering it, followed by the teacher further prompting the student/class, and more answers. OR a typical discussion might sound like one student sharing his/her thoughts and then another student doing the same, followed by another. Students may be talking near each other but they are certainly not talking
to
each other. They are still talking to the teacher, because that's who "grades" them. What I mean by discussion is when someone shares his/her thoughts and the students take in those thoughts and respond in a way that furthers thinking about the other person's thinking. I give students a description of all the different skills involved in discussion (see Appendix). Using this guideline, for the first month or so of school, students keep it on their desks so I can show them when they are doing what I expect.
The first few times students practice having a discussion, I tell them we will practice having a discussion for ten minutes. Then I let them practice, listening with a pen. I try very hard not to interrupt here. Once they have finished, I explain that I'm going to process the discussion for them and note my observations. We discuss what went well and what we're not good at yet. As students practice having discussions, if I want to introduce a new technique I will model it or talk it through. For instance, when teaching students to use quoted passages from a text in their discussion, I model how I find the passage and then tell the rest of the class to find the passage so we're all looking at it before I speak. Further, so students aren't simply going from one passage to another randomly, I mention "if you have a passage that is similar to X's, now is a good time to share it. Make sure you make the connection between the quotes clear for everyone." As teachers, we have to decide constantly when to interrupt with instruction. I always let students know that silence is ok - it is the sound of thinking, and sometimes when I think students are stumped I present them with some options of what they might say next. Similarly, when I want students to get better at responding in a way that encourages further thinking, something they are NOT good at, I change the rules. I may say that no one can change the subject or the path of the discussion until at least three people have talked about someone's thought. To clarify, I might stop the class after "Johnny" spoke and say, "now three people need to talk about what Johnny brought up before moving on to something else." At first, students are hesitant and stumbling, and yes this takes a lot of time, but the payoff is enormous later on in the year when discussions become second-nature to students. I use prompts from
They Say I Say: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing
to help students move through both oral and written discussions (see appendix).
I will help improve class discussions by videotaping a few discussions and then the next day in class, have students process and evaluate the discussion. When we do this, I want to introduce the body as a part of our communication system - body language as a voice of its own. We will discuss how this is part of our voice and students will analyze their body language and what it is "speaking." Part of teaching struggling readers to be successful in class is to teach them the body language of students: sitting up straight, following the speaker with one's eyes, making occasional eye contact, nodding occasionally, using our pen, etc. My students are not in on this "little secret" of how body language affects a person's perception of others, because it has a voice.
We continue to practice over the course of the year - the goal being to teach students how to have the hard conversations, the ones where there is a great deal of conflict. They will also look at how they go about getting their voice heard, in class, in life, etc. We will learn strategies for getting our voices heard when our thinking diverges from the majority both orally and in writing. I want students to understand that getting good at this type of discussion can have a HUGE impact on society as it is necessary in a democratic society. Later in the year when I begin to explain this concept, I ask students to look at their society and find the discussions that are not being had or the ones that are unsuccessful (they often cite the war, politics, etc.) and we practice having them.