Using Discussions to Inspire Active Participation in Learning

Students come to The Greene School in West Greenwich, Rhode Island, from all over the state to attend high school. Its unique campus and focus on environmental education brings in students from all different backgrounds and middle school experiences. Once there, teachers often have to recalibrate student expectations about what school looks like—and their role in their own learning. Getting comfortable with active participation in discussions is part of that.

“When I think about the portrait of a Greene School graduate, I think about students who are curious, who enjoy learning and feel a sense of obligation to contribute,” says principal Alex Edelmann. “And you don’t get to contribution through compliance. I think you get highly successful people by building their sense of autonomy and helping them realize they’re powerful and that they have a lot to offer.”

When students come to the school as freshmen, ninth-grade English Language Arts teacher Sarah Kristiansen helps students move from having a passive learning mindset to an active learning mindset. “We talk a lot about students being the leaders of their learning here. But we have to teach them how to do that,” says Kristiansen. To encourage more students to participate, she regularly uses a strategy called web chats. She poses a question on the board, and then uses a marker to create a visual representation of the student conversation on a printout of the seating chart. After a few minutes, she pauses the discussion, shows students the map that makes their participation visible, poses a new question, and tracks the conversation again—this time with a different-color marker. “By seeing that visual, they’re starting to see themselves represented with so many colorful lines, and the kids who didn’t participate are more likely to start in the next round.”

Kristiansen is also mindful of introverted learners, noting that different students want to participate in different ways. Some students may need more encouragement, “but it’s important to me that they recognize that their voice is meaningful and important to the discourse in this classroom space.”

To find more strategies for encouraging active participation in learning through discussions, read Andrew Boryga’s article for Edutopia, “How to Rethink the Objectives of Classroom Discussion.”