On our first day of class, I wanted to begin building community and help my students get to know each other. So, I designed a learning activity where I paired students up, asked a low-stakes icebreaker question (e.g., “What’s the most interesting thing you’ve ever learned in social studies?”), then students would be asked to share their partner’s answer with the whole class.
After I asked the first question, students were animated, talking in loud voices and seeming generally upbeat. But, after the conversations in pairs no one was comfortable answering aloud to the entire class. This unfortunately continued throughout the rest of the icebreakers—each round students would talk boisterously in pairs and then go completely silent when asked to share with the whole class. I was worried. Here I was aiming to teach a discussion-based course, and yet I couldn’t even get my students to talk about something as simple as something interesting they did over the summer. These icebreaker questions were low-stakes questions! What will happen as the topics become more complex and nuanced?!
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Maria
11th Grade
American Studies
Preservice Teaching Year
- What is the teacher's dilemma? Consider the teacher's goals, possible actions, beliefs about the situation and the students, and their own self-perceptions.
- Complete or modify the following sentence in a way that captures the teacher's central tension in the situation: "While on the one hand, the teacher believed/wanted/felt/did __________, on the other hand, they believed/wanted/felt/did __________."
- Thinking about moments when students will talk one-on-one but not as a whole group, how do you encourage broader participation when students are reluctant to speak and you know the discussion content is going to be increasingly complex?