PLN 17

I responded to Kristin's post titled, "Quiet Student" which talked about the problem teachers have with having class discussions with students who do not participate.

I made many connections to this blog with mixed feelings about these situations. In many of my classes we have large discussions and have used the “fishbowl” technique. This reminds me of when we would have Socratic Seminars in middle school and my teacher would actually have us write down who we thought was the “Captain Obvious” (person who stated obvious facts that didn’t help the conversation), the “Silent Bob” (person who never talked), the “Chatty Cathy” (person who would non stop talk taking up the entire conversation), and the “Doctor Brilliant” (person who made very good points and contributed well to the seminar. Then he would actually read the names aloud of who got the most votes for each personality. Looking back at it I think that this was a horrible thing to do, because if someone was voted the “Chatty Cathy” then next discussion they wouldn’t say a word in fear of having that title again. In my opinion I think there are a few students who choose to not participate simply because they have no interest in the subject and don’t care all that much about their grade. Then again that is not fair to those students who do care but are too shy to speak their opinion. Therefore I like the idea of having alternatives to the discussion, that way if the student really does want to participate they will have that opportunity to do so. For example maybe the class could write down their views on a piece of paper and then the teacher could read what they wrote to the rest of the class, then to those who do enjoy speaking could respond verbally to that.