Increasing Participation and Improving the Quality of Discussions in Seventh‐grade Social Studies Classes

Abstract

An experiment was conducted to evaluate procedures to improve classroom discussions in seventh-grade social studies classes. An increased number of students participated in discussions when rules were stated for discussions, students were praised for their contributions, the teacher restated or paraphrased students' contributions aloud or on the blackboard, the teacher planned an outline of discussion questions, student contributions to discussions were recorded and were used to determine part of the students' grades for the class, and discussion grades were publicly posted.The second part of the study focused on procedures designed to improve quality of classroom discussions. Students were taught to participate in discussions by providing reasons for their statements, comparisons between different points, or examples supporting their statements. As each type of contribution was taught, recorded, and counted toward part of the students' classroom grades, each type of contribution increased. Ratings of discussions by outside judges consisting of junior high school teachers, junior high school students, and persons experienced in conducting discussions, indicated that the training increased the overall quality of the discussions. Use of the quality training procedures, however, resulted in decreased levels of overall participation in discussion, a decrease that was reversed by the use of a group contingency for participation. Finally, the discussions after training seemed to be preferred by both the teacher and the students.DESCRIPTORS: academic behavior, discussion skills, contingencies, teacher behavior, junior high students Discussions are a common, essential activity in most school classrooms. They are an especially significant part of most junior and senior high school social studies classrooms. Yet, despite this emphasis, discussions are rarely model scenes of positive, effective group learning experiences. Instead, in a typical discussion, only a small portion of the class is actively participating. Glutthorn (1966) stated, "In a typical class, it is usual for less than one third to par-

Peer-tutoring: Applied behavior analysis working in the classroom.

“…Student engagement, defined as active participation in academic tasks such as writing, reading aloud, and academic discussion, is positively correlated with higher test scores (Gettinger, 1982; Greenwood et al, 1984; Maheady, Sacca, & Harper, 1988). Teacher behavior such as providing increased opportunities for student responses to materials, questions, and discussion (Cangelosi, 1984; Stanley & Greenwood, 1983), providing immediate feedback to student responses (Alners & Greer, 1991; Gross & Ekstrand, 1983; Narayan, Heward, Gardner, Courson, and Omness, 1990), and delineating and rewarding achievement of specific academic “rules” (Smith, 1982) all positively affect student academic engagement and achievement. Passive instructional methods such as overhead transparencies, films, and lectures have been demonstrated to produce fewer opportunities for student engagement and lower achievement (Stanley & Greenwood, 1983).…”