Students Are Involved

This criteria checklist for effective discussion leaders was developed by a class of eighth graders who were experienced with interpretive questioning. In fact, they had had the same teacher, Claudette Rasmussen, for one trimester each year since fourth grade and were accustomed to activities that involved critical thinking and self-reflection. For this assignment, students began by observing the leadership characteristics displayed by the teacher during discussion--half the group observed while the teacher led the other half in a discussion of a story. They then listed those characteristics and grouped them into verbal and nonverbal behavior categories and added the "frequency" column. Teams of students then prepared interpretive questions and used them to lead a literature discussion. Both the teacher and the student discussion leaders used this checklist for assessment. Finally, students complete the sentence stems that evaluate their strengths and weaknesses as discussion leaders and that set a goal for improvement for their next stint as a discussion leader. Their signature at the end of the document confirms their commitment to improvement and makes the assessment more personally meaningful to them. The completed checklist goes into the student's portfolio.

STUDENTS OBSERVE THAT EFFECTIVE DISCUSSION LEADERS USE...

VERBAL BEHAVIORS
YES
SOMEWHAT
NO
· active involvement of all participants during the course of a discussion ____
____
 ____

· by calling on volunteers first

      

· calling on others to refocus or involve them

      
· paraphrasing or summarizing of participants' response to ____
____
 ____

· show support & recognize the importance of anothers ideas

      

· clarify the response for self & others

      

· encourage further thinking about a reworded (rather than repeated) response

      

· connect one response to another or a response to other evidence from the text or life experiences

      

· move on to the next question

      
· non-evaluative response, i.e., "ahuh", "yes, and...", paraphrasing, so no judgement is passed on answers ____
____
 ____
· the story and an organized list of questions during discussion ____
____
 ____

· changes order of questions and/or creates questions in response to "flow" of discussions

      
· open-ended, interpretive questioning ____
____
 ____
· examples or quotes from the story to stimulate discussion ____
____
 ____
· a varied pace and tone of voice that shows interest & provides emphasis ____
____
 ____
NON-VERBAL BEHAVIORS      
· active listening ____
____
 ____

· avoiding interruptions

      

· "listening to hear, not to speak"

      
· eye contact with speaker while frequently "scanning" the group ____
____
 ____
· attentive yet relaxed posture ____
____
 ____
· facial expressions that give no clue about the correctness of a response ____
____
 ____
· gestures of the hands & face that show interest, emphasis & clarification ____
____
 ____
· nods to show recognition & encouragement ____
____
 ____
· an awareness of the pace & time limits of discussion ____
____
 ____

My/Our strengths were
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
My/Our weaknesses were
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
Next time I/we plan to improve upon
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________

Story:_______________________________________
Date: _______________________________________


Signature(s)______________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________

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