Zack Frame - Post #4 - Cues & Questioning

I am a big fan of classroom discussion. But if classroom discussion does not have a motivating and driving force behind it, then the whole basis of classroom discussion flops. To get students to discuss the subjects, I will give students cues and questions (a strategy suggested by Marzano) to help guide them in the classroom discussion. In my experience in my clinical, I’ve noticed a few things about the strategy. I was able to make note of a few good things, but I was also able to make note of some less than desirable effects.

First of all, the first period theatre class appeared to be the most disengaged group of students I have ever worked with—well, at least in a theatre classroom. We were beginning to discuss play analysis—and of course, as I mentioned, I enjoy teaching through class discussion. As it turns out, class discussion does not work if students are not engaged. I asked them a very broad question trying to get the ball rolling. I received blank stares all the way across the classroom. I explain to them that for class discussion to work they have to open their mouths, allow sounds to come out to form coherent sentences. This got a few laughs, but it really didn’t do anything as far as making them talk more.

I figured my question was too broad, and students were afraid to answer for fear of being incorrect, so I tried using some cues to get them thinking about where I wanted them to go with this question. At this point, I was able to get a few more students involved with the class discussion. Then I notice many of the same people were getting into the conversation—so I would ask other students (quiet ones; not contributing much to the discussion) a specific question that pertained to what we were talking about.

Basically, through Marzano‘s strategy of cues and questioning, I have found that this strategy is easier to use and students are willing to participate. While I believe this particular type of strategy feeds best into my classroom philosophy (the fact that learning is a three way process, student: teacher, teacher: student, student: student), I believe that for this strategy to work I need to give students more incentive to participate. Maybe if I accompanied the discussion with some sort of visual aid (or non linguistic representation—maybe even an advance organizer), students would have been more interested in participating, thus, making the lesson go more desirably.