Discover STEM Librarians: Advancing Your Instructional Portfolio

This methodology encourages students to develop critical, creative, and constructive thinking skills regarding all the relevant factors when making a decision or considering an idea. It is a useful tool before deciding and planning a particular course of action to gather together a comprehensive list of factors which may determine a decision or idea.

Presenter instructs students to jot down and share with partner or small group:
-3 ideas/issues etc. presented
-2 examples or uses of the idea/information covered
-1 unresolved/remaining question/area of possible confusion

In a Fishbowl discussion, students seated inside the “fishbowl” actively participate in a discussion by asking questions and sharing their opinions, while students standing outside listen carefully to the ideas presented. Students take turns in these roles, so that they practice being both contributors and listeners in a group discussion. This strategy is especially useful when you want to make sure all students participate in a discussion, when you want to help students reflect on what a good discussion looks like, and when you need a structure for discussing controversial or difficult topics. A Fishbowl discussion makes for an excellent pre-writing activity, often unearthing questions or ideas that students can explore more deeply in an independent assignment.

Ask students to write for 1 or 2-3 minutes on a topic or in response to a question that you've developed for the session. This is useful in moments in which instructors are asking students to move from one level of understanding to another, from presentation of new ideas to application of ideas, from considerations about self to situations involving others. Writing offers students a moment to explore ideas before discussion, or to bring closure to a session by recording ideas in their minds at that moment. A minute of writing is also a useful thing when discussion takes a turn you didn't expect – when a particularly good question comes from the group, when discussion keeps circulating around a basic idea rather than inching its way into potential applications or deepening of ideas.

Student Response System (SRS) allows instructors to pose questions and gather students' responses during a lecture.

Have students turn to someone near them to summarize what they're learning, to answer a question posed during the discussion, or to consider how and why and when they might apply a concept. This works well with pre-planned questions and with ideas that emerge during a larger group discussion. The objectives are to engage students with the material on an individual level, in pairs, and finally as a large group. The activity can help to organize prior knowledge; brainstorm questions; or summarize, apply, or integrate new information. Approximate time: six to eight minutes. The procedure is as follows: 1) individuals reflect on (and perhaps jot notes) for one minute in response to a question; 2) they pair up with someone sitting near them and share responses/thoughts verbally for two minutes, or they may choose to work together to create a synthesis of ideas or come to a consensus; 3) the discussion leader/instructor randomly chooses a few pairs to give thirty-second summaries of ideas.