No Series: Strategies for Student-Centered Discussion "Two Cents": Strategies for Student-Centered Discussions (Uncut)

Strategies for Student-Centered Discussion "Two Cents": Strategies for Student-Centered Discussions (Uncut)

Lesson Objective: This is 33 minutes of authentic teaching, unedited, and without teacher narration.
33 MIN

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Discussion and Supporting Materials

Thought starters

  1. What does Ms. Brown Wessling mean when she says, "Make sense of what doesn't make sense."
  2. How does Ms. Brown Wessling mix direct instruction into the student-centered discussion?
  3. Though students share their own observations, they also engage with each other in conversation. How does this happen?

7 Comments

  • Private message to Takesha Trevino

The students have their own observations and are able to engage with each other in conversation. This happens because Miss wesling allows students to take ownership of their learning. In the beginning of the lesson, the students take two cents. They use the coins to discuss their thoughts about a story. They share their thoughts and give one cent for each time they share. This is a very effective strategy for a student-centered discussion. The students are actively engaged and the teacher is focusing on their educational needs. She is also adjusting the lesson based on their needs. This allows effective communication within the class.

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  • Private message to Laura Waitulionis

The thought generation at the beginning of class allowed the students to start analyzing the text within their minds. The teacher opens the discussion by inviting students to share their thoughts, or their "two cents." The pennies reminded students that they should each try to contribute a thought into the overall discussion. The teacher generates further discussion by asking "why" and "how" questions, and eventually students begin reflecting on each other's thoughts. The guiding questions and visual chart helps the students to deepen their thought processes of each character in relation to the theme of the story.  

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  • Private message to Grace Arias

I love the opening/warm-up discussion starter as it evidently helped with promoting continuous disucssion and allowing everyone to participate. Although this activity seemed so simple, it prevents the one strong speaker in the class in not taking over disucssion and it allows the quieter student in encouarging having something to share. 

Recommended (1)
  • Private message to Caroline Adduci

This teachers lesson plan was great and I loved the idea of the spectrum. Especailly writting down what each student says. You could tell the students were emotionally invested in the reading Each time a student adds input the teacher always ask for me so students can dig deeper, she even asks for direct evidence from the text. By having such disscusions about the text she is also doing a content check. 

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  • Private message to Chirag Rana

I really love the whole strategy behind the two cents because it allows for all the students to be actively engaged in he conversation that's taking place in class. At the same time, this also gives each student an equal oppertunity of taking part in the activity that the teacher has set up for them, and once someone has given up their two cents then that means they have offered all they can to the class. Especially when it comes to knowing about a writer's mind set taking place when it comes to the passage, and truly understand what he or she is presenting in the story. That itself just provides a great way to have an amazing discussion amongst the class when including the 2 cents strategy. 

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School Details

Johnson Senior High School
1349 Arcade Street
Saint Paul MN 55106
Population: 1295

Data Provided By:

greatschools

Teachers

teachers
Sarah Brown Wessling
English Language Arts / 10 11 12 / Teacher