We all know the feeling... We've developed great discussion questions, and we pose them to the class. We ask students to speak with their group and discuss these fantastic questions... and the room is SILENT.
 
Getting students to talk (about what we want them to talk about) is so much harder than I ever anticipated! I finally realized that I actually need to teach students how to communicate with each other. I usually do this at the start of the school year and lightly joke with my students that they might have forgotten how to collaborate over the long summer break... :)
 
This document outlines classroom discussion strategies for engaging all students. This step-by-step procedure will help you facilitate a group discussion to get your students talking!