Why is putting a work discussion in your lesson plan a good way to help learners develop their speaking and listening skills while also getting them to think more critically?

Work Discussion Discussion Strategy: Explanation

The teacher sets learners a major piece of work.

Examples of what this might entail include an extended piece of writing, an independent project or an end-of-unit assessment.

Upon finishing this, learners are put into groups of three or four.

A two-step process follows.

Step One

Learners reflect in their groups on the work they have done.

The teacher displays on the board a range of questions that learners can use as the basis of their discussions.

For example:

What did you find difficult/easy about the work and why?
How might you improve your work next time? Why would this be an improvement? Why were you not able to do it this time?
What did the work show to you about your knowledge and understanding of the topic?
If you had set the task, what might you have done differently? Why?
What advice would you give to a future learner who was asked to complete the task and why?

Step Two

Learners swap their work and read through what the other people in their group have done.

A discussion ensues in which each piece of work is talked about in turn.

For each piece of work, learners should explain what they thought about it, and the author should have a chance to talk through their own thinking in producing it.

You can scaffold this with these questions:

What did you like about the work you reviewed?
How do you think the work could have been improved?
What are your thoughts on your own work?

In essence, this is a peer-assessment conducted with multiple members and in dialogue.

It is important to emphasise to learners that the onus should be on positive comments and that suggestions for improvement should be constructive and meaningful.

One way to achieve the latter is to model some examples verbally, or to display some on the board, alongside the scaffold questions.

Work Discussion Discussion Strategy: Example

Topic: The art of Picasso

Learners are set the following task:

Create three sketches that make use of a range of stylistic elements used by Picasso.
When you have finished, produce three paragraphs in which you outline what elements you have chosen, why you have chosen them and how you have incorporated them in your work.

Upon finishing (which may be several lessons later!), learners are put into groups and asked to discuss the experience of responding to the task.

The teacher provides general questions as an aid to discussion, such as those noted above, as well as questions that are specific to the task.

In our example, these might include:

How did you go about choosing which stylistic elements to use?
How did you feel about having to use aspects of Picasso’s work in your own art?
Has the experience altered your opinion of Picasso’s work? Why?

Following this, learners examine, read and analyse the work of the other members of their group.

Given the nature of this task, with learners producing three sketches and a written piece, the teacher decides that groups of three are ideal.

This means learners must review six sketches and two pieces of writing, which is manageable.

Once learners have finished reviewing their peers’ work, a second discussion develops, scaffolded by the three questions noted above.

This is an opportunity for a discursive peer-assessment, with learners talking critically about their work and the work their peers have produced.

The whole process helps learners to think more deeply about the task, about Picasso’s approach to art, and about their own artistic preferences.

In addition, learners are exposed to the work of their peers and encouraged to think about the general assessment criteria used when studying art.

Work Discussion Discussion Strategy: Extensions and Developments

Learners fill in a peer-assessment sheet for each piece of work they examine. These are structured so that the ratio of positive comments to areas for improvement is four or five to one. The various sheets are given to the creators of the work, who read them through. Discussion then takes place, informed by what has been written.
The teacher gives all learners the opportunity to alter their work based on what has been talked about during the discussions. The feasibility of this depends on what task you have set for your learners. In our art example above, it might involve the teacher giving learners an additional lesson in which to produce a fourth sketch, with this informed by the work discussion they had with their peers.