FACILITATING DISCUSSIONS
Additional Resources

1. Teaching Effectiveness Award Essays.  Read about creative solutions to classroom facilitation developed by your fellow GSIs, organized under the following topic headings:  Discussion/Participation; Laboratories; Collaborative Learning; Learning Styles.
   
   
2. Creating Inclusive College Classrooms, by Shari Saunders and Diana Kardia at University of Michigan’s Center for Research on Learning and Teaching.    Provides tips on how to create an inclusive classroom, from choice of course content to dealing with controversial topics.
   
   Student temperament also affects the way they choose to engage in class discussions and activities. For suggestions about working with more introverted students, see Tami Isaac's brief article Introverted Students in the Classroom: How to Bring Out Their Best.
   
   
3. Helpful selections from Barbara Gross Davis, Tools for Teaching (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1993) can be found on line through the Office of Educational Development.  You must be using a computer connected to the UC Berkeley Campus student network to access these articles.  Alternatively, you can find the book in the reference center of the GSI Teaching and Resource Center. 
   • Diversity and Complexity in the Classroom: Considerations of Race, Ethnicity, and Gender
   • Encouraging Student Participation in Discussion 
   • Collaborative Learning: Group Work and Study Teams 
     
     
4. Teaching in Difficult Times: Some Suggestions. Provides advice on how to handle potentially emotional or confrontational topics, developed by the university’s Office of Educational Development after 9/11.
   
   
5. The following articles are available in the GSI Teaching and Resource Center (301 Sproul):
   
   Brookfield, Stephen.  “Through the Lens of Learning: How Experiencing Difficult Learning Challenges and Changes Assumptions about Teaching.” To Improve the Academy 15 (1996): 3–15.  This entertaining article describes how the author’s experience of learning how to swim gave him insight into the challenges his students face in the classroom.
   
   Frederick, Peter.  “The Dreaded Discussion: Ten Ways to Start.” Improving College and University Teaching 29.3 (1981): 109–114.  Practical strategies for getting your students talking to one another from the very beginning of section.
   
   
6. The following books can be checked out at the GSI Teaching and Resource Center (301 Sproul):
   
   Cross, K. Patricia. Collaborative Learning 101. The Cross Papers 4. League for Innovation in the Community College, 2000.
   
   Johnson, D., R. Johnson, and K. Smith. Cooperative Learning: Increasing College Faculty Instructional Productivity. ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Report No. 4, 1991.
   
   Meyers, C. & T. Jones. Promoting Active Learning: Strategies for the College Classroom. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1993.
   
   Millis, B. and P. Cottell. Cooperative Learning for Higher Education Faculty. Oryx Press, 1998.

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