Teachers need to provide students with a safe and supportive
classroom environment that facilitates active participation and
engagement of all students. This is particularly important as many
of the discussion activities deal with sensitive issues in relation
to mental health and wellbeing.
In order to provide a safe and engaging learning environment for
students, it is important for teachers to:
- collaborate with students to develop a group agreement that
sets the parameters for class discussions
- reflect on their own role in discussions - acting as a
facilitator of the conversation to help to generate many
viewpoints
- value all student contributions and make this known
- use a range of questioning techniques which open up discussion
rather
- than trying to get to a quick right answer
- recognise that some students may not feel comfortable sharing;
explore
- ways of dealing with this such as using think, pair, share
activities
- explore ways to ensure that all students get an opportunity to
speak, such as using talk tickets.