As an instructor, you’ve likely held class discussions where only a few students participated. This is the sort of challenge that instructors are always looking for new and creative approaches to solve! Fortunately, there is a solution that will guarantee participation from every student in class.

This 20-Minute Mentor shows you how to shape discussions in a way that engages all students and promotes deeper learning of the content. Through a three-part guided approach, you’ll be able to structure discussions of complex issues, in any course or discipline, that will increase engagement and critical thinking in all students in class.

Learning Goals

After viewing this Magna 20-Minute Mentor, participants will be able to:

• Identify specific strategies for engaging students during class discussions
• Integrate teaching higher-level intellectual skills into instruction
• Create instruction prompts that guide students to deepen their knowledge and metacognitively reflection their thinking

Topics Covered

• Flipped classrooms
• Bloom’s taxonomy of intellectual skills
• Metacognition
• Critical evaluation standards
• Building student skills in:
  • applying relevant course concepts and information
  • analyzing and evaluating arguments
  • synthesizing concepts and information
  • metacognitively reflecting on their own thinking
  • asking scientific questions that generate new knowledge related to an issue