The effective practice that I identified in my last blog post shows the characteristics of teaching presence through facilitating student-to-student discourse. I am very invested in learning how to be a better facilitator for students, as I feel this is one of the hardest tasks for me as a teacher. The reading laid out the idea that development occurs with cognitive conflict or when students encounter an idea that challenges their assumptions or preconceptions. This is of course true, but it is not always evident to me when this is happening in my classes as my students often do not disagree with one another. I find that these conversations instead happen after class or in my office hours. Sometimes I have students come to me troubled by a statement another student has made in class because it has forced them to confront an issue they had never reflected upon before. My challenge is how to have students feel comfortable adding this to the discussion so that we can address these conflicts during the space of the classroom in order to have everyone benefit.
My view on the effective practice I identified would help with this challenge, but I think could be further modified. Perhaps I could first have students take 3-4 minutes to write down a personal response and then discuss this response in their small group discussions. When they come back as a whole class I could ask them whether their perspective had shifted between their personal self-reflections and the small group discussion. This might allow us to address assumptions student bring into the classroom while allowing them not to feel personally under attack.
