Leading a Class Discussion:

Kenneth Plont

Fall 2018

7th grade Social Studies

11/10/18

Context of instruction: This is at the very beginning of our early humans history unit. The goal

here was to have students learn the basic vocabulary that is necessary for understanding of early

human history and prehistory before diving into the actual content. Without coherent instruction

and enduring understanding of the vocabulary being used throughout the duration of this unit,

students will struggle. Therefore, we took care of it right off the bat, by having a discussion to

access prior knowledge and make sure that the entire class took notes and understood what this

key vocabulary words meant and ultimately how these facts and concepts are connected together.

Claim:

The claim that I am making here is that I’m developing proficiency in leading a

classroom discussion. There has been considerable growth since I started my student teaching

last year in the fall of 2017. This growth is demonstrated in this recording as I am adequately

able to help students connect different facts and concepts to each other, in order for the students

to see the bigger picture of the content being presented, and ultimately, build a more enduring

understanding of said content. Through random selection and talking with a variety of student

volunteers throughout the discussion, I was able to access prior knowledge of vocabulary terms

and build on that for the benefit of the entire class. To me, this is a developing proficiency in this
area of teaching and shows considerable growth from last year, when I was less confident and

unclear in explaining content to students and asking thought-provoking and effective questions

throughout a discussion.

Evidence and Reasoning:

The evidence that I’ve grown in the past year in leading classroom discussion is apparent

starting at 25 seconds into the video posted. At 25 seconds in, I ask the students: “what about

everyday people?” in order to apply what we were learning to the lives of more relatable people

outside of just the typical men we learn about in history books and lessons. Without relating

history and social studies content to real life, students will seldom have any interest in what’s

going on. By examining the lives of everyday ordinary people, students will see how prehistory

and history apply to everyone’s lives, not just powerful white men that they often learn about

throughout history.

The evidence that students were able to relate past events that affected everyday ordinary

people is present at around 48 seconds into the video where a student says: “things that could

have happened in the past could happen in the present”, showing that this student understands

how the lessons of the past may all too often be present in the future or the times we are living in

now. At around 1 minute into the video, another student states: “that it’s important to know your

history in order for people to vote and that people have voted for a chunk of history”, further

indicating that this student understands where the discussion is headed and also that people need

to be aware of the history that still has an effect on their daily lives today.

Continuing on with the class discussion on history and prehistory, I pose another question

to transition the conversation. I ask: “what in the world do we mean by prehistory” dramatically
to emphasize how weird it is to talk about something that happened before history. Around 2:15

in the video, another student answers: “prehistory is before the past, and pre means like before”

which indicates to me that this student understands the wording being used, but also that

prehistory indeed happened before history. I use this answer to ask other students and probe for

further prior knowledge. A different student replies: “prehistory is before history was recorded”

around 2:30, so I follow up with “so how do we record history?” Following that, a different

student answers: “with books” and another student answers at about the 3 minute mark in the

video: “with writing” indicating to me the crucial point that I’m trying to get at: prehistory

occurred before the invention of writing roughly around 6,000 years ago. Here it is evident to me

that I’m getting much better at keeping the “flow” of the conversation controlled and cohesive

and guiding students to where the conversation ultimately needs to lead.

Next, the students need to understand how we know anything about the world and early

humans if writing wasn’t around during that time. I transition the conversation at around 3:50 in

the video by writing on the board the context: writing was invented nearly 6,000 years ago. The

question posed here is this: “if writing has only been around for 6,000 years, how the heck do we

know anything about early humans in prehistory if writing had yet to be invented nearly 200,000

years ago?” By placing this in context, it indicates to students that somehow people know these

things or can theorize about the earliest humans, provoking students to think about the

possibilities of how and why we know some things about the earliest groups of human beings.

At around 4:10 in the video, a student answers: “geological people.” I probe for further

understanding by asking what that one student meant by “geological people” and immediately

they reply with: “archeologists.” Archeologists are exactly what we were aiming to talk about,
indicating to me that this student has prior knowledge of this subject area and how this applies to

the bigger picture and context of prehistory and the Paleolithic era, more specifically. This is

further indication of developing proficiency in my own ability as a novice educator to guide and

lead a discussion to where we need to be building an enduring understanding and understanding

the bigger picture of this early humans unit.

Later on, at around 4:52 in the video posted, a different student asks: “Mr. Plont, what

about folktales? Or the passing on of stories? Do we know anything about prehistory because of

folktales?” I reply with another question for the class: “what kind of history is it when we pass

stories along through word-of-mouth?” and “before writing was invented, did people discuss

things and pass stories on from generation to generation?” These questions are crucial to guiding

students into critical thinking and for applying one students seemingly off-topic question to the

broader discussion of prehistory. Once examining, one will understand that the students question

is actually very revelant. After the students answer, I indicate that this is oral history and we

discuss about how stories can often be embellished and exaggerated because of human

tendencies, and we start to dive deeper into a nuanced discussion about the fragility of some

facets of the theories that we’ve developed surrounding the earliest of humans. This shows me as

a teacher that my own ability to provoke thought and productive discussion is becoming

proficient.

I transition back into the broader discussion now and how all the facts and concepts

connect to each other, evident around 6 minutes in the video posted. I tie to the facts and

concepts of artifacts, archeologists, prehistory and history, which are the key vocab terms we

were focusing on for this specific lesson. This further provides closure for students and myself
on what we’re learning about, and how to build an enduring understanding of the content at

hand.