Findings
My data collection has lead me to believe that one of the most useful ways of collecting data is simply to give students a survey to fill out after we have completed a classroom discussion. My findings for this study focus mainly on the collection of data from one of 10th grade World History classes. I purposefully chose to focus on a particular class that had students who were both vocal and quiet in class. Although this class had students who tended to participate less than any other I taught during this year, I thought it would allow for some interesting findings based on the wide differences in student’s willingness to want to participate in class. This study is about how students experience Harkness teaching and the fact that this class was not a terribly vocal group of students was actually more beneficial to the overall study as it will give a truer reflection of some of the issues that students experience when they are expected to be involved in spoken discourse at school.
Students’ Feelings about Verbal Participation
What follows is my analysis of some of the student responses to my survey questions given at the beginning of this study. As a faculty, we assume that students enjoy the teaching method and that it is beneficial to students. However, to my knowledge no one has asked them. I gave this initial survey to learn how students felt about Harkness teaching and participating in class more generally.
Do you think that participating in class makes you better understand the material being taught?
a) Yes
b) No
c) Perhaps
d) Other
I asked my students this question as a way to gauge if they actually feel that the Harkness method is something that is worthy of their participation and if it was going to help them succeed in my class. Although I do grade discussion in class, it is only a small percentage of the grade that I assign at the end of each trimester. I therefore asked this question to determine if students participate during lessons because they think it is going to better their overall grade in my class, or if they actually think that by speaking in class they might be learning from doing so. I refrained from actually asking them a question which would have forced them to tell me why they participate because I was apprehensive that they might not be entirely truthful with their responses being that their names were on the survey sheet.
All 15 of the surveyed students choose “yes”. While their responses did not give me any useful data for this study, they did reinforce for me the necessity that the students felt about participating in class, and therefore the importance of actually continuing with this study.
My second question asked students to describe their feelings about Harkness participation by asking them the following question:
Circle the number that best describes your level of comfort with verbal participation in this class
1. Terrified! I’ll never do it
2. Wary – Only if I have rehearsed the comment in my head beforehand
3. Somewhat comfortable – I’ll do it but only if I think it will improve my grade in this class
4. Very comfortable – It’s like talking to my friends at lunch
The results were very interesting and can be broken down in the following ways:
Students’ Feelings about Verbal Participation
What follows is my analysis of some of the student responses to my survey questions given at the beginning of this study. As a faculty, we assume that students enjoy the teaching method and that it is beneficial to students. However, to my knowledge no one has asked them. I gave this initial survey to learn how students felt about Harkness teaching and participating in class more generally.
Do you think that participating in class makes you better understand the material being taught?
a) Yes
b) No
c) Perhaps
d) Other
I asked my students this question as a way to gauge if they actually feel that the Harkness method is something that is worthy of their participation and if it was going to help them succeed in my class. Although I do grade discussion in class, it is only a small percentage of the grade that I assign at the end of each trimester. I therefore asked this question to determine if students participate during lessons because they think it is going to better their overall grade in my class, or if they actually think that by speaking in class they might be learning from doing so. I refrained from actually asking them a question which would have forced them to tell me why they participate because I was apprehensive that they might not be entirely truthful with their responses being that their names were on the survey sheet.
All 15 of the surveyed students choose “yes”. While their responses did not give me any useful data for this study, they did reinforce for me the necessity that the students felt about participating in class, and therefore the importance of actually continuing with this study.
My second question asked students to describe their feelings about Harkness participation by asking them the following question:
Circle the number that best describes your level of comfort with verbal participation in this class
1. Terrified! I’ll never do it
2. Wary – Only if I have rehearsed the comment in my head beforehand
3. Somewhat comfortable – I’ll do it but only if I think it will improve my grade in this class
4. Very comfortable – It’s like talking to my friends at lunch
The results were very interesting and can be broken down in the following ways:
No students chose “terrified”, which does not surprise me. However, at least three students chose “wary”. These three students often seem apprehensive in class, particularly when asked to contribute to discussions.
Briana is a student who never speaks in class and has seldom seemed interested in the topics that we have discussed. She actually added to her answer on the survey sheet by saying she only will Harkness if she “is comfortable with the topic”. Madison is a high achieving student on almost all assessments who never once spoke at the Harkness table. She looks interested in the topics that we discuss and her essays and homework reflect that she is engaged. Daniel is also a very quiet student who rarely says anything in class or outside unless prompted. I have had him on my sport team for three years now and know him well.
The four students that choose option three and said that they are somewhat comfortable with Harkness are all male and their personalities in class can be broken down into two categories:
Category 1: Gavin and Jake are both teenagers who seem anxious to build social capital while they are around their peers. They are prone to responding during discussion to get a reaction from the class. When they do volunteer to speak it seems to be to “have their say” and not to build on the conversation. I suspect that Gavin is less confident with the material being taught than Jake.
Category 2: Mark and John are both shy students and I would have expected John to have chosen either option one or two. The fact that he did not definitely gets me thinking about the classroom climate and my approach and methods to encourage classroom participation. I suspect that John was saying that he is somewhat comfortable but is actually not participating at all because of something that I am doing to discourage him or something that I am not doing to encourage him.
I was surprised that eight students said that they are very comfortable with Harkness participation. Some of the students who chose this option don’t regularly participate verbally in class so their choices are interesting. I think that Jayden, Mason, and Taylor do not show a willingness to participate, and again this gets me thinking about my own practice and if my instruction is inhibiting this. The other five students who chose this option are all quite vocal and I expected to see them choose that answer.
Based on the above survey I was determined to allow for all students to be able to participate in a Harkness discussion so I carefully planned one of our first discussions to be on a topic which would allow all students to participate. This would serve two purposes: Firstly it would allow for me to provide a decent review of the material that we had studied in our last class. The discussion and how it proceeded would be a good indictor as to the level of student understanding of material that had already been taught. Secondly it would prove to be a great indicator of the willingness of students to participate because the topic on which the Harkness was based was not only interesting to most students, but also something that all were expected to know and could therefore use this knowledge to express their opinions.
Harknessing Together
As students entered the class I had the Harkness question written on the board and students were expected to write a response to the following question: What do you think was the most significant cause of the French Revolution? Justify your answer. We were in the midst of studying this part of history so all students were expected to contribute during the discussion. Student wrote for about five minutes. To keep the upcoming conversation “fresh” I did not ask students to share their responses with each other, we simply launched directly into the Harkness conversation. I announced to students that we would be having a Harkness conversation facilitated by me but that they were responsible for doing most of the talking.
We spent the next four minutes deciding on our norms and expectations for the Harkness discussion with me writing the responses of the students on the board. The group decided that it would be important if we spoke one at a time and attempted to build on what others were saying during the Harkness. Participants would also take notes during the conversation and no student would dominate the conversation. All opinions would be respected and considered by the group and participants would be sure to support each other and attempt to draw their peers into the conversation. I had thought long and hard about whether or not I would announce to the students that it would be a graded Harkness, but decided not to do this. An announcement of this sort usually gets students anxious or overeager and has resulted in certain students dominating the conversation. I asked one of the very vocal students to draw a conversation map, which would mean that he would be preoccupied and allow others to have a voice during the conversation. A conversation map is a recording of who spoke and in what order.
I thought that the Harkness went smoothly with most students choosing to focus on the leadership issues of Louis XVI as the major determining cause of the Revolution. This conversation started with students offering up ideas based on what they learned in class about the subject. Students usually gravitate towards answering a Harkness question in this way, perhaps because they feel comfortable in the knowledge that what they are offering is considered b y the group to be factual and less open to scrutiny. After about five minutes one student gave his opinion about the Revolution and this started a period of students offering up ideas that we had yet to discuss in our previous lessons. I consider this to be the part of all Harkness discussions where the students start to actually learn from one another. After a few more minutes another student made an interesting comparison to the recent revolution in Egypt and this reenergized the room and the conversation took a slightly different direction. Although by this stage the conversation had gone a bit off the original topic, I did not consider this to be something that needed to be redirected and focused. I considered this part of the discussion to be as meaningful as when students were discussing the focus question. Not only were students engaged in discussion about a significant world event, they were on occasion attempting to connect it to our topic of study. More importantly, they were having an intellectual discussion with little to no input from their teacher. Of the 15 students present, 12 contributed without me asking any probing questions of the group. Two boys and one girl did not speak at all during the Harkness. This was not surprising to me because these students seldom participate in class and they are also the students who chose option 2 (that they were wary of speaking during a Harkness) from the above survey.
The conversation map showed that two students spoke six times, three students spoke four times, four students spoke twice, and the three remaining students spoke just once. During the 12 minute Harkness it was the boys who spoke more often and for longer. However, it was interesting to note that the female students built on what was being said by others far more, and that their comments on enlightenment ideas and the famine that swept through France in the late 1790’s were arguably more relevant to the topic. The female students’ comments were also the points that kept the conversation vibrant and interesting.
In short, the boys in this class spoke more often, and for longer, but the girls spoke at a higher academic level. Although this was not my first Harkness in this class it was the first time that I used exit cards as a way of gauging how students felt the conversation went. I asked students to write on an index card what worked and what did not work for them during the Harkness. The following is a report of some of their comments and some of the questions that emerged for me as a result of the student feedback:
What didn’t work for you in the Harkness discussion?
Student responses to this question seem to revolve around two themes: the role of the teacher and the need for everyone in the room to participate and for no one to dominate proceedings. Students also expressed concern about equity during this Harkness and their responses show that they sometimes had difficulty entering the conversation.
Mia: “Sometimes I felt that you (the teacher) interjected too much when it is sometimes better if we can talk and figure things out for ourselves”
Mark: “Should be more student led see where we take the question and if we get off topic, jump in”
Jayden: “Your (the teacher’s) input was incredibly strong and the relations to the modern world really made the Harkness more influential”
I have focused on these three comments because they show the importance of the teacher in promoting classroom discussion and I feel like Mia’s and Mark’s comments are very important because they reflects one of the fears that I have of “over promoting” the Harkness question, and as a result stifling student voice. As Nora Flynn notes, “...student-led activities have a different agent in charge...” (2009, p. 8) and that agent should not be the teacher. On the other hand Jayden seemed to think that my role in the discussion was necessary and helpful. What this seems to reinforce is that students who are less confident participating (Jayden) seem to need, and perhaps enjoy more teacher guidance in discussion than those who are more confident and vocal. (Mia and Mark)
Additional comments further emphasized the need some students have for the teacher to play an active role, not only during the Harkness discussion, but also in the way that the topic is introduced to the class. Claire wrote: “I wish that you had announced the discussion a bit more formally. Doing so tends to engage more people”. I asked Claire to expand on this comment a bit more after class and she said that she would want to know the question beforehand and that she wanted more teacher involvement in the conversation. I think that this is a very interesting comment because it shows that some students prefer the teacher to take a more active role, particularly when it comes to introducing and structuring the conversation.
The exit cards revealed that several students felt frustrated when they felt unable to voice their opinions at the Harkness table, or that particular voices were dominating.
James: “Not everyone was heard”.
Blake: “Not enough speakers. Only people with loud voices and loud opinions spoke. Hard to get everyone in the conversation”
Emma: “Not everyone speaks because people cut off others”
Sean: Not everyone talked…I think that you (the teacher) should find a way to force other people to speak”
Landon: “There were a lot of people overpowering the discussion”.
Clearly most of the issues that students had with the Harkness conversation were focused on not having a voice at the table. Many seemed to feel that the teacher should be the one who keeps everything moving along smoothly in the conversation. At the same time, others felt I spoke up too much. The comments above made me ask myself, why was I not more careful in explaining the protocols and norms expected of everyone in the Harkness prior to the actual event? I also wondered if the conversation would have been more productive if we had a fishbowl style Harkness with an inner circle of participants and an outer circle of observers. This would lessen the number of participants at the table at one time, and might allow for less frustration in having students heard, as voiced in the comments above.
What worked for you in the Harkness discussion?
Mark: “Giving us more time before the question to organize our thoughts”
Carson: “The warm-up helped me gather my thoughts before the discussion”
An important finding here is that some students found the writing warm-up before the Harkness to be helpful in preparing to have the discussion. Interestingly, both of the comments from the students above seemed to be truthful because both students participated more than they normally do during this conversation.
Daniel: “When people were referencing what others had said”
This is very important for Harkness and it is interesting that this student said this because he was one of the students who did not speak at all during the conversation. This shows me that although some students might not be participating verbally at the table, it does not mean that they are not learning.
Madison: “Everyone was able to speak during the Harkness”
Sophia: “When you challenged ideas and said things just because you knew we didn’t agree with it. You pushed us to be more inquisitive”
The quotes above were important indicators of what I had to be sure to do in later Harkness discussions. Students clearly want time to organize their thoughts before speaking and I have since used writing warm-ups before many Harkness discussions in my class. Students also seemed to like teacher input that challenged their thinking which has made me better prepare before each discussion to be able to ask students controversial questions that might challenge their thinking.
In the following sections I will explore several different ways of approaching and supporting equitable Harkness discussions. These sections will focus on: The Role of Gender in Harkness participation; Harknessing to Learn, which specifically examines whether or not Harkness teaching is best used for teaching new material or if Harkness is best used as a review tool for already learned material; Fishbowl Harkness discussions and their role in middle school classrooms and Graded Harkness discussions and how these affect student performance around the Harkness table.
Each represent a different lens/approach I took to building more equitable conversations and in the sections that follow I attempt to outline the themes that emerged from each approach.
The Role of Gender in Harkness Participation
I began this research hoping to learn how the different genders experience Harkness discussions, and ultimately how to make these discussions more equitable. I had read about how differently genders approach learning and noticed in my own classroom distinct differences in the ways in which boys and girls operate around the Harkness table. While there were distinct differences between the genders, I had very little idea about why these differences existed, and even less idea about how best to ensure that these differences could be harnessed to create better Harkness conversations in my classes.
Following the Harkness above, I asked the students if they noticed any differences in the ways in which boys and girls participate in class. Most students tended to support their own gender and suggested that the other sex was not as proficient with classroom discourse. Sophia wrote that “girls are often more controlled and careful, while boys sometimes either talk a lot, or very little”. This supports one of my findings that suggested that girls are sometimes more focused on the actual topic and tend to speak less “just to be heard” than do boys. Lucy wrote on her exit card, “I think it depends on the classroom dynamic. In some classes boys seem to be more confident and this might have something to do with the teacher”. Leonard Sax suggests that male student success is often dependent on a teacher who understands how they learn (2005). I have also discovered that it is perhaps even more of a factor with female students than with males.
To further explore how boys and girls experience Harkness discussions I decided to stage a Harkness discussion that would conclude with the students answering more specific questions related to gender. In doing this, I wondered if the topic of the Harkness discussion would influence how boys and girls experienced the discussion. Are there topics that girls might feel more inclined to want to discuss, and could this also be the case for male students? To determine this, I chose to focus on a male historical figure with the hopes that this might assist in answering this question. Male students are generally more predisposed to wanting to learn about war in my history classes and this usually involves male historical figures. Would a Harkness question about a conquering male historical figure cause the boys in my class to participate more and the girls less? We had been studying the rise and fall of Napoleon Bonaparte and at the beginning of class I wrote the following Harkness prompts on the board:
What do you think is Napoleon’s hubris? Can you predict why this might lead to his downfall?
We had been discussing Napoleon Bonaparte for the last two weeks so the students had enough content knowledge to answer this question. I also carefully injected the hubris element because it was direct integration with their English class. In 10th grade English classes students were writing an essay on hubris using Shakespeare’s character; Macbeth.
After briefly going over our classroom norms for Harkness discussions, most of the class seemed eager to begin. I was ready to complete a conversation map, and I asked a student to also do the same. The conversation map could potentially inform me of many things, but I used it primarily this time to compare how the genders responded to this Harkness question.
The conversation started out well but a few students had forgotten what hubris meant and were surprised that it could relate to anything other than Shakespeare. This particular Harkness was unique to any other that I had done this year in that I purposefully structured the focus question to be one that encouraged greater thought from students before speaking at the table. Earlier exit cards completed by students after Harkness discussions had overwhelmingly shown that students think that in general, girls seem to be less participatory, but that when they do speak in class, they do so for longer, and their responses are more highly valued by the group. By making the focus question something that would require greater thought from students before speaking, even though it was focused on a male character, I was curious to see if this might bring about an increase in female participation during this Harkness discussion. Below are some of the results:
An examination of my conversation map
My goal was to sit with my stopwatch and record how long each student spoke to put the opinions made about gender differences on earlier student exit cards to the test. I found that timing each student response was going to be almost impossible because the conversation moved around too quickly. As a result, I chose to time the spoken responses of two of the most vocal boys and the two most vocal girls. I only timed the comments from these four students that were of significant length, and as a result my totals are for the four longest comments from each student. The effectiveness and quality of each comment is obviously subjective and my assessment of how each student spoke is therefore only opinion without video to verify exactly what was said in this Harkness discussion.
Girls
Chloe: Spoke 8 times for a total of 5:42
Most of Chloe’s comments were poignant and well thought out. She used examples often and used what she had learned in her English class to help make her points. Chloe is a high level thinker and expresses herself well through her writing. She is actually one of the best 10th grade writers that I have ever encountered, but seldom says much in class, and sometimes looks bored with our topics of discussion. The fact that she spoke for longer than anyone during this discussion suggests that she gravitates to higher level questions and may find them more stimulating.
Grace: Spoke 11 times for a total of 3:34 – Grace is a sensitive student who often has her feelings hurt by others in the room. The boys tend to interrupt and speak over her far more than other female students in the room. Although she spoke more than frequently than Chloe during this Harkness, it is significant to note that her actual speaking time was shorter. During this particular conversation Grace seemed keen to get her point across quickly before she was interrupted by someone at the table. What resulted from this were comments that did not always fully explain her thinking on the issue. Unfortunately this seemed to be sensed by some of the boys in the room and as a result they seemed to value her comments less, and were ultimately more inclined to want to interrupt her.
Boys:
Justin: Spoke only six times, but for a total of 4:03. This student loves to use analogies to explain his points, but sometimes the analogies confuse the point he is trying to make. Students do however respect Justin’s comments around the Harkness table and his comments often inspire others to participate.
Adam: Spoke four times for a total of 2:19. Adam used his time to ask questions of the students who had spoken before him. This was actually quite effective because it was a good way for the group to stay focused on the topic and forced more than one student to re-explain what they were saying. This allowed for greater understanding at times.
Analysis
I structured this Harkness in a way that I thought might purposefully allow the girls greater access to speaking at the table, and it would appear to have been successful. Female students were significantly outnumbered in this class, but 54% of the responses to the prompt came from girls. Perhaps even more telling are the figures above which show that the top participating girls spoke for a combined total of 9:16 while the top two boys spoke for a total of 6:22.
Having never timed the responses for a Harkness discussion, I don’t actually know if this might be how things usually end up. I do know that it seemed as though the girls were more vocal during this discussion, but it did not seem to be as significant as the times above indicate. One of the reasons for this might be that girls are simply outnumbered in this class making it seem like boys speak more often collectively. Another factor might be that boys speak more often, but for a shorter time period giving the impression of speaking for longer. It was also interesting to note that, in comparison to boys, the girls seemed to craft their comments more purposefully to influence the class with their comments. Chloe in particular used references from our classroom textbook to back up some of the points that she was making about Napoleon. She took the trouble to find a quote from the book to prove her point, and read the quote to the class. This made me wonder if girls generally speak less during Harkness discussions that are given without advance warning because they are more concerned than boys about saying “the wrong thing” and having their teachers somehow disapprove. This seemed to support Sax’s (2005) observations that it is girls who are more concerned with impressing their teachers.
Post Harkness survey
Shortly after the discussion I handed out a survey which had questions that focused on how the discussion progressed. I asked questions about motivation and wait-time, but I also decided to see if students saw the differences between the boys and girls in the same way that I did by asking them the following question: In what different ways did boys and girls participate in this particular Harkness discussion?
Girls
Chloe: “Boys were more willing to change their beliefs and the girls were less outspoken and more indecisive”
I find this very interesting because I actually saw the opposite in this particular Harkness. What is more interesting is that this comment came from the student who spoke for longer than anyone in the class, and seemed to be the least indecisive. It should be considered that Chloe might have been talking about other girls since I did frame the question about boys and girls generally. She could be seeing herself in contrast to what she sees most girls doing. I also wonder if this reflects an ingrained societal attitude towards gender and education, and if some students have been indoctrinated into thinking that girls are generally quieter and less firm in their views.
Grace: “It seems like the boys are sort of rude when it comes to Harknessing, like their way is the only way where as girls are more open to new ideas”
Morgan: “Boys are very one-sided, this is my way, I’m right. Girls are...more understood”
Both these quotes seem to show that these girls see gender roles played out around the Harkness table differently to the way that Chloe did. While all three seemed to agree that boys were more forceful during discussion, Morgan, unlike Chloe thought that boys were less open to changing their minds during a discussion.
Boys
Lucas: “I think in general girls were more willing to share/talk openly”
Adam: “Girls seemed to be more outgoing and speak more in all Harknesses...”
Luis: “Boys tended to interrupt more and be the dominant force in the discussion”
Craig: “Boys: aggressive, loud, and elaborate. Girls: Quieter, set back, to the point”
I was interested to see that some of the boys did see that the girls had spoken more frequently and for longer in this discussion. (Lucas, Adam). Interestingly, the two other student comments above saw it differently and it would be interesting to know why when clearly me timing the comments would suggest that their observations are not accurate. (Craig, Luis). I do think that this was a good experiment and while it did not give me any conclusive evidence or data to prove anything, it did get me thinking more about how the students themselves think they Harkness, versus my idea of how they conduct themselves during open classroom discussions.
Although I chose a topic that I thought might be better suited to boys, what actually happened was that girls spoke more frequently, and for longer in this Harkness. The complexity of the topic, and the fact that it integrated with other 10th grade subjects seems to suggest that girls find complex topics more stimulating. At the same time, this conversation made me wonder if boys are less inclined to discuss an integrated and complex topic. If anything this reinforced in me that Harkness learning, and what constitutes successful student participation is a very difficult thing to quantify.
Harknessing to Learn or Harknessing to Reinforce Learned Material
I believe that a student who is willing to speak in class around his or her peers has a lot to gain from doing so. Flynn writes that, “Orally communicating one’s ideas in a coherent way and respectfully considering others’ ideas are skills that students must acquire for negotiating and enhancing a diverse and democratic society, so it is essential that discussions in classrooms work well, leaving all parties empowered and none paralyzed” (2009, p.2) Aside from learning the vital skill of effective human communication through speaking and listening, I always assumed that students who spoke in class were learning and teaching others by discussing what we were studying during my classes.
I recently spoke to a colleague about Harkness discussions in her history classes and she challenged the idea that students learn while they are around the Harkness table by mentioning that she does not think that Harkness discussions teach any new material to students. Her theory was that Harknessing in her history class is not something that she does to actually teach students any new material. According to her students are very comfortable Harknessing about content that they have already learned, but do not have the ability to effectively discuss new material that they are either learning, or are about to learn. She did not specify why she came to this conclusion, but the comment intrigued me enough to want to find out if she was correct.
The more I thought about this and thought about how I use the practice in my classes, the more I started to wonder if she was right. Most of the staged Harkness discussions that I plan tend to be on material that our class has already learned, or is in the process of learning. On further reflection, I realized that this might have a lot to do with my own anxiety and the fear that I might ask a question that students are unable to answer and the students will sit in silence. I decided to test my colleague’s theory by designing a Harkness discussion that I gave to students on their first class after an extended break from school.
I started the Harkness at the beginning of class and announced that we were doing something different and would be discussing new material. This did not seem to faze the students at all and some even seemed excited at the prospect of our discussion. I wrote the focus question on the board and asked the most vocal of students to create a conversation map. The question was actually the Pacific Ridge School grade-wide trimester question which asks students to determine if progress is our most important product. This discussion took place at the beginning of the new trimester and students had not yet been exposed to the question in any of their other classes. I completed the exercise with three different classes on the same day and the results were vastly different. My first class tended to interpret the question quite literally and spent most of the time debating the usefulness of some of the products that we have developed in the 20th century and if these products have in fact made progression possible. This tends to be my most vocal class of students and I was therefore very surprised that they did a fantastic job of keeping the conversation on track. What resulted was a very stimulating 20 minute conversation. An examination of the conversation map showed that all students spoke at least once during the conversation. This was not the case with earlier Harkness questions that focused on classroom content that we had previously learned. This made me wonder if students were more inclined to want to discuss topics beyond our classroom content, and if so, why?
The class that arrived directly after them launched into their discussion in a very different way. The bulk of the conversation focused on the idea of what actually constitutes progress. Although they seemed to address the question in greater depth, students did not stick to our established norms and kept interrupting each other. Again, the conversation map showed that all 16 students in this class spoke at least once during the 25 minute Harkness discussion. Their continual habit of interrupting each other indicated their willingness and desire to speak, and challenged my colleague’s idea that students might be less willing to participate in discussions of new topics.
The third class that I had for the day also happens to be my focus group for this study, and interestingly they behaved differently from the first two classes. Like the second class they were interested in examining what actually constitutes progress for humans. However, it became apparent after 12 minutes that this class had fallen back into the pattern of having six students do all the discussing while the other 10 simply sat and watched. Twice during the conversation I asked those that had spoken more than once to “step back” and allow for some more voices to be heard. They did so and it allowed one student in particular to make his first verbal contribution for the year.
I am pleased that I did the experiment with all three classes. If I only engaged my focus group in the Harkness my findings would have echoed the idea of my colleagues’ which stated that students in history classes tend to be more hesitant to speak about “fresh” topics at the Harkness table than they are about material that they already have learned. Overall my three classes showed less anxiety during this Harkness than they had when we discussed already learned material. Also, with the exception of my focus class, students were more willing to speak on a topic concerning a new idea or concept.
To see how students experienced this Harkness discussion, I surveyed them directly after we had concluded. Was the Harkness effective today? Why or Why not?
Sophia: “The Harkness was effective today because it got us thinking about the question. It related well to class, giving us a greater understanding of, and more interest in the material we were about to learn.”
Lucy: “We didn't come to a conclusion but I think it was effective in that it sparked interest in the topic that we will be learning about.”
Carson: “The discussion today was effective because it changed my understanding of the trimester question. My opinion and thoughts on the question changed as a result of hearing my classmates discuss it.”
Jake: “I think it was very effective. It was a great way to kick off the new trimester. I really did enjoy the Harkness even though I did not speak that often. I would definitely like to do Harknesses like this more regularly.”
Briana: “Harkness was somewhat effective today. I didn’t really participate because I didn’t know what to say. It prepared us for what we were about to learn today which is helpful.”
Overall, student responses to this question highlight that they were comfortable Harknessing on a new question unrelated to learned material. Sophia and Lucy both mentioned that this type of Harkness discussion can be effective in engaging students in current classroom content or upcoming material. Briana’s comment, although an anomaly, does reinforce the idea that some students are more comfortable Harknessing on material with which they are familiar. The student comments above and how they differ, also suggests that using Harkness discussions at different times can serve different purposes for different students.
Do you prefer to Harkness about topics related to class material that we have already learned, or about new topics, like we did today? Explain why
Several themes emerged from the comments of students who preferred to Harkness with material that they had already learned. According to these students, Harknessing on material that they have already learned helped them to feel more comfortable making a contribution to the discussion. It also helped them feel that the conversation was more focused, leading to a deeper understanding of the issue at hand. Several students, as shown below, referenced the importance of everyone having some baseline knowledge to build from together:
Lucy: “I prefer to talk about a topic that we have already learned about. I think that when you have a clear understanding of what you are talking about then you can bring in specific examples and overall have a better understanding.”
Briana: “I prefer Harkness discussions about information that we have already studied because I know what I am going to say and I think it starts a more in depth understanding of the topic that we are talking about”.
Lucas: “I prefer it to be on topics that we are learning. I enjoyed today's however I felt it was slightly chaotic. When we are more informed about the topic it can be a more focused conversation with facts to back up our opinions”.
Claire: “I prefer talking about topics we have already learned, as it is much more comforting knowing that I have the knowledge in my head to back up my positions. I also did not feel like this had any affiliation with the topic in class-I did not understand a connection between the Harkness about progress and the Industrial Revolution. The facts prove obviously that the two are dependent on each other, however, it was difficult to see why talking about the definition of Progression and why the progression of Ferrari's and iPads being cool was important.”
Wyatt: “I prefer to Harkness about something that we have learned about because I can comment on more about the subject.”
Chloe: “I prefer to Harkness about topics that we’ve already covered because everyone has at least been provided with the basic information that is necessary to explore the topic further. This ensures that the class is, in a sense, “on the same page.” However, once this basic understanding is established, the class can delve into a deeper discussion based on what they already know.”
Anonymous: “Old material because there is less fear of being wrong about certain facts and it gets harder to use examples if you are not fully aware of the topic. It is also frustrating when other students use factually incorrect examples to back up a point, stemming from their/our very basic knowledge of the subject. Also, Harkness can get very off-topic, opinion dominated, incredibly vague, or much too specific, all of which detract from getting to a conclusive answer or idea.”
James: “I prefer that we have something that everyone knows about because everyone knows the same amount in the subject. In a Harkness discussion where no information is given, it is possible someone may know everything and is able to talk with heavily supported thoughts.”
On the other hand, many students preferred to discuss new topics because it helped them to get excited for our upcoming unit of study. Some students also mentioned that a Harkness on a fresh, new topic allows them to explore ideas related to the topic without the hindrance of having to remember past lessons or facts that they had already learned. Others liked to discuss new topics because they felt like there was less teacher influence and they were freer to come to their own conclusions as a group.
Jack: “I prefer Harknessing about new topics, because I feel it better prepares us for learning the upcoming topics.”
Oliver: “I learn more from new material because it gets me thinking about ideas that will relate to our next topic of study.”
Morgan: “I prefer new topics because there is a mass majority of ideas that can answer the question, instead of an opinion or fact that has been explained to us that influences our answer/opinion”.
Catherine: “I like both but I prefer to Harkness before we learn the actual unit. I liked it this way better because I feel like the ideas that we were saying were our own and as the conversation got more involved I really considered what other people thought. I felt that I learned more about the topic because we did the Harkness before rather than after when most of our ideas come from what we have already studied.”
There were several students who mentioned that they like both new and already learned material for a Harkness discussion. All students who chose this option tend to be high performing Harkness students who contribute often during discussions. I suspect that they chose both options because of their love of speaking and sharing opinions with their peers in class.
Carson: “I like both types of Harkness, but I prefer to discuss about material we have already learned. Sometimes when we discuss about material we haven't discussed, there is more speculation than knowledge being discussed at the table. I personally am more interested in knowledge rather than speculation.”
Owen: “I don't really have a preference to what the topic is as long as it's interesting and fun to discuss. I did enjoy the topic we had in class.”
Roy: “I believe that a remedy of both is good for the soul. It is good to pique student's interest on a new subject with a out of the blue Harkness that allows everyone to share what they already happen to know on that particular matter, helping the teacher determine a good starting point. Also, Harknesses at the end, learning a subject allows the teacher to judge his student's level of understanding.”
Justin: “It varies but it really depends on how interested I am in that topic but even when I am not, I still try to participate a lot in the Harkness.”
The graph below helps illustrate student perceptions related to what constitutes the best kind of Harkness question in a 10th grade history class. As you can see, of the 23 students surveyed, nine preferred to Harkness on new material and nine on already learned material. Five students enjoyed Harknessing on both.
Briana is a student who never speaks in class and has seldom seemed interested in the topics that we have discussed. She actually added to her answer on the survey sheet by saying she only will Harkness if she “is comfortable with the topic”. Madison is a high achieving student on almost all assessments who never once spoke at the Harkness table. She looks interested in the topics that we discuss and her essays and homework reflect that she is engaged. Daniel is also a very quiet student who rarely says anything in class or outside unless prompted. I have had him on my sport team for three years now and know him well.
The four students that choose option three and said that they are somewhat comfortable with Harkness are all male and their personalities in class can be broken down into two categories:
Category 1: Gavin and Jake are both teenagers who seem anxious to build social capital while they are around their peers. They are prone to responding during discussion to get a reaction from the class. When they do volunteer to speak it seems to be to “have their say” and not to build on the conversation. I suspect that Gavin is less confident with the material being taught than Jake.
Category 2: Mark and John are both shy students and I would have expected John to have chosen either option one or two. The fact that he did not definitely gets me thinking about the classroom climate and my approach and methods to encourage classroom participation. I suspect that John was saying that he is somewhat comfortable but is actually not participating at all because of something that I am doing to discourage him or something that I am not doing to encourage him.
I was surprised that eight students said that they are very comfortable with Harkness participation. Some of the students who chose this option don’t regularly participate verbally in class so their choices are interesting. I think that Jayden, Mason, and Taylor do not show a willingness to participate, and again this gets me thinking about my own practice and if my instruction is inhibiting this. The other five students who chose this option are all quite vocal and I expected to see them choose that answer.
Based on the above survey I was determined to allow for all students to be able to participate in a Harkness discussion so I carefully planned one of our first discussions to be on a topic which would allow all students to participate. This would serve two purposes: Firstly it would allow for me to provide a decent review of the material that we had studied in our last class. The discussion and how it proceeded would be a good indictor as to the level of student understanding of material that had already been taught. Secondly it would prove to be a great indicator of the willingness of students to participate because the topic on which the Harkness was based was not only interesting to most students, but also something that all were expected to know and could therefore use this knowledge to express their opinions.
Harknessing Together
As students entered the class I had the Harkness question written on the board and students were expected to write a response to the following question: What do you think was the most significant cause of the French Revolution? Justify your answer. We were in the midst of studying this part of history so all students were expected to contribute during the discussion. Student wrote for about five minutes. To keep the upcoming conversation “fresh” I did not ask students to share their responses with each other, we simply launched directly into the Harkness conversation. I announced to students that we would be having a Harkness conversation facilitated by me but that they were responsible for doing most of the talking.
We spent the next four minutes deciding on our norms and expectations for the Harkness discussion with me writing the responses of the students on the board. The group decided that it would be important if we spoke one at a time and attempted to build on what others were saying during the Harkness. Participants would also take notes during the conversation and no student would dominate the conversation. All opinions would be respected and considered by the group and participants would be sure to support each other and attempt to draw their peers into the conversation. I had thought long and hard about whether or not I would announce to the students that it would be a graded Harkness, but decided not to do this. An announcement of this sort usually gets students anxious or overeager and has resulted in certain students dominating the conversation. I asked one of the very vocal students to draw a conversation map, which would mean that he would be preoccupied and allow others to have a voice during the conversation. A conversation map is a recording of who spoke and in what order.
I thought that the Harkness went smoothly with most students choosing to focus on the leadership issues of Louis XVI as the major determining cause of the Revolution. This conversation started with students offering up ideas based on what they learned in class about the subject. Students usually gravitate towards answering a Harkness question in this way, perhaps because they feel comfortable in the knowledge that what they are offering is considered b y the group to be factual and less open to scrutiny. After about five minutes one student gave his opinion about the Revolution and this started a period of students offering up ideas that we had yet to discuss in our previous lessons. I consider this to be the part of all Harkness discussions where the students start to actually learn from one another. After a few more minutes another student made an interesting comparison to the recent revolution in Egypt and this reenergized the room and the conversation took a slightly different direction. Although by this stage the conversation had gone a bit off the original topic, I did not consider this to be something that needed to be redirected and focused. I considered this part of the discussion to be as meaningful as when students were discussing the focus question. Not only were students engaged in discussion about a significant world event, they were on occasion attempting to connect it to our topic of study. More importantly, they were having an intellectual discussion with little to no input from their teacher. Of the 15 students present, 12 contributed without me asking any probing questions of the group. Two boys and one girl did not speak at all during the Harkness. This was not surprising to me because these students seldom participate in class and they are also the students who chose option 2 (that they were wary of speaking during a Harkness) from the above survey.
The conversation map showed that two students spoke six times, three students spoke four times, four students spoke twice, and the three remaining students spoke just once. During the 12 minute Harkness it was the boys who spoke more often and for longer. However, it was interesting to note that the female students built on what was being said by others far more, and that their comments on enlightenment ideas and the famine that swept through France in the late 1790’s were arguably more relevant to the topic. The female students’ comments were also the points that kept the conversation vibrant and interesting.
In short, the boys in this class spoke more often, and for longer, but the girls spoke at a higher academic level. Although this was not my first Harkness in this class it was the first time that I used exit cards as a way of gauging how students felt the conversation went. I asked students to write on an index card what worked and what did not work for them during the Harkness. The following is a report of some of their comments and some of the questions that emerged for me as a result of the student feedback:
What didn’t work for you in the Harkness discussion?
Student responses to this question seem to revolve around two themes: the role of the teacher and the need for everyone in the room to participate and for no one to dominate proceedings. Students also expressed concern about equity during this Harkness and their responses show that they sometimes had difficulty entering the conversation.
Mia: “Sometimes I felt that you (the teacher) interjected too much when it is sometimes better if we can talk and figure things out for ourselves”
Mark: “Should be more student led see where we take the question and if we get off topic, jump in”
Jayden: “Your (the teacher’s) input was incredibly strong and the relations to the modern world really made the Harkness more influential”
I have focused on these three comments because they show the importance of the teacher in promoting classroom discussion and I feel like Mia’s and Mark’s comments are very important because they reflects one of the fears that I have of “over promoting” the Harkness question, and as a result stifling student voice. As Nora Flynn notes, “...student-led activities have a different agent in charge...” (2009, p. 8) and that agent should not be the teacher. On the other hand Jayden seemed to think that my role in the discussion was necessary and helpful. What this seems to reinforce is that students who are less confident participating (Jayden) seem to need, and perhaps enjoy more teacher guidance in discussion than those who are more confident and vocal. (Mia and Mark)
Additional comments further emphasized the need some students have for the teacher to play an active role, not only during the Harkness discussion, but also in the way that the topic is introduced to the class. Claire wrote: “I wish that you had announced the discussion a bit more formally. Doing so tends to engage more people”. I asked Claire to expand on this comment a bit more after class and she said that she would want to know the question beforehand and that she wanted more teacher involvement in the conversation. I think that this is a very interesting comment because it shows that some students prefer the teacher to take a more active role, particularly when it comes to introducing and structuring the conversation.
The exit cards revealed that several students felt frustrated when they felt unable to voice their opinions at the Harkness table, or that particular voices were dominating.
James: “Not everyone was heard”.
Blake: “Not enough speakers. Only people with loud voices and loud opinions spoke. Hard to get everyone in the conversation”
Emma: “Not everyone speaks because people cut off others”
Sean: Not everyone talked…I think that you (the teacher) should find a way to force other people to speak”
Landon: “There were a lot of people overpowering the discussion”.
Clearly most of the issues that students had with the Harkness conversation were focused on not having a voice at the table. Many seemed to feel that the teacher should be the one who keeps everything moving along smoothly in the conversation. At the same time, others felt I spoke up too much. The comments above made me ask myself, why was I not more careful in explaining the protocols and norms expected of everyone in the Harkness prior to the actual event? I also wondered if the conversation would have been more productive if we had a fishbowl style Harkness with an inner circle of participants and an outer circle of observers. This would lessen the number of participants at the table at one time, and might allow for less frustration in having students heard, as voiced in the comments above.
What worked for you in the Harkness discussion?
Mark: “Giving us more time before the question to organize our thoughts”
Carson: “The warm-up helped me gather my thoughts before the discussion”
An important finding here is that some students found the writing warm-up before the Harkness to be helpful in preparing to have the discussion. Interestingly, both of the comments from the students above seemed to be truthful because both students participated more than they normally do during this conversation.
Daniel: “When people were referencing what others had said”
This is very important for Harkness and it is interesting that this student said this because he was one of the students who did not speak at all during the conversation. This shows me that although some students might not be participating verbally at the table, it does not mean that they are not learning.
Madison: “Everyone was able to speak during the Harkness”
Sophia: “When you challenged ideas and said things just because you knew we didn’t agree with it. You pushed us to be more inquisitive”
The quotes above were important indicators of what I had to be sure to do in later Harkness discussions. Students clearly want time to organize their thoughts before speaking and I have since used writing warm-ups before many Harkness discussions in my class. Students also seemed to like teacher input that challenged their thinking which has made me better prepare before each discussion to be able to ask students controversial questions that might challenge their thinking.
In the following sections I will explore several different ways of approaching and supporting equitable Harkness discussions. These sections will focus on: The Role of Gender in Harkness participation; Harknessing to Learn, which specifically examines whether or not Harkness teaching is best used for teaching new material or if Harkness is best used as a review tool for already learned material; Fishbowl Harkness discussions and their role in middle school classrooms and Graded Harkness discussions and how these affect student performance around the Harkness table.
Each represent a different lens/approach I took to building more equitable conversations and in the sections that follow I attempt to outline the themes that emerged from each approach.
The Role of Gender in Harkness Participation
I began this research hoping to learn how the different genders experience Harkness discussions, and ultimately how to make these discussions more equitable. I had read about how differently genders approach learning and noticed in my own classroom distinct differences in the ways in which boys and girls operate around the Harkness table. While there were distinct differences between the genders, I had very little idea about why these differences existed, and even less idea about how best to ensure that these differences could be harnessed to create better Harkness conversations in my classes.
Following the Harkness above, I asked the students if they noticed any differences in the ways in which boys and girls participate in class. Most students tended to support their own gender and suggested that the other sex was not as proficient with classroom discourse. Sophia wrote that “girls are often more controlled and careful, while boys sometimes either talk a lot, or very little”. This supports one of my findings that suggested that girls are sometimes more focused on the actual topic and tend to speak less “just to be heard” than do boys. Lucy wrote on her exit card, “I think it depends on the classroom dynamic. In some classes boys seem to be more confident and this might have something to do with the teacher”. Leonard Sax suggests that male student success is often dependent on a teacher who understands how they learn (2005). I have also discovered that it is perhaps even more of a factor with female students than with males.
To further explore how boys and girls experience Harkness discussions I decided to stage a Harkness discussion that would conclude with the students answering more specific questions related to gender. In doing this, I wondered if the topic of the Harkness discussion would influence how boys and girls experienced the discussion. Are there topics that girls might feel more inclined to want to discuss, and could this also be the case for male students? To determine this, I chose to focus on a male historical figure with the hopes that this might assist in answering this question. Male students are generally more predisposed to wanting to learn about war in my history classes and this usually involves male historical figures. Would a Harkness question about a conquering male historical figure cause the boys in my class to participate more and the girls less? We had been studying the rise and fall of Napoleon Bonaparte and at the beginning of class I wrote the following Harkness prompts on the board:
What do you think is Napoleon’s hubris? Can you predict why this might lead to his downfall?
We had been discussing Napoleon Bonaparte for the last two weeks so the students had enough content knowledge to answer this question. I also carefully injected the hubris element because it was direct integration with their English class. In 10th grade English classes students were writing an essay on hubris using Shakespeare’s character; Macbeth.
After briefly going over our classroom norms for Harkness discussions, most of the class seemed eager to begin. I was ready to complete a conversation map, and I asked a student to also do the same. The conversation map could potentially inform me of many things, but I used it primarily this time to compare how the genders responded to this Harkness question.
The conversation started out well but a few students had forgotten what hubris meant and were surprised that it could relate to anything other than Shakespeare. This particular Harkness was unique to any other that I had done this year in that I purposefully structured the focus question to be one that encouraged greater thought from students before speaking at the table. Earlier exit cards completed by students after Harkness discussions had overwhelmingly shown that students think that in general, girls seem to be less participatory, but that when they do speak in class, they do so for longer, and their responses are more highly valued by the group. By making the focus question something that would require greater thought from students before speaking, even though it was focused on a male character, I was curious to see if this might bring about an increase in female participation during this Harkness discussion. Below are some of the results:
An examination of my conversation map
My goal was to sit with my stopwatch and record how long each student spoke to put the opinions made about gender differences on earlier student exit cards to the test. I found that timing each student response was going to be almost impossible because the conversation moved around too quickly. As a result, I chose to time the spoken responses of two of the most vocal boys and the two most vocal girls. I only timed the comments from these four students that were of significant length, and as a result my totals are for the four longest comments from each student. The effectiveness and quality of each comment is obviously subjective and my assessment of how each student spoke is therefore only opinion without video to verify exactly what was said in this Harkness discussion.
Girls
Chloe: Spoke 8 times for a total of 5:42
Most of Chloe’s comments were poignant and well thought out. She used examples often and used what she had learned in her English class to help make her points. Chloe is a high level thinker and expresses herself well through her writing. She is actually one of the best 10th grade writers that I have ever encountered, but seldom says much in class, and sometimes looks bored with our topics of discussion. The fact that she spoke for longer than anyone during this discussion suggests that she gravitates to higher level questions and may find them more stimulating.
Grace: Spoke 11 times for a total of 3:34 – Grace is a sensitive student who often has her feelings hurt by others in the room. The boys tend to interrupt and speak over her far more than other female students in the room. Although she spoke more than frequently than Chloe during this Harkness, it is significant to note that her actual speaking time was shorter. During this particular conversation Grace seemed keen to get her point across quickly before she was interrupted by someone at the table. What resulted from this were comments that did not always fully explain her thinking on the issue. Unfortunately this seemed to be sensed by some of the boys in the room and as a result they seemed to value her comments less, and were ultimately more inclined to want to interrupt her.
Boys:
Justin: Spoke only six times, but for a total of 4:03. This student loves to use analogies to explain his points, but sometimes the analogies confuse the point he is trying to make. Students do however respect Justin’s comments around the Harkness table and his comments often inspire others to participate.
Adam: Spoke four times for a total of 2:19. Adam used his time to ask questions of the students who had spoken before him. This was actually quite effective because it was a good way for the group to stay focused on the topic and forced more than one student to re-explain what they were saying. This allowed for greater understanding at times.
Analysis
I structured this Harkness in a way that I thought might purposefully allow the girls greater access to speaking at the table, and it would appear to have been successful. Female students were significantly outnumbered in this class, but 54% of the responses to the prompt came from girls. Perhaps even more telling are the figures above which show that the top participating girls spoke for a combined total of 9:16 while the top two boys spoke for a total of 6:22.
Having never timed the responses for a Harkness discussion, I don’t actually know if this might be how things usually end up. I do know that it seemed as though the girls were more vocal during this discussion, but it did not seem to be as significant as the times above indicate. One of the reasons for this might be that girls are simply outnumbered in this class making it seem like boys speak more often collectively. Another factor might be that boys speak more often, but for a shorter time period giving the impression of speaking for longer. It was also interesting to note that, in comparison to boys, the girls seemed to craft their comments more purposefully to influence the class with their comments. Chloe in particular used references from our classroom textbook to back up some of the points that she was making about Napoleon. She took the trouble to find a quote from the book to prove her point, and read the quote to the class. This made me wonder if girls generally speak less during Harkness discussions that are given without advance warning because they are more concerned than boys about saying “the wrong thing” and having their teachers somehow disapprove. This seemed to support Sax’s (2005) observations that it is girls who are more concerned with impressing their teachers.
Post Harkness survey
Shortly after the discussion I handed out a survey which had questions that focused on how the discussion progressed. I asked questions about motivation and wait-time, but I also decided to see if students saw the differences between the boys and girls in the same way that I did by asking them the following question: In what different ways did boys and girls participate in this particular Harkness discussion?
Girls
Chloe: “Boys were more willing to change their beliefs and the girls were less outspoken and more indecisive”
I find this very interesting because I actually saw the opposite in this particular Harkness. What is more interesting is that this comment came from the student who spoke for longer than anyone in the class, and seemed to be the least indecisive. It should be considered that Chloe might have been talking about other girls since I did frame the question about boys and girls generally. She could be seeing herself in contrast to what she sees most girls doing. I also wonder if this reflects an ingrained societal attitude towards gender and education, and if some students have been indoctrinated into thinking that girls are generally quieter and less firm in their views.
Grace: “It seems like the boys are sort of rude when it comes to Harknessing, like their way is the only way where as girls are more open to new ideas”
Morgan: “Boys are very one-sided, this is my way, I’m right. Girls are...more understood”
Both these quotes seem to show that these girls see gender roles played out around the Harkness table differently to the way that Chloe did. While all three seemed to agree that boys were more forceful during discussion, Morgan, unlike Chloe thought that boys were less open to changing their minds during a discussion.
Boys
Lucas: “I think in general girls were more willing to share/talk openly”
Adam: “Girls seemed to be more outgoing and speak more in all Harknesses...”
Luis: “Boys tended to interrupt more and be the dominant force in the discussion”
Craig: “Boys: aggressive, loud, and elaborate. Girls: Quieter, set back, to the point”
I was interested to see that some of the boys did see that the girls had spoken more frequently and for longer in this discussion. (Lucas, Adam). Interestingly, the two other student comments above saw it differently and it would be interesting to know why when clearly me timing the comments would suggest that their observations are not accurate. (Craig, Luis). I do think that this was a good experiment and while it did not give me any conclusive evidence or data to prove anything, it did get me thinking more about how the students themselves think they Harkness, versus my idea of how they conduct themselves during open classroom discussions.
Although I chose a topic that I thought might be better suited to boys, what actually happened was that girls spoke more frequently, and for longer in this Harkness. The complexity of the topic, and the fact that it integrated with other 10th grade subjects seems to suggest that girls find complex topics more stimulating. At the same time, this conversation made me wonder if boys are less inclined to discuss an integrated and complex topic. If anything this reinforced in me that Harkness learning, and what constitutes successful student participation is a very difficult thing to quantify.
Harknessing to Learn or Harknessing to Reinforce Learned Material
I believe that a student who is willing to speak in class around his or her peers has a lot to gain from doing so. Flynn writes that, “Orally communicating one’s ideas in a coherent way and respectfully considering others’ ideas are skills that students must acquire for negotiating and enhancing a diverse and democratic society, so it is essential that discussions in classrooms work well, leaving all parties empowered and none paralyzed” (2009, p.2) Aside from learning the vital skill of effective human communication through speaking and listening, I always assumed that students who spoke in class were learning and teaching others by discussing what we were studying during my classes.
I recently spoke to a colleague about Harkness discussions in her history classes and she challenged the idea that students learn while they are around the Harkness table by mentioning that she does not think that Harkness discussions teach any new material to students. Her theory was that Harknessing in her history class is not something that she does to actually teach students any new material. According to her students are very comfortable Harknessing about content that they have already learned, but do not have the ability to effectively discuss new material that they are either learning, or are about to learn. She did not specify why she came to this conclusion, but the comment intrigued me enough to want to find out if she was correct.
The more I thought about this and thought about how I use the practice in my classes, the more I started to wonder if she was right. Most of the staged Harkness discussions that I plan tend to be on material that our class has already learned, or is in the process of learning. On further reflection, I realized that this might have a lot to do with my own anxiety and the fear that I might ask a question that students are unable to answer and the students will sit in silence. I decided to test my colleague’s theory by designing a Harkness discussion that I gave to students on their first class after an extended break from school.
I started the Harkness at the beginning of class and announced that we were doing something different and would be discussing new material. This did not seem to faze the students at all and some even seemed excited at the prospect of our discussion. I wrote the focus question on the board and asked the most vocal of students to create a conversation map. The question was actually the Pacific Ridge School grade-wide trimester question which asks students to determine if progress is our most important product. This discussion took place at the beginning of the new trimester and students had not yet been exposed to the question in any of their other classes. I completed the exercise with three different classes on the same day and the results were vastly different. My first class tended to interpret the question quite literally and spent most of the time debating the usefulness of some of the products that we have developed in the 20th century and if these products have in fact made progression possible. This tends to be my most vocal class of students and I was therefore very surprised that they did a fantastic job of keeping the conversation on track. What resulted was a very stimulating 20 minute conversation. An examination of the conversation map showed that all students spoke at least once during the conversation. This was not the case with earlier Harkness questions that focused on classroom content that we had previously learned. This made me wonder if students were more inclined to want to discuss topics beyond our classroom content, and if so, why?
The class that arrived directly after them launched into their discussion in a very different way. The bulk of the conversation focused on the idea of what actually constitutes progress. Although they seemed to address the question in greater depth, students did not stick to our established norms and kept interrupting each other. Again, the conversation map showed that all 16 students in this class spoke at least once during the 25 minute Harkness discussion. Their continual habit of interrupting each other indicated their willingness and desire to speak, and challenged my colleague’s idea that students might be less willing to participate in discussions of new topics.
The third class that I had for the day also happens to be my focus group for this study, and interestingly they behaved differently from the first two classes. Like the second class they were interested in examining what actually constitutes progress for humans. However, it became apparent after 12 minutes that this class had fallen back into the pattern of having six students do all the discussing while the other 10 simply sat and watched. Twice during the conversation I asked those that had spoken more than once to “step back” and allow for some more voices to be heard. They did so and it allowed one student in particular to make his first verbal contribution for the year.
I am pleased that I did the experiment with all three classes. If I only engaged my focus group in the Harkness my findings would have echoed the idea of my colleagues’ which stated that students in history classes tend to be more hesitant to speak about “fresh” topics at the Harkness table than they are about material that they already have learned. Overall my three classes showed less anxiety during this Harkness than they had when we discussed already learned material. Also, with the exception of my focus class, students were more willing to speak on a topic concerning a new idea or concept.
To see how students experienced this Harkness discussion, I surveyed them directly after we had concluded. Was the Harkness effective today? Why or Why not?
Sophia: “The Harkness was effective today because it got us thinking about the question. It related well to class, giving us a greater understanding of, and more interest in the material we were about to learn.”
Lucy: “We didn't come to a conclusion but I think it was effective in that it sparked interest in the topic that we will be learning about.”
Carson: “The discussion today was effective because it changed my understanding of the trimester question. My opinion and thoughts on the question changed as a result of hearing my classmates discuss it.”
Jake: “I think it was very effective. It was a great way to kick off the new trimester. I really did enjoy the Harkness even though I did not speak that often. I would definitely like to do Harknesses like this more regularly.”
Briana: “Harkness was somewhat effective today. I didn’t really participate because I didn’t know what to say. It prepared us for what we were about to learn today which is helpful.”
Overall, student responses to this question highlight that they were comfortable Harknessing on a new question unrelated to learned material. Sophia and Lucy both mentioned that this type of Harkness discussion can be effective in engaging students in current classroom content or upcoming material. Briana’s comment, although an anomaly, does reinforce the idea that some students are more comfortable Harknessing on material with which they are familiar. The student comments above and how they differ, also suggests that using Harkness discussions at different times can serve different purposes for different students.
Do you prefer to Harkness about topics related to class material that we have already learned, or about new topics, like we did today? Explain why
Several themes emerged from the comments of students who preferred to Harkness with material that they had already learned. According to these students, Harknessing on material that they have already learned helped them to feel more comfortable making a contribution to the discussion. It also helped them feel that the conversation was more focused, leading to a deeper understanding of the issue at hand. Several students, as shown below, referenced the importance of everyone having some baseline knowledge to build from together:
Lucy: “I prefer to talk about a topic that we have already learned about. I think that when you have a clear understanding of what you are talking about then you can bring in specific examples and overall have a better understanding.”
Briana: “I prefer Harkness discussions about information that we have already studied because I know what I am going to say and I think it starts a more in depth understanding of the topic that we are talking about”.
Lucas: “I prefer it to be on topics that we are learning. I enjoyed today's however I felt it was slightly chaotic. When we are more informed about the topic it can be a more focused conversation with facts to back up our opinions”.
Claire: “I prefer talking about topics we have already learned, as it is much more comforting knowing that I have the knowledge in my head to back up my positions. I also did not feel like this had any affiliation with the topic in class-I did not understand a connection between the Harkness about progress and the Industrial Revolution. The facts prove obviously that the two are dependent on each other, however, it was difficult to see why talking about the definition of Progression and why the progression of Ferrari's and iPads being cool was important.”
Wyatt: “I prefer to Harkness about something that we have learned about because I can comment on more about the subject.”
Chloe: “I prefer to Harkness about topics that we’ve already covered because everyone has at least been provided with the basic information that is necessary to explore the topic further. This ensures that the class is, in a sense, “on the same page.” However, once this basic understanding is established, the class can delve into a deeper discussion based on what they already know.”
Anonymous: “Old material because there is less fear of being wrong about certain facts and it gets harder to use examples if you are not fully aware of the topic. It is also frustrating when other students use factually incorrect examples to back up a point, stemming from their/our very basic knowledge of the subject. Also, Harkness can get very off-topic, opinion dominated, incredibly vague, or much too specific, all of which detract from getting to a conclusive answer or idea.”
James: “I prefer that we have something that everyone knows about because everyone knows the same amount in the subject. In a Harkness discussion where no information is given, it is possible someone may know everything and is able to talk with heavily supported thoughts.”
On the other hand, many students preferred to discuss new topics because it helped them to get excited for our upcoming unit of study. Some students also mentioned that a Harkness on a fresh, new topic allows them to explore ideas related to the topic without the hindrance of having to remember past lessons or facts that they had already learned. Others liked to discuss new topics because they felt like there was less teacher influence and they were freer to come to their own conclusions as a group.
Jack: “I prefer Harknessing about new topics, because I feel it better prepares us for learning the upcoming topics.”
Oliver: “I learn more from new material because it gets me thinking about ideas that will relate to our next topic of study.”
Morgan: “I prefer new topics because there is a mass majority of ideas that can answer the question, instead of an opinion or fact that has been explained to us that influences our answer/opinion”.
Catherine: “I like both but I prefer to Harkness before we learn the actual unit. I liked it this way better because I feel like the ideas that we were saying were our own and as the conversation got more involved I really considered what other people thought. I felt that I learned more about the topic because we did the Harkness before rather than after when most of our ideas come from what we have already studied.”
There were several students who mentioned that they like both new and already learned material for a Harkness discussion. All students who chose this option tend to be high performing Harkness students who contribute often during discussions. I suspect that they chose both options because of their love of speaking and sharing opinions with their peers in class.
Carson: “I like both types of Harkness, but I prefer to discuss about material we have already learned. Sometimes when we discuss about material we haven't discussed, there is more speculation than knowledge being discussed at the table. I personally am more interested in knowledge rather than speculation.”
Owen: “I don't really have a preference to what the topic is as long as it's interesting and fun to discuss. I did enjoy the topic we had in class.”
Roy: “I believe that a remedy of both is good for the soul. It is good to pique student's interest on a new subject with a out of the blue Harkness that allows everyone to share what they already happen to know on that particular matter, helping the teacher determine a good starting point. Also, Harknesses at the end, learning a subject allows the teacher to judge his student's level of understanding.”
Justin: “It varies but it really depends on how interested I am in that topic but even when I am not, I still try to participate a lot in the Harkness.”
The graph below helps illustrate student perceptions related to what constitutes the best kind of Harkness question in a 10th grade history class. As you can see, of the 23 students surveyed, nine preferred to Harkness on new material and nine on already learned material. Five students enjoyed Harknessing on both.
Different Harknesses for Different Purposes
What I learned from doing this exercise is that, overall students are willing to speak on a topic that they have not yet studied. The discussions seemed to engage participants more equitably, except for my focus class. My perception is that the students felt less pressured to impress me, or their peers, with what they were saying during the discussion and the class felt decidedly more relaxed. I am also convinced that students listened more intently to the comments from their peers during this Harkness. During other discussions about already learned content, students often seem less interested in the ideas posed by their peers. It is almost as if they expect to hear what is being said around the table. I always tend to plan Harkness discussions to reinforce already learned concepts but this experiment has allowed me to think that it might be really relevant for me to plan discussions at the beginning of units of study. Not only will this allow for more opportunities for the students to be engaged in a spontaneous, meaningful discussion, it will also allow me the opportunity to gauge student understanding of our upcoming topic of study. By knowing what students already know about a new topic before we study it, this will allow for better planning, and a unit of study that is better tailored to suit the needs of my students.
This exercise also has me believing this Harkness discussions that focus on new topics unlearned content feel spontaneous because they, well, are spontaneous. I am mindful of the fact that most students like their classes to be different on some days and not have the teacher do the same thing every day. I have learned that “fresh” Harkness discussions can break the monotony of a class and this can contribute to greater student participation, and ultimately, increased student learning.
Comparing Harkness participation in middle school vs. high school
Pacific Ridge School has the idea that Harkness should begin in middle school and that by the time students reach high school they have had exposure to the practice at a younger age, and as a result in high school, they will be in a position to speak naturally around the Harkness table. The initial focus for my action research project was going to be a comparison between how middle school and high school students participate around the Harkness table. After consideration I decided that this might be too complicated, and as a result my focus shifted to my 10th grade students. I do however feel that it would not be wise to ignore my middle school pupils because the differences in the way that they participate are so great when compared to students just three years older than them. I was curious to find out what these differences were and how they could help me be a better facilitator of discussion in a middle school classroom.
A colleague of mine explained Harkness in the middle school as “driving a car without a steering wheel”. He suggested that 7th grade students will start talking about an issue in class and in order to get the conversation to move in a different direction you have to “climb out of the car, walk to the back, pick it up, and point it in a new direction”. It is for this reason that I don’t often stage Harkness discussions in my 7th grade class. I feel like the lack of skill that the students possess when the classroom is discussing an issue results in total domination by one or two students and a learning environment that is compromised.
I am still committed to exposing 7th grade students to Harkness but my most recent discussion with them was much more structured than what might occur with my 10th grade students. I decided that in order to not hear the same voices for the duration of the Harkness I would stage a “fishbowl” discussion. A “fishbowl” Harkness divides the class in two by asking every second student to push his or her chair back about a meter from the table. This basically allows each student at the table more opportunity to have his or her say in the discussion due to fewer students competing to speak. A fishbowl Harkness also allows those who have pushed their chairs back from the table a “look into” the fishbowl allowing them to observe not only what is being said, but also the ways in which their peers conduct themselves during the discussion.
My class was studying issues of hunger and food insecurity in America so I naturally decided to frame questions on this topic. Before we started though, I asked students why we conduct Harkness discussions at Pacific Ridge. Two students immediately started talking without having thought about the question, making me even more apprehensive about the usefulness of the upcoming discussion. I stopped them and reminded them that Harkness discussions are not about “simply having your say”; they are supposed to be a time for students to learn from each other as we discuss classroom content. After this students made a few more comments about the positives surrounding Harkness instruction. We then had a discussion about what our norms for the upcoming discussion should be. I wrote their ideas on the board and after about five minutes we had developed a list of about 10 items. We decided that we should not interrupt each other; we should build upon other’s ideas, and take efficient notes during the discussion. I suggested the “step up, step back” policy for discussion which encourages students to have their say and then listen to what others have to say. The students thought that this was a good idea.
Once we were ready to begin I asked each second student to push their chairs back from the table leaving only six students ready to verbally participate. I was anxious about those who were not involved so I asked a few students in the outer ring to do various tasks while they were listening. They developed conversation maps which would track where the conversation went by drawing a sketch of the table and arrows to who spoke. Outer ring students would also track filler words, count the amount of interruptions that took place in the conversation, and also the participation levels of the various genders. I had typed the question for discussion on a PowerPoint slide and I projected this onto the screen at the front of the room. (In retrospect I am pleased that I did this because more than once in the ensuing conversation students lost track of what the focus question was and they had to look on the screen to remind themselves) The first question that I placed on the screen was: Why should we care more about children who are going hungry in this country than children of other countries?
The first group of students was very respectful of one another and even tried once or twice to build on what other people in the room were saying. Two of the six present at the table fought the urge to raise their hands before speaking but most had forgotten that Harkness encourages participants to find openings in the conversation and just speak but overall they exceeded my expectations as they talked about the topic. High school students who Harkness about content that we have studied will frequently consult their notes or a text that we are studying to further the point that they are making. The 7th grade students, however, did not reference what we had learned in the preceding three weeks on hunger and only attempted to provide new and fresh ideas to answer the question. I was careful at the beginning of the Harkness to say that they would be expected to use their notes from our earlier lessons to help prove some of their points. Charlie was the only student who at one point said “yes but as we learned in class last week, people who receive food from a food bank are not always homeless”. This comment was relevant or useful to the conversation, but the group immediately went back to generating new, and not always relevant ideas. This is in stark contrast to my 10th grade students, who in their second trimester are starting to make a point of connecting what they say to the person who spoke prior to them.
After the first group had discussed their focus question for about five minutes it was clear that they had reached saturation point and were starting to make the same points. I also started to sense the anticipation of the second group who were watching the proceedings. It should be noted that the student who was recording how many times students interrupted someone who was speaking at the table recorded only three interruptions. The conversation maps also showed the instructor (me) only speaking twice which I think reflected a good, flowing conversation.
The change of positions saw students in group two eagerly moving their chairs to the table. I changed the question by projecting the following prompt: Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? It is the job of all governments to ensure food security for their citizens. The second group launched into the Harkness by having three students speak at once and the rest of the conversation basically consisted of me having to ask students to stop interrupting each other. I purposefully neglected to remind students of the norms that we had established and it is my suspicion that this had a direct influence on how many interruptions took place in the second group. Records show that students interrupted each other 11 times in this group and that I spoke nine times.
After the second group had discussed their question for about five minutes I invited the entire class to the table and we collectively Harknessed on the same question. This time I stood up from the table and in less than a minute reminded the students of the norms for effective Harkness discussions that we had come up with at the beginning of the period. I did this by pointing to each on the board and reading them to the students. We then proceeded to start discussing hunger again. The change of having the second group at the table to having the entire class discuss the same question was quite noticeable. Students were now far less likely to interrupt each other and they also seemed to be more willing to listen and look at the person who was talking.
At the end of class I gave students a survey by writing questions on the board which I developed both during and after the Harkness discussion. I did this because I was totally unsure of how the two fishbowls would unfold and could not think of any meaningful questions beforehand.
The following are some of the questions and student answers regarding the discussion:
Do you think that the class was more effective at Harknessing in the fishbowls or all together like we did at the end? Explain your choice
Josh (group 1) - “In the Fishbowl. It was easier for each student to have their say because there were less people at the table”.
Charlotte (group 1) – “Fishbowl. I was more comfortable with less people there”.
Harry (group 2) - “The whole class because people did not interrupt”.
Angela (group 2) – “I liked both but the whole class gave everyone the chance to speak together”
Both students in group 1 liked the fishbowl, whereas those in group two tended to prefer the whole class discussions. What is interesting about this is that while it was clear that the fishbowl did work better for the first group, I was intrigued to find out that the students also seemed to be very aware of this. I had the idea that they were not as conscious of the overall Harkness effectiveness as they were about how they themselves had operated during the discussion. I was pleased at how perceptive these comments proved the students to be. Both groups cited their preference based on the fact that the method that they preferred tended to allow them to speak more freely during the discussion. Another interesting finding is that group two preferred the entire class because it limited interruptions which shows the value of clearly establishing norms and requiring students to stick to them throughout, something this group did do when they were in their fishbowl.
Do you think that establishing norms at the beginning of the discussion helped the Harkness run more smoothly? Why or why not?
Ryan: “Yes it reminded us of what to do”
Holly: “The norms were good because they made me feel good and like I was doing the right thing during the discussion”.
Alice: “Yes by establishing norms people interrupted less”
Charlotte: “The norms were really good and I like that you allowed us to come up with them”.
Dylan (group 2): “I forgot how to Harkness in the fishbowl but after you showed us the norms I remembered and it also meant that we interrupted less”.
These comments further highlight the necessity of establishing discussion norms prior to Harknessing. I actually spent significantly more time discussing the norms with these students than I might have with my 10th grade students. It worked well and I did a quick review of the norms for each new Harkness group and each new question with the exception of the 2nd fishbowl. The results during the 2nd fishbowl were immediately evident with the group as the rate of interruptions during this conversation were considerable higher, as Dylan explains above. The importance of establishing norms with middle schools students both before and during each Harkness discussion cannot be overemphasized. I felt like the success of each part of this Harkness discussion was more dependent on the reiteration of our established norms than other factor.
What I learned from doing this exercise is that, overall students are willing to speak on a topic that they have not yet studied. The discussions seemed to engage participants more equitably, except for my focus class. My perception is that the students felt less pressured to impress me, or their peers, with what they were saying during the discussion and the class felt decidedly more relaxed. I am also convinced that students listened more intently to the comments from their peers during this Harkness. During other discussions about already learned content, students often seem less interested in the ideas posed by their peers. It is almost as if they expect to hear what is being said around the table. I always tend to plan Harkness discussions to reinforce already learned concepts but this experiment has allowed me to think that it might be really relevant for me to plan discussions at the beginning of units of study. Not only will this allow for more opportunities for the students to be engaged in a spontaneous, meaningful discussion, it will also allow me the opportunity to gauge student understanding of our upcoming topic of study. By knowing what students already know about a new topic before we study it, this will allow for better planning, and a unit of study that is better tailored to suit the needs of my students.
This exercise also has me believing this Harkness discussions that focus on new topics unlearned content feel spontaneous because they, well, are spontaneous. I am mindful of the fact that most students like their classes to be different on some days and not have the teacher do the same thing every day. I have learned that “fresh” Harkness discussions can break the monotony of a class and this can contribute to greater student participation, and ultimately, increased student learning.
Comparing Harkness participation in middle school vs. high school
Pacific Ridge School has the idea that Harkness should begin in middle school and that by the time students reach high school they have had exposure to the practice at a younger age, and as a result in high school, they will be in a position to speak naturally around the Harkness table. The initial focus for my action research project was going to be a comparison between how middle school and high school students participate around the Harkness table. After consideration I decided that this might be too complicated, and as a result my focus shifted to my 10th grade students. I do however feel that it would not be wise to ignore my middle school pupils because the differences in the way that they participate are so great when compared to students just three years older than them. I was curious to find out what these differences were and how they could help me be a better facilitator of discussion in a middle school classroom.
A colleague of mine explained Harkness in the middle school as “driving a car without a steering wheel”. He suggested that 7th grade students will start talking about an issue in class and in order to get the conversation to move in a different direction you have to “climb out of the car, walk to the back, pick it up, and point it in a new direction”. It is for this reason that I don’t often stage Harkness discussions in my 7th grade class. I feel like the lack of skill that the students possess when the classroom is discussing an issue results in total domination by one or two students and a learning environment that is compromised.
I am still committed to exposing 7th grade students to Harkness but my most recent discussion with them was much more structured than what might occur with my 10th grade students. I decided that in order to not hear the same voices for the duration of the Harkness I would stage a “fishbowl” discussion. A “fishbowl” Harkness divides the class in two by asking every second student to push his or her chair back about a meter from the table. This basically allows each student at the table more opportunity to have his or her say in the discussion due to fewer students competing to speak. A fishbowl Harkness also allows those who have pushed their chairs back from the table a “look into” the fishbowl allowing them to observe not only what is being said, but also the ways in which their peers conduct themselves during the discussion.
My class was studying issues of hunger and food insecurity in America so I naturally decided to frame questions on this topic. Before we started though, I asked students why we conduct Harkness discussions at Pacific Ridge. Two students immediately started talking without having thought about the question, making me even more apprehensive about the usefulness of the upcoming discussion. I stopped them and reminded them that Harkness discussions are not about “simply having your say”; they are supposed to be a time for students to learn from each other as we discuss classroom content. After this students made a few more comments about the positives surrounding Harkness instruction. We then had a discussion about what our norms for the upcoming discussion should be. I wrote their ideas on the board and after about five minutes we had developed a list of about 10 items. We decided that we should not interrupt each other; we should build upon other’s ideas, and take efficient notes during the discussion. I suggested the “step up, step back” policy for discussion which encourages students to have their say and then listen to what others have to say. The students thought that this was a good idea.
Once we were ready to begin I asked each second student to push their chairs back from the table leaving only six students ready to verbally participate. I was anxious about those who were not involved so I asked a few students in the outer ring to do various tasks while they were listening. They developed conversation maps which would track where the conversation went by drawing a sketch of the table and arrows to who spoke. Outer ring students would also track filler words, count the amount of interruptions that took place in the conversation, and also the participation levels of the various genders. I had typed the question for discussion on a PowerPoint slide and I projected this onto the screen at the front of the room. (In retrospect I am pleased that I did this because more than once in the ensuing conversation students lost track of what the focus question was and they had to look on the screen to remind themselves) The first question that I placed on the screen was: Why should we care more about children who are going hungry in this country than children of other countries?
The first group of students was very respectful of one another and even tried once or twice to build on what other people in the room were saying. Two of the six present at the table fought the urge to raise their hands before speaking but most had forgotten that Harkness encourages participants to find openings in the conversation and just speak but overall they exceeded my expectations as they talked about the topic. High school students who Harkness about content that we have studied will frequently consult their notes or a text that we are studying to further the point that they are making. The 7th grade students, however, did not reference what we had learned in the preceding three weeks on hunger and only attempted to provide new and fresh ideas to answer the question. I was careful at the beginning of the Harkness to say that they would be expected to use their notes from our earlier lessons to help prove some of their points. Charlie was the only student who at one point said “yes but as we learned in class last week, people who receive food from a food bank are not always homeless”. This comment was relevant or useful to the conversation, but the group immediately went back to generating new, and not always relevant ideas. This is in stark contrast to my 10th grade students, who in their second trimester are starting to make a point of connecting what they say to the person who spoke prior to them.
After the first group had discussed their focus question for about five minutes it was clear that they had reached saturation point and were starting to make the same points. I also started to sense the anticipation of the second group who were watching the proceedings. It should be noted that the student who was recording how many times students interrupted someone who was speaking at the table recorded only three interruptions. The conversation maps also showed the instructor (me) only speaking twice which I think reflected a good, flowing conversation.
The change of positions saw students in group two eagerly moving their chairs to the table. I changed the question by projecting the following prompt: Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? It is the job of all governments to ensure food security for their citizens. The second group launched into the Harkness by having three students speak at once and the rest of the conversation basically consisted of me having to ask students to stop interrupting each other. I purposefully neglected to remind students of the norms that we had established and it is my suspicion that this had a direct influence on how many interruptions took place in the second group. Records show that students interrupted each other 11 times in this group and that I spoke nine times.
After the second group had discussed their question for about five minutes I invited the entire class to the table and we collectively Harknessed on the same question. This time I stood up from the table and in less than a minute reminded the students of the norms for effective Harkness discussions that we had come up with at the beginning of the period. I did this by pointing to each on the board and reading them to the students. We then proceeded to start discussing hunger again. The change of having the second group at the table to having the entire class discuss the same question was quite noticeable. Students were now far less likely to interrupt each other and they also seemed to be more willing to listen and look at the person who was talking.
At the end of class I gave students a survey by writing questions on the board which I developed both during and after the Harkness discussion. I did this because I was totally unsure of how the two fishbowls would unfold and could not think of any meaningful questions beforehand.
The following are some of the questions and student answers regarding the discussion:
Do you think that the class was more effective at Harknessing in the fishbowls or all together like we did at the end? Explain your choice
Josh (group 1) - “In the Fishbowl. It was easier for each student to have their say because there were less people at the table”.
Charlotte (group 1) – “Fishbowl. I was more comfortable with less people there”.
Harry (group 2) - “The whole class because people did not interrupt”.
Angela (group 2) – “I liked both but the whole class gave everyone the chance to speak together”
Both students in group 1 liked the fishbowl, whereas those in group two tended to prefer the whole class discussions. What is interesting about this is that while it was clear that the fishbowl did work better for the first group, I was intrigued to find out that the students also seemed to be very aware of this. I had the idea that they were not as conscious of the overall Harkness effectiveness as they were about how they themselves had operated during the discussion. I was pleased at how perceptive these comments proved the students to be. Both groups cited their preference based on the fact that the method that they preferred tended to allow them to speak more freely during the discussion. Another interesting finding is that group two preferred the entire class because it limited interruptions which shows the value of clearly establishing norms and requiring students to stick to them throughout, something this group did do when they were in their fishbowl.
Do you think that establishing norms at the beginning of the discussion helped the Harkness run more smoothly? Why or why not?
Ryan: “Yes it reminded us of what to do”
Holly: “The norms were good because they made me feel good and like I was doing the right thing during the discussion”.
Alice: “Yes by establishing norms people interrupted less”
Charlotte: “The norms were really good and I like that you allowed us to come up with them”.
Dylan (group 2): “I forgot how to Harkness in the fishbowl but after you showed us the norms I remembered and it also meant that we interrupted less”.
These comments further highlight the necessity of establishing discussion norms prior to Harknessing. I actually spent significantly more time discussing the norms with these students than I might have with my 10th grade students. It worked well and I did a quick review of the norms for each new Harkness group and each new question with the exception of the 2nd fishbowl. The results during the 2nd fishbowl were immediately evident with the group as the rate of interruptions during this conversation were considerable higher, as Dylan explains above. The importance of establishing norms with middle schools students both before and during each Harkness discussion cannot be overemphasized. I felt like the success of each part of this Harkness discussion was more dependent on the reiteration of our established norms than other factor.
After having participated in this Harkness discussion do you feel like you know more or less about hunger around the world? Explain your answer.
Adrian: “Yes I liked getting the ideas from other students and they really got me thinking about hunger issues more”.
Jose: “I feel like the Harkness did not teach me anything new but I enjoyed it anyway”
Andrew: “This Harkness definitely taught me new things about hunger because I got to learn from other students as they talked”.
Adrian and Andrew both mentioned that the Harkness was beneficial to them because they were able to learn from their peers during the discussion. Jose seemed to be listening to other students during the discussion but failed to say very much either as a participant in the fishbowl, or in the entire class discussions. What is interesting to note is that I felt like the class was able to explore the issue in much greater detail than we had in the few previous classes related to the topic. Although Jose mentioned that he enjoyed the discussions, I was interested to know why he did not find them to be particularly informative.
This exercise taught me that Harkness is definitely something that should be started and nourished at a middle school level. I found the students to be far more unpredictable than are my high school students and this Harkness, while clearly less productive, was actually far more interesting because students had yet to grasp what it takes to be an effective active classroom participant. It is important to make middle and high school students aware of the norms or “rules” of what it takes to be a good Harkness contributor and this should be done before and during the exercise.
I also found it useful to use the fishbowl method because it allows apprehensive students to more easily enter the conversation since there are fewer people at the table. The fishbowl method is also useful because it allows those in the outer ring to watch carefully and take note of the positives and negatives inputs that their peers give to the conversation without actually being involved themselves. The fishbowl Harkness method is a fantastic way of helping students learn to be better participants and it also gives students more room to participate. I feel like I have neglected to use it on a consistent basis with my 10th grade learners and realized how important and useful it can be particularly for those students who struggle to find a voice at the Harkness table when the entire class is participating. I also think that the fishbowl method of Harknessing in a smaller group reduces the anxiety that students have thinking that they might not get to have their say on an issue in the larger setting or that by the time they get their opportunity that the conversation might have changed topics and that they might miss out entirely. The fishbowl method allows for students to feel less anxious about being interrupted by a larger group of students and this results in comments that reflect greater thought and are usually delivered in a more precise, thoughtful way that is more impactful on the smaller group at the table.
Although my findings indicate that a fishbowl approach to Harkness discussions with clear norms can lead to greater equity in a middle school classroom, it remained to be seen if high school students experienced the same success with this approach to classroom discussion as did their middle school counterparts. By excluding half of the class I wondered what the ramifications of this might be for those on the outside. Could this cause them to lose interest in the conversation if they don’t have a voice at the table? What happens if they have something really poignant to say and they feel like they have lost the opportunity to do so? Could this lead to frustration and ultimately a lack of interest in the conversation, or in Harkness learning in general? What happens if the group before them says everything that they were thinking and planning to say when it was their turn at the table? In order to attempt to answer these questions I planned to stage a Harkness discussion that would allow, first for a fishbowl setting for each group, and then to compare I would combine the two groups to end the conversation.
I chose a topic that I thought might be interesting for students of all abilities and also something that they all had developed prior opinion of. The day before this discussion the class had a guest speaker from the US Marines visit us and describe his two recent tours of duty in Afghanistan. He was an excellent speaker and the class connected well with what he had to say. The speaker was disillusioned with the US mission to Afghanistan and helped develop some interesting ideas with the students about war and occupation of countries. On the planned day the students filed into the classroom after lunch and were met with the following Harkness discussion question on the board: Should the US leave or remain a force in Afghanistan in 2012?
Prior to the start of the conversation we spent five minutes revisiting some of the norms for Harkness discussions that we had developed as a class earlier in the year. I then told the students that we would be having a Harkness discussion but that it would be conducted as two separate fishbowl Harknesses. This was met with a bit of excitement from some of the students. I then asked students to sit and write their ideas in their notebooks for the first five minutes of class. Afterwards I divided up the class and asked those sitting in the outer ring to take notes and write down their thoughts and revert back to their notebooks when it was their time at the table. I told the class that each fishbowl was going to be 10 minutes long and we would then have five minutes where the class would join and discuss the prompt collectively.
The first group Harknessed beautifully taking turns and in the 10 minutes I recorded only two interruptions. The discussion was mostly controlled by three of the eight students at the table. The discussion focused on what would happen to the Taliban and the Afghans if the US left the country in 2012. Once the first 10 minutes was over it was time for the second group to push forward to the table. They immediately launched into the conversation and were much less controlled in their delivery. It seemed like they wanted to say what they had to say before anyone else in the room could. I could not help wondering if this might be because the group before them had covered a lot of issues and they felt like if they didn’t say what they wanted to say, the idea might be taken by someone else. This group had already interrupted each other seven times by the time we had made it to the five minute mark. The second group however had to be commended for making connections back to what our guest speaker had said and this made me wonder if they did this while listening to the first group discussion. Did their observation of the first discussion in the fishbowl allow for greater thought complexity about the issue?
What was interesting during both of these discussion was that conversation maps would later show that I only spoke three times during the two 10 minute conversations. This is in direct contrast to a Harkness that involves the entire class for which my records for this year showed me speaking and guiding the conversation an average of nine times for a conversation of the same time length. In short, I join the conversation three times as often during a full class Harkness discussion.
To effectively compare a fishbowl discussion with a full class example I still had to combine the two groups to see if the students conducted themselves differently in a larger setting. Once all 16 students had pushed their chairs up to the table I reminded them of our norms for Harknessing by quickly asking them to call out what makes for a good Harkness as I wrote their ideas on the board. It should be noted that I did not do this for the two proceeding fishbowl discussions. Once the conversation began it was clear to me that it was going to be quite different to the fishbowls. Students talked over each other three times in the first two minutes and the feeling in the room was one of greater intensity and competition among the students. At least two students must have felt that this was a new conversation and just reiterated what they had said during the fishbowls. I felt like I needed to guide the conversation more and as a result spoke more in the five minutes than I had in both of the previous 10 minute fishbowls combined.
After the five minutes had elapsed the new conversation map showed that half of the 16 students had spoken. This reflects a smaller percentage than during the fishbowls. Most of the discussion was between students who had not been a part of the same fishbowls and for this reason wanted to question the comments and ideas of people they had been unable to beforehand. Although I don’t think that the combined class was as productive as the fishbowls, it did allow for students to debate the issue together which for some of the more vocal students, seemed to be a positive. The conversation was certainly less structured but it could also be argued that for the students who spoke, there was a freer exchange of ideas, some of which were more controversial, during this time. After the discussion I immediately asked students to fill out a survey and below are some of the student answers to the following question:
Do you like or dislike the fishbowl approach to conducting a Harkness discussion? Explain your answer.
Predictably most of the students who liked the fishbowl approach to Harknessing in this conversation said that it allowed them greater access to speaking at the table due to the reduced competition. Oscar, below, made a fantastic point about the fact that a larger group allows for more diversity and simply more ideas to be shared during the discussion. I was also not surprised to see that these 10th grade comments about fishbowl Harknesses almost exactly mirrored answers from my 7th grade class to a similar question. This further emphasizes the need to start Harkness teaching with middle school students because they would appear to have the same desires and opinions regarding equitable classroom discussions as high school students.
Grace: “I like it much better because there is less competition to speak. Therefore I can get a chance to speak more often than with all the students at the table”.
Sienna: “I like it because it is easier to follow the conversation and get a word in”.
Madison: I like the fish bowl approach to Harkness because the division into groups allows students the chance to speak more and share their ideas”
Oliver: “I like the fishbowl approach but believe that all students should be able to contribute at all times instead of half of the class”.
Oscar: “There are two sides, fishbowl allows for a more concentrated discussion, but full Harkness allows for more diversity”
Catherine: “I do like it because it isn’t as chaotic. It was nice to have a small group”
Oscar’s comment above also highlights one of the reasons some students didn’t like the fishbowl approach: there were fewer voices, and therefore fewer ideas, in the mix, Adam and Blake’s comments below seem to suggest that this can lead to shorter discussions and even to unfairness, since some of the students are intentionally left out of the round.
Philip: “I dislike the fishbowl approach for a Harkness discussion because less ideas can be brought into vital parts of the conversation”.
Adam: “I don’t like it as much. I feel like it is unfair to leave some people out of the discussion”
Blake: “I don’t like the fishbowl approach because discussions die shorter sometimes”.
Fishbowls in middle school vs. high school:
I do not think that there is a definitive answer as to which style of Harkness is better. I think that a large determining factor is the class size and the make-up of the students themselves. A large and vocal class might benefit from the fishbowl approach due to the more structured setting for the conversation. A less vocal class may not have sufficient voice at a table that only has six or seven discussion participants and might as a result benefit from a combined Harkness.
Another factor that might influence what style of Harkness a teacher employs might be the topic of discussion. My findings have shown that a topic such as the one on Afghanistan which evokes emotion from students might also benefit more from the fishbowl approach. Students would be less prone to arguing over issues that they feel strongly about. Conversely, content related to course material might benefit more from a full Harkness because these discussions often have fewer active, and eager participants, and would also allow students more time to develop an opinion as they listen to the thoughts of others.
What is clear from a student perspective is that the majority of my students after being surveyed prefer to be involved in a fishbowl Harkness discussion. Overwhelmingly it is the girls who prefer fishbowl Harkness discussions and more boys prefer all class Harkness discussions. A clearer reflection of student attitudes towards Harkness styles shows the following preferences of my fifty one 10th grade students: 92% of girl students prefer fishbowl Harknesses over full class discussions whereas only 74% of boys prefer the fishbowl Harkness. The most common reason given from both genders was that the fishbowl Harkness method allows students to speak more frequently during the discussion due to reduced competition. Interestingly one male student was honest enough to say that he disliked fishbowl Harkness discussions because he was unable to hide as easily and he felt more forced to speak.
Adrian: “Yes I liked getting the ideas from other students and they really got me thinking about hunger issues more”.
Jose: “I feel like the Harkness did not teach me anything new but I enjoyed it anyway”
Andrew: “This Harkness definitely taught me new things about hunger because I got to learn from other students as they talked”.
Adrian and Andrew both mentioned that the Harkness was beneficial to them because they were able to learn from their peers during the discussion. Jose seemed to be listening to other students during the discussion but failed to say very much either as a participant in the fishbowl, or in the entire class discussions. What is interesting to note is that I felt like the class was able to explore the issue in much greater detail than we had in the few previous classes related to the topic. Although Jose mentioned that he enjoyed the discussions, I was interested to know why he did not find them to be particularly informative.
This exercise taught me that Harkness is definitely something that should be started and nourished at a middle school level. I found the students to be far more unpredictable than are my high school students and this Harkness, while clearly less productive, was actually far more interesting because students had yet to grasp what it takes to be an effective active classroom participant. It is important to make middle and high school students aware of the norms or “rules” of what it takes to be a good Harkness contributor and this should be done before and during the exercise.
I also found it useful to use the fishbowl method because it allows apprehensive students to more easily enter the conversation since there are fewer people at the table. The fishbowl method is also useful because it allows those in the outer ring to watch carefully and take note of the positives and negatives inputs that their peers give to the conversation without actually being involved themselves. The fishbowl Harkness method is a fantastic way of helping students learn to be better participants and it also gives students more room to participate. I feel like I have neglected to use it on a consistent basis with my 10th grade learners and realized how important and useful it can be particularly for those students who struggle to find a voice at the Harkness table when the entire class is participating. I also think that the fishbowl method of Harknessing in a smaller group reduces the anxiety that students have thinking that they might not get to have their say on an issue in the larger setting or that by the time they get their opportunity that the conversation might have changed topics and that they might miss out entirely. The fishbowl method allows for students to feel less anxious about being interrupted by a larger group of students and this results in comments that reflect greater thought and are usually delivered in a more precise, thoughtful way that is more impactful on the smaller group at the table.
Although my findings indicate that a fishbowl approach to Harkness discussions with clear norms can lead to greater equity in a middle school classroom, it remained to be seen if high school students experienced the same success with this approach to classroom discussion as did their middle school counterparts. By excluding half of the class I wondered what the ramifications of this might be for those on the outside. Could this cause them to lose interest in the conversation if they don’t have a voice at the table? What happens if they have something really poignant to say and they feel like they have lost the opportunity to do so? Could this lead to frustration and ultimately a lack of interest in the conversation, or in Harkness learning in general? What happens if the group before them says everything that they were thinking and planning to say when it was their turn at the table? In order to attempt to answer these questions I planned to stage a Harkness discussion that would allow, first for a fishbowl setting for each group, and then to compare I would combine the two groups to end the conversation.
I chose a topic that I thought might be interesting for students of all abilities and also something that they all had developed prior opinion of. The day before this discussion the class had a guest speaker from the US Marines visit us and describe his two recent tours of duty in Afghanistan. He was an excellent speaker and the class connected well with what he had to say. The speaker was disillusioned with the US mission to Afghanistan and helped develop some interesting ideas with the students about war and occupation of countries. On the planned day the students filed into the classroom after lunch and were met with the following Harkness discussion question on the board: Should the US leave or remain a force in Afghanistan in 2012?
Prior to the start of the conversation we spent five minutes revisiting some of the norms for Harkness discussions that we had developed as a class earlier in the year. I then told the students that we would be having a Harkness discussion but that it would be conducted as two separate fishbowl Harknesses. This was met with a bit of excitement from some of the students. I then asked students to sit and write their ideas in their notebooks for the first five minutes of class. Afterwards I divided up the class and asked those sitting in the outer ring to take notes and write down their thoughts and revert back to their notebooks when it was their time at the table. I told the class that each fishbowl was going to be 10 minutes long and we would then have five minutes where the class would join and discuss the prompt collectively.
The first group Harknessed beautifully taking turns and in the 10 minutes I recorded only two interruptions. The discussion was mostly controlled by three of the eight students at the table. The discussion focused on what would happen to the Taliban and the Afghans if the US left the country in 2012. Once the first 10 minutes was over it was time for the second group to push forward to the table. They immediately launched into the conversation and were much less controlled in their delivery. It seemed like they wanted to say what they had to say before anyone else in the room could. I could not help wondering if this might be because the group before them had covered a lot of issues and they felt like if they didn’t say what they wanted to say, the idea might be taken by someone else. This group had already interrupted each other seven times by the time we had made it to the five minute mark. The second group however had to be commended for making connections back to what our guest speaker had said and this made me wonder if they did this while listening to the first group discussion. Did their observation of the first discussion in the fishbowl allow for greater thought complexity about the issue?
What was interesting during both of these discussion was that conversation maps would later show that I only spoke three times during the two 10 minute conversations. This is in direct contrast to a Harkness that involves the entire class for which my records for this year showed me speaking and guiding the conversation an average of nine times for a conversation of the same time length. In short, I join the conversation three times as often during a full class Harkness discussion.
To effectively compare a fishbowl discussion with a full class example I still had to combine the two groups to see if the students conducted themselves differently in a larger setting. Once all 16 students had pushed their chairs up to the table I reminded them of our norms for Harknessing by quickly asking them to call out what makes for a good Harkness as I wrote their ideas on the board. It should be noted that I did not do this for the two proceeding fishbowl discussions. Once the conversation began it was clear to me that it was going to be quite different to the fishbowls. Students talked over each other three times in the first two minutes and the feeling in the room was one of greater intensity and competition among the students. At least two students must have felt that this was a new conversation and just reiterated what they had said during the fishbowls. I felt like I needed to guide the conversation more and as a result spoke more in the five minutes than I had in both of the previous 10 minute fishbowls combined.
After the five minutes had elapsed the new conversation map showed that half of the 16 students had spoken. This reflects a smaller percentage than during the fishbowls. Most of the discussion was between students who had not been a part of the same fishbowls and for this reason wanted to question the comments and ideas of people they had been unable to beforehand. Although I don’t think that the combined class was as productive as the fishbowls, it did allow for students to debate the issue together which for some of the more vocal students, seemed to be a positive. The conversation was certainly less structured but it could also be argued that for the students who spoke, there was a freer exchange of ideas, some of which were more controversial, during this time. After the discussion I immediately asked students to fill out a survey and below are some of the student answers to the following question:
Do you like or dislike the fishbowl approach to conducting a Harkness discussion? Explain your answer.
Predictably most of the students who liked the fishbowl approach to Harknessing in this conversation said that it allowed them greater access to speaking at the table due to the reduced competition. Oscar, below, made a fantastic point about the fact that a larger group allows for more diversity and simply more ideas to be shared during the discussion. I was also not surprised to see that these 10th grade comments about fishbowl Harknesses almost exactly mirrored answers from my 7th grade class to a similar question. This further emphasizes the need to start Harkness teaching with middle school students because they would appear to have the same desires and opinions regarding equitable classroom discussions as high school students.
Grace: “I like it much better because there is less competition to speak. Therefore I can get a chance to speak more often than with all the students at the table”.
Sienna: “I like it because it is easier to follow the conversation and get a word in”.
Madison: I like the fish bowl approach to Harkness because the division into groups allows students the chance to speak more and share their ideas”
Oliver: “I like the fishbowl approach but believe that all students should be able to contribute at all times instead of half of the class”.
Oscar: “There are two sides, fishbowl allows for a more concentrated discussion, but full Harkness allows for more diversity”
Catherine: “I do like it because it isn’t as chaotic. It was nice to have a small group”
Oscar’s comment above also highlights one of the reasons some students didn’t like the fishbowl approach: there were fewer voices, and therefore fewer ideas, in the mix, Adam and Blake’s comments below seem to suggest that this can lead to shorter discussions and even to unfairness, since some of the students are intentionally left out of the round.
Philip: “I dislike the fishbowl approach for a Harkness discussion because less ideas can be brought into vital parts of the conversation”.
Adam: “I don’t like it as much. I feel like it is unfair to leave some people out of the discussion”
Blake: “I don’t like the fishbowl approach because discussions die shorter sometimes”.
Fishbowls in middle school vs. high school:
I do not think that there is a definitive answer as to which style of Harkness is better. I think that a large determining factor is the class size and the make-up of the students themselves. A large and vocal class might benefit from the fishbowl approach due to the more structured setting for the conversation. A less vocal class may not have sufficient voice at a table that only has six or seven discussion participants and might as a result benefit from a combined Harkness.
Another factor that might influence what style of Harkness a teacher employs might be the topic of discussion. My findings have shown that a topic such as the one on Afghanistan which evokes emotion from students might also benefit more from the fishbowl approach. Students would be less prone to arguing over issues that they feel strongly about. Conversely, content related to course material might benefit more from a full Harkness because these discussions often have fewer active, and eager participants, and would also allow students more time to develop an opinion as they listen to the thoughts of others.
What is clear from a student perspective is that the majority of my students after being surveyed prefer to be involved in a fishbowl Harkness discussion. Overwhelmingly it is the girls who prefer fishbowl Harkness discussions and more boys prefer all class Harkness discussions. A clearer reflection of student attitudes towards Harkness styles shows the following preferences of my fifty one 10th grade students: 92% of girl students prefer fishbowl Harknesses over full class discussions whereas only 74% of boys prefer the fishbowl Harkness. The most common reason given from both genders was that the fishbowl Harkness method allows students to speak more frequently during the discussion due to reduced competition. Interestingly one male student was honest enough to say that he disliked fishbowl Harkness discussions because he was unable to hide as easily and he felt more forced to speak.
Assigning grades for Harkness discussions and the effects of this on students.
All my classes have a participation grade attached to them, though how this grade is calculated varies from year to year. In some years it relies heavily on student informal participation in class, and other years it is generated through my grading of student participation during Harkness discussions. I am not totally convinced that Harkness discussions should be graded, but I am curious to know if announcing to students ahead of time that their Harkness discussions will be graded has any effect on the willingness of students to participate during these discussions. To further analyze this theory I decided to stage a Harkness discussion and announce right before the discussion that it would be graded. I would then gauge students’ overall participation levels and compare them to past experiences. Lastly, I would survey students and ask them if assigning grades for a Harkness discussion would in any way change how they approached discussion in my class. I decided to focus this part of my study on only my focus class due to the fact that it has so many quiet participants. The class arrived after lunch less energetically than they usually do, which actually encouraged me to “dangle” the promise of good grades in front of them if they played a strong verbal part in our upcoming discussion. I had our agenda carefully written on the white board and the third item read, “graded Harkness”. I announced the agenda to students and was careful not to pause on the “graded Harkness” entry more than any other. When I did read it I heard a few groans from some of the class, but at least I now had their attention!
When it came time for the Harkness I carefully went over our norms for discussion and then projected the following Harkness question onto the board: Are we better humans than our ancestors? Almost immediately three students started to talk. Conversation maps would later show that all but one student talked at least once during this conversation and further later analysis showed that this class upped its overall frequency of verbal participation by over 50% for the amount of time that I allowed for this conversation to develop. I sat back from the table and only spoke twice to keep the conversation on track but I did sit with a pen and notebook and create a conversation map while students spoke.
While the experiment of announcing to students immediately beforehand that the Harkness will be graded clearly urged more frequent participation, it is not definitive that the frequency of participation resulted in a better conversation. I engaged another more vocally inclined 10th grade class in the same conversation earlier in the day without announcing that it would be graded. While the verbal participation levels were not as high in this class, I thought that the student comments were given with more thought, and ultimately resulted in a more high level conversation.
This conversation lasted much longer with my focus group than had previous conversations and I eventually asked a student to end it by summarizing what had been said. Not surprisingly this normally very detail-orientated student had trouble remembering what students had said during the Harkness. It is my suspicion that this was due to two main reasons. First, I suspect that the fact that this conversation was graded meant that students failed to listen to what others were saying in their eagerness to speak and have this recorded in my grade book. Secondly, the anxiety that some students experienced towards this graded Harkness meant that students neglected to build on what others were saying in the conversation and as a result, the conversation did not really “hang together” and felt disjointed.
My findings for this experiment are that although an announced graded Harkness discussion encouraged my focus group of students to speak with more frequency, it often disallowed them to conduct themselves in a way that makes for a productive discussion that students are able to learn from. Of the eight girls in the class, seven mentioned that they were more motivated to speak due to the potential for an improved grade or out of fear of a bad grade. Just four of the eight boys in this class admitted to this, which supports Leonard Sax’s research (2005) that girls are more extrinsically motivated by grades.
Below are some of the student comments from the survey that was given to them shortly after the conversation ended. I asked the students to write their opinion on the following question: I announced at the beginning of class that this would be a graded Harkness discussion. Did this motivate you more or less to want to participate during the discussion? Explain why or why not.
In general, the survey results show that the majority (72%) of students did feel more motivated to participate if they knew that the Harkness was going to be graded. Interestingly the female student response was higher still (82%) when asked if they were motivated by a graded Harkness discussion.
Students who felt more motivated by a graded Harkness:
Taylor: “Yes, this motivated me more because I knew in order to earn a good grade I would have to speak up more often.”
Briana: “This motivated me to participate more because I wanted a good grade.”
Jayden: “Yes because I knew that I was going to be able to speak more.”
Daniel: “I did feel more motivated to speak but I feel like if I had known a lot more about the topic then
I would have felt more comfortable speaking up.”
Sophia: “It motivated me to speak more, listen more attentively, and bring up points, but I did not get a lot of chances to speak up and raise my point.”
Students who did not feel more motivated by a graded Harkness:
Carson: “It did not motivate me more because I am already excited to participate whether the discussion is graded or not.”
John: “I think it motivates others to speak extra and perhaps interrupt more, which is counterproductive.”
The above comments make it clear that a graded Harkness does motivate some students to speak more during a classroom conversation. What the comments don’t indicate is how much thought those who experienced increased motivation employed before speaking at the table. As an observer I felt like although students were speaking more often, the substance of what they were actually saying was at times lacking. It felt like some students were just speaking because they knew that I was making a mark next to their names on my roster. I did feel like an announced graded Harkness did increase the attention on the speaker from some students around the table, as Sophia indicated in her response. However the attention seems to be less about building on other’s ideas, and more about ascertaining when each speaker was going to finish so that they could enter into the conversation. In summary, I found that although announcing to students before a Harkness that it will count as a grade increased the frequency of participation in most students, it does also seem to have the effect of lessening the significance and complexity of many responses that students make during the conversation. As John noted, this increased participation didn’t always move the conversation forward and at times, was detrimental. In future I plan to continue to grade Harknesses but I will probably not announce to students that the Harkness will be graded. I feel that this will give a truer reflection of each student’s motivation for wanting to speak at the Harkness table and will make each discussion more “honest”.
Throughout this research, I encountered many challenges in trying to gather meaningful information that I could analyze to further Harkness discussions on my class. Just when it seemed like I had found something definitive about student participation in the classroom the next Harkness discussion would contradict my former theories. I also had many moments where practices that I thought would more promote equitable participation actually limited equity, according to my students. There were so many variables that could alter the success of each discussion. While I did not discover a set of steadfast rules that I could apply during Harkness discussions to ensure a learning environment that was always rigorous and equitable for students, I did discover a few practices that I believe can get us there. These are discussed in more detail in my Conclusions and Implications section. An unanticipated benefit of this research is that it forced me to develop more frequent Harkness discussions in my classes which had the double effect of allowing me to improve my own facilitation of each discussion while my students were improving their Harkness skills. Ultimately the methods that I employed as a result of trying to collect meaningful data naturally increased equity around the Harkness table in my classes, as the students and I tried new things together and adjusted as we went.