Whole Group Discussion as a Teaching Method:

Whole Group Discussion is a modified form of classroom lecture where the

focus is shared between the instructor and the students for information transfer.
Typically, an instructor will stand before a class and present information for the
students to learn but the students will also participate by answering questions
and providing examples.

Pros of Whole Group Discussion as a Teaching Method:

 Whole group discussions provide for greater interaction between teacher

and students.
 Instructors maintain a greater control over what is being taught because
they are able to steer the discussion.
 Auditory learners find them appealing to their learning style.
 Teachers can check on what students are retaining through questions
posed.
 Whole group discussion is comfortable for many teachers because it is a
modified form of lecture.
 Students have a tendency to stay focused on the lesson because they
might be called on to answer questions.
 Students may feel more comfortable asking questions during whole group
discussions.

Cons of Whole Group Discussion as a Teaching Method:

 Whole group discussions require setting up and enforcing ground rules

for students. If these rules are not enforced then there is a possibility that
the discussion could quickly go off-topic.
 Students who are weak in note-taking skills will have trouble
understanding what they should remember from group discussions. This
is even more so than in lectures in many cases because not only the
teacher but fellow students are talking about the lesson.
 Some students may not feel comfortable being put on the spot during a
whole group discussion.

Final Thoughts :
Whole group discussions are an excellent teaching method when used in
conjunction with other methods. Instruction should be varied from day to day to
help reach the most students possible. Teachers need to provide their students
with note taking skills before starting discussions. It is important that teachers
be good at managing and facilitating discussions. Questioning techniques are
effective for this. Two questioning techniques that teachers employ is to
increase their wait time after questions are asked and to only ask one question at
a time.

  [Abstract] classroom group discussion teaching model in higher Education is

widely used abroad, our colleges and universities have also tried this new
teaching model, however, this mode of teaching effectiveness of teaching has
always been controversial. This experiment was designed using empirical
methods, classroom group discussion were tested on the memory of knowledge
and understanding of knowledge, teaching effectiveness, while the other factors
that may affect the teaching effect was measured, and the results were analyzed
with basic conclusion: As the East and West, traditional education model is
different from the classroom to enhance students understanding of group
discussion on the mastery of knowledge there is no significant effect.
     [Keywords:] classroom panel discussions; teaching effectiveness; higher
education; educational model
     
     Abstract: Group discussion as a teaching method has been practised in higher
education aboard for a number of years. This new method is being tried in
China's higher education now. However, the teaching effect of the new method
is arguable. This paper designs a teaching experiment to test the impact of the
group discussion on teaching effect. It tests the impact of the group discussion
on two kinds of knowledge: memorized knowledge and understanding
knowledge. It concludes that group discussion has no significant effect on
students' understanding of knowledge.
     Keywords:: group discussion; teaching effect; higher education; teaching
model
     
     1 Introduction
     
     Classroom group discussion as an important teaching tool in higher
education in the West have been widely used. In higher education, the teacher's
major task is to provide a learning environment, in which students make
comprehensive use of their own ability to analyze a variety of problems and
problem-solving skills [1]. Many foreign scholars, panel discussions, the
teaching methods for cultivating high-level talent is essential to society [2]. In
fact, a relatively traditional way, the group discussion teaching method has the
following three advantages: First, by encouraging students to take the initiative
to carry out critical thinking, classroom group discussion can improve student
learning initiative. Second, in mutual discussions, students also can learn how to
effectively listen to and understand other people's perspectives and views.
Third, the group discussions help train students in mutual cooperation and
mutual compromise in the ability to reach a consensus [3].
     In order to Anglo-American as the representative of the Western countries,
higher education, classroom group discussion in the class distribution have been
given a large share of [4]. In the UK, the professional core curriculum for
undergraduate students, their classroom lessons and classroom panel discussion,
the allocation of approximately 1.5:1 [5], for example, a total class of 64 hours
of professional core courses, group discussions of their lessons the number is
generally 20 hours or so; for the Master of the professional core curriculum and
their ratio is generally 1:1, that is, one classroom there is a group discussion.
     In China, as a new teaching methods, classroom group discussion has been
an increasing number of schools to adopt, but their effectiveness was mixed.
Some teachers feel that makes the classroom a lively panel discussion, students
strong sense of participation, especially when there is competition between
groups, the students actively thinking about and answering the questions raised
by the teachers [6]. Same time, they also stressed that when the panel
discussions, the teachers and students close to the exchange through discussions
among students and timely understanding of the students have learned to master
knowledge of the situation, making more timely and efficient feedback [7 ].
Some who opposed the teachers think that students enthusiastically discussed
the problem does not explain their understanding of the problem with the lively
discussions and in-depth, on the contrary, students discuss the problem often
float on the surface, ready to stray, such a situation of limited resources is a
waste of classroom education [8]. Although teachers can choose topics for
discussion by careful control of this phenomenon, however, because of interest
in the students themselves are often not strictly consistent with the teaching
objectives, leading to the students of this opportunistic tendency can not be
totally avoided.
     Mainly from the above point of view of teaching Experience in front-line
teachers, using empirical means of checking the effect of classroom teaching of
the panel discussion is still relatively little is currently done. This article will use
the empirical method, by designing experiments to compare this new teaching
method and traditional teaching methods in teaching effect differences.
According to the different learning contents and objectives of the experiment
will be Test: Compared with traditional teaching methods (classroom teaching)
classroom group discussion for the two types of knowledge (memory of
knowledge and understanding of the nature of knowledge) whether the effects
of teaching there are significant differences.
     
     Second, Research methods
     
     According to the study purpose, this paper designed an experiment to test the
classroom group discussion on the teaching effect. Throughout the experiment,
the teaching effectiveness of the measure of test scores of students shall prevail.
Experimental steps: First, a random sampling of students groups, a group for the
control group (including one half of the students in class, usually about 18
individuals); another group of experimental group (including the other half of
the students in a class ). Second step, the control group students received
traditional classroom teaching, and asked students Keqianyuxi and after-school
review; experimental group of students In addition to receiving instruction
outside the classroom there is a formal classroom panel discussion questions for
teachers to be The answer is given according to group discussion. The two
groups in the teaching process at the same time, so the content exactly the same,
while the control group made after-school review questions and experimental
group is given exactly the same as classroom discussion questions. The third
step, in the week after the experiment, two groups of students on classroom tests
in order to test the form, set strict requirements independently and conduct real-
name registration, draw two groups of students teaching effectiveness. Finally,
the two groups for average student achievement tests, group discussion come to
the classroom on teaching effect.
     Test questionnaire contains three sections: The first part is for the learned
knowledge of teaching effectiveness of memory tests, mainly concepts and
definitions. This section has 10 questions, the answer was the correct one
points, no points wrong. The second part is the knowledge learned to understand
the teaching effectiveness of testing, the main theoretical explanation is to
examine the phenomenon of students to use the ability. This section also
contains 10 questions, the correct answer is worth 1 point, some of the correct
answer of 0.5 points, got the wrong answer to no points. The third part is to
facilitate analysis of the results, the collection of some of the ancillary
information, including student class under the independent reading time, usually
when the reading habits of learning materials and so on.
     During the experiment, the one class into two groups using the process of
rigorous randomized, ask students to grasp their own lots in order to determine
the experimental group or control group. Using the same method, this study a
total of right school junior Marketing major five classes conducted experiments
with a view to control the random sampling bias. Meanwhile, in order to
eliminate the ability to classroom teachers, the impact of the panel discussion,
five experiments were carried out using a different teacher teaching, these
teachers are using classroom group discussion prior to the teaching experience.
     
     3, the results and discussion
     
     In the experiment, we first of the two groups tested the overall performance
to see the classroom group discussion on improving teaching effectiveness if
that helps. Upon examination, five experiments, the experimental group, the
total average score of 11.66 points, while the control group, the average score of
7.42, T test of the test results for the P = 0.003 <0.01, we can see that the use of
classroom group discussion of the test group of results significantly higher than
the control group results. The following conclusions can be drawn, therefore it
seems that the classroom group discussion on improving teaching effectiveness
has a positive helpful. However, further data analysis carried out found that we
can not simply come to this conclusion.
Reposted elsewhere in the paper for free download
Study further validate the control variables (class group discussion) on the
students to learn what type of knowledge (memory and understanding of the
nature of knowledge) to help the larger analysis of memory and understanding
of the nature of the students knowledge of the different scores on the five
experiments are group and the control group were two results of independent
samples T test and get relevant results (see Table 1).
     
     The results can be seen from the above, for the memory of the students in the
experimental group subjects tended to achieve better results, five experiments
have shown that the classroom group discussion can significantly improve the
students to concepts and definitions of memory. As for the understanding of the
subject, P statistics show only the fifth group of data 0.092