"Discussion as a Way of Teaching"

While reading this, I was at first dissapointed that the author did not give the outcome to the DNR situation!  That story really got me interested and got me into reading further.  When it segwayed into discussion tactics for the classroom, I realized what had happened.  I was drawn into the debate that was created, and that spark was all I needed to continue reading.  I think that this is very important because it directly relates to students in the classroom.  I imagine leading a discussion can be one of the hardest things to do effectively in the classroom and be successful with all students.  While the text could be dry and dense at times, I felt it got the point across that discussion is important and how they work.  Knowing that when people go into discussions that new information or ideas can be created is a great benefit in itself.  If one person tries to do what a group of people try to discuss, they wont come up with the sheer amount of ideas because they simply don't have the ability to see things from all sorts of viewpoints.  This is excellent in regards to students, because it allows the students to share their ideas with the class rather than the teacher being the end all of information in which they are feeding to the students.  Students may learn new ideas that they never would have thought of on their own, which promotes self actualization of their learning.

The most important idea that I took from this excerpt was that proper discussion creates good habits of collaborative learning.  While students should know how to do things on their own, they should know that putting their ideas together with others could possibly create better or altogether different ideas.  Like the person in the DNR segment at the beginning, he or she quickly second guessed themselves about the stance that they were taking.  The addition of outside ideas made him change his whole perception on the subject, which can be seen as learning in progress.  As teachers, I think that telling students that learning never ends, and through discussion new and different ideas can be created and maybe even change or previously cemented ideas.