Exploring Why Discussions Fall Flat

During the Incubator’s recent teaching workshop for graduate students, participants named each discussion “move” before contributing to the conversation. Students tallied the number of times each move was used.

This simple exercise in transparency laid the groundwork for a broader dialogue on developing dynamic discussions in the population health classroom, where topics offer opportunities for rich and nuanced conversation. 

Co-led by Rebecca Miller Brown, Assistant Director of Graduate Student Programming at the Bok Center, and Elizabeth Hentschel, the Incubator’s Bok Pedagogy Fellow, the teaching studio explored the purpose of discussion and approaches for assessing whether that purpose was being fulfilled. Students applied these insights into discussion moves by unpacking several case scenarios specific to the population health classroom and crowdsourcing ideas for tackling trickier discussions.

Our monthly Graduate Teaching Studios provide an opportunity to develop critical skills as population health educators. Workshops are particularly aimed at graduate students serving as teaching fellows for global health and public health courses across the University.