For my blog post this week, I will be focusing on the approach of responding to an observation. To make this discussion topic a bit more specific than simply the pollution problem in the Boston Harbor, I would like to discuss my observations of Boston residents' concern about their drinking water. Why do Bostonians know so little about the pollution problem in our harbor, yet are so concerned about the quality of their drinking water?
Some of the best practices to facilitate a discussion, according to Parker (2001) and Johannessen (2002) include: preparing and discussing the nature of a good discussion, creating a set of guidelines that ensure civility, plan the topics that you want to cover and how you will do this, create a stimulus or "controversy" to begin the discussion, focus on how you will respond to what others have to say about your question or concern, use the questions of people in your discussion to guide your agenda, use both whole-group discussions and small-group discussions, guide participation by using one person's statement as a question for another participant, if the discussion is not going well, stop and discuss the problem, consistently ask how the discussion comments relate back to the original stimulus, do not dominate the discussion, slow the pace of the discussion as to allow participants time to reflect, be a good listening model for your discussion group, and lastly, instead of responding, ask someone what he or she thinks.
More discussion questions:
- Why is there not more awareness being brought to the city's residents about the harbor's pollution problem by the state and its officials?
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