In the February edition of “Conversations with Tim,” WIDA Founder and Director Tim Boals and Chief of Staff Merideth Trahan spoke with Diana Hess and Lynn Glueck about The Discussion Project.
Hess is the dean of the UW–Madison School of Education and the principal investigator for The Discussion Project, a professional development program designed to help educators create welcoming, engaging, and academically rigorous classroom environments in which students experience productive classroom discussions on important issues and topics.
Glueck is the program director for The Discussion Project.
During their conversation, Boals, Trahan, Hess, and Glueck discussed the significance of The Discussion Project and how educators can take part in and learn from this exciting program.
The Discussion Project’s professional development program is available to all instructors at UW–Madison and is designed to help them become better facilitators of classroom discussion. The project is also expanding to make the course available to instructors at other institutions of higher education, and is developing a version of the course for high school teachers from all over the United States.
Hess noted that the tagline for The Discussion Project is: “learn to discuss and discuss to learn.”
“We want students to become better participants in discussion, just like we want students to become better writers in school or better musicians, or better mathematicians,” she said. “We want to make sure that students see discussion as something that they can become better at. We also believe that discussion is a tool to learn, that you learn different perspectives from interacting with people who have ideas that are different from your own.”
In addition, Glueck explained that The Discussion Project’s course offers unique benefits to educators of multilingual learners — which is WIDA’s focus. By helping educators learn how to facilitate high-quality classroom discussions, she said the program “gives (educators) that impetus to have multilingual learners get into conversation and discussion and use their language skills to access higher order thinking.”
To learn more, listen to the full conversation on WIDA’s website.
“Conversations with Tim” is a monthly WIDA news article series that features a conversation between WIDA Founder and Director Tim Boals and a colleague or two in the field of multilingual learner education. Together, they discuss the important innovation, research, and collaboration taking place today.
WIDA is an educational services organization within UW–Madison’s School of Education. It advances academic language development and academic achievement for multilingual children by providing resources that ensure an equitable and quality education.