Leading a Discussion

Let me give you a bit more information on how I envision the discussion sessions to go.

Assigned reading will usually consist of two journal papers, with one or two people presenting. We will adjust the number of discussion sessions depending on how many people we have in the class.

The discussion leader(s) will review the important aspects of the papers in about 15 minutes, assuming that everybody did the reading. It's useful to have a few powerpoint slides to help both with the introduction and to inform the discussion. These can also include backround material from other sources. You may want to focus on explaining a more complex approach taken by the paper, or put the paper in the context of previous work. Make sure to coordinate with your discussion partner(s) as to how to best divide up this task. You should be able to answer specific questions people may have. You should view this as an oportunity to practice your presentation and teaching skills.

You will subsequently lead a discussion of the paper(s). In preparation for this discussion, the leader(s) (and the participants) need to develop questions and talking points to stimulate and guide the discourse. You should strive to involve everybody by asking questions and provoking comments. In addition to discussions about the research papers, you should feel free to bring up more general questions related to that week's topics and lecture.

• Why was the paper written and what were the underlying hypotheses and questions?
• What approach and tools were used to address the problem?
• What were the results?
• What are the implications of the results and how might they stimulate further research?
• What made this a good or important paper, - or not?
• If multiple papers are assigned, it is important to discuss how the papers relate or disagree with each other.

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