ABSTRACT
This chapter describes 12 challenges of discussions, how they undermine student engagement and learning, how to prevent them from materializing, and how to intervene when they occur. The challenges include students who dominate conversation, crickets, narcissists, perpetually silent students, students having a lack of opportunity to engage, inattention and multitaskers, and personal attacks and related incivilities. It also includes sensitive subjects and trigger warnings, microaggressions, students with autism spectrum disorder, asynchronous online discussions and synchronous online discussions. Classmates dominating conversation, narcissists, or structural challenges in the course, such as a large class size, can reduce the opportunities of some students to participate. When faculty members on the campuses ask about facilitating difficult conversations, their concerns often revolve around how to respond when a student makes a comment that a classmate may perceive as offensive or biased. Synchronous discussions incorporate many of the benefits of in-person discussion, including real-time interaction and small-group activities.
