Step 4: Centering Students as Discussion Leaders

To disrupt traditional hierarchies, instructors can step out of the way and allow students to take center stage. But positioning students as holders and creators of knowledge can be challenging. Not all students will be comfortable stepping into these roles immediately. Instructors may therefore also proactively introduce classroom routines and activities designed to help students see themselves as knowledge creators. In his course, Timothy Patrick McCarthy uses student provocation, an activity in which a pair of students leads a single class discussion mainly through asking generative questions. The provocations allow every student to be a leader in the classroom. “Every semester,” says McCarthy, “there will be a student who hasn’t said much at all, and then the provocation gives them the opportunity to flourish. Once they do that, their confidence coming out of that is much greater.”

Profiled: Timothy Patrick McCarthy, Lecturer on History and Literature, teaches "Stories of Slavery & Freedom" to 16 students at Harvard College.