By Dr. Robert Musante

The chat forum in seminars is a space for teachers and students to perceive topics and ideas, and teachers are the guides for unfettered conversations. Through these talks, students learn how their messages have power for an audience. To advance these discussions, spontaneity becomes a pedagogical instrument: when students instantaneously express ideas–and state difficulties building them–a more engaged atmosphere unfolds. Students learn that their ideas hold more meaning than they first considered, and the challenges of assignments diminish. Teachers can use chat forums to help students better understand the initial stages of a learning process.

As teachers we hope to see our students progress, and we are typically willing to try various ways of reaching them, even if the unexpected is a result. Chat forums are among the productive spaces where we seek results; these spaces demand engagement, or what we call an active process of critical thinking. In a Socratic discussion of a skill, the teacher may follow a lesson plan: it may form on a pad before class, and the goal may involve a thesis, audience, or a means of arriving at either (an unchained exchange of words and ideas called “brainstorming”). However, to initiate a stronger understanding of skills, the teacher can use the chat to help students create and form ideas spontaneously, openly. To reach a student, meaningful instruction means an energetic, appealing range of conversations in chat forums, allowing the student to better understand and utilize skills.

An assignment is not a ready-made product in a learning process–there must be a starting point that calls for raw thought. For example, if a student needs to write a persuasive essay on the need to eliminate the use of herbicides on lawns, the student may wonder, “How do I begin my idea?” Also, students often cannot think of an idea: the mind feels “blank,” or even “empty.” In a seminar, this sensation can be a stumbling block, an uncomfortable point of contention. So here we are–earnest and helpful teachers–ready to assist. We must advance these students. I could ask student X about herbicides, “What has made you consider the problems with chemicals in your community?” Then the student thinks, perceives, and a rationale emerges from the early muck of ideas, and the same holds true for the student who needs an idea. I may inquire, “What subject stimulates you where you live? What matters to you?” In these cases, the ideas come forward in ways that are specific to each person. As Gibran says about the birth of ideas, “No man can reveal to you aught but that which already lies half asleep in the dawning of your knowledge” (1945, p. 64). The idea has formed a life, and the chat forum is the spirited birthplace!

The forum even feels like a swirling heaven of possibilities, with the student-writer plucking from the fields of critical thought. As Southworth suggests, the primitive feeling of this place is crucial: “If critical thinking is to concern itself with our beliefs and actions, as many contemporary accounts maintain, then it must concern itself with this more primordial affective domain” (2021, p. 594). The chat is an origin that should not be denied–it has a rising power that helps a teacher bring forth a voice, notably when a complex subject (like the previously mentioned denial of herbicides) demands clear, abundant writing. The writing first appears in the chaotic, even shapeless sea of the mind, and the chat is the rightful territory for the birth–the space inhabited by teachers and students.

During chat discussions the topic can grow towards a thesis, reaching others in the process. Students typically ask in the chat, “Now that I have an idea to write about, how do I make my point?” Also, in the instantaneous fire of the talks, teachers see the comment, “Whom does my idea affect?” Or maybe in somewhat harsher terms, we hear, “Who cares, to begin with?” It’s often helpful to build importance, starting with the basis for the idea, which is the student’s perspective, so she may build it as she wishes; the idea may connect to the student’s career. For example, the student may see the need for safe and swift surveillance in a small business. Do they hear the voices of others in the same situation? An emotional alarm may sound about the dire “need” for surveillance.

Calvino suggests the importance of ideas: “I am becoming convinced that the world wants to tell me something, send me messages, signals, warnings” (1981, p. 54). The Socratic chat then builds to a crescendo concerning what the student wants and what the audience wants; therefore, the student learns more about the idea and the people who need it. Suddenly, the chat is a spark of optimism about how to move forward, and the words carry power, intention, and reflective flames of worth, fueling an audience. Elbow reflects on how words build universal appeal: “As we come closer to an audience, its field of force tends to pull our words into shapes or configurations determined by its needs or point of view” (1998, p. 191). The chat is a vital space because the student experiences the combined influence of the thesis and audience; further, the teacher pushes forward the discussions, helping people learn the relationships of the skills. A student’s hesitance then diminishes, and there is, in its place, the beautiful focal points of learning, all in the intellectual motions of the chat.

A chat discussion is a transformative influence on a student, and the teacher can build this purpose in each seminar, no matter the assignment. The enduring key for the teacher is to watch for the seemingly “little words” that can become a force; embedded in such words are a student’s beliefs, ideas, and the origins of a written piece. Emerson indicates how all individuals possess empowering capabilities: “The soul active sees absolute truth; and utters truth or creates. In this action, it is genius; not the privilege of here and there a favorite, but the sound estate of every man” (1837, p. 1141). Chat discussions are meant to help students embrace a learning process, yet the nuances of learning emerge when the talks move from one participant to the next, unfettered by instant judgments. The secret seed of knowledge is spontaneity, and the birth of a topic, idea, and audience is universal. Each student is capable, and each student has the rapid fire to advance. As inspiring teachers, we behold progress.

References

Calvino, I. (1981). If on a winter’s night a traveler. Harcourt Brace & Company.

Elbow, P. (1998). Writing with power. Harcourt Brace and Company.

Emerson, R. W. (2007). The American scholar. In N. Baym (Ed.), The Norton anthology of American literature, (7th ed., pp. 1138-1151). W. W. Norton & Company. (Original work published in 1837)

Gibran, K. (1945). The prophet. Alfred A. Knopf.

Southworth, J. (2021). A perspective-taking theory of open-mindedness: confronting the challenge of motivated reasoning. Educational Theory, 71(5), 589-607. https://doi.org/10.1111/edth.12497.