Discussion Chips

One of my big challenges in my daily teaching was balancing class discussion among all members of the class.  This is a trick I picked up somewhere along the way, wish I could remember so I could give credit.


Give each student four poker chips: 2 white and 2 colored.  The white poker chips were for answering questions or making comments, and the colored ones were for asking questions.

In order to speak, students had to "pay" with a poker chip.

This method helps balance discussion in a few ways.

First of all, if you have one or two students who dominate discussion, they will either save their chips for when they have something really important to say or they will spend them immediately (and probably try to speak anyway!).

Once your usual talkers are forced into silence, there will be other students who will step up, either because they have ideas to share they would usually keep quiet or because they can't stand the silence!

There will still be students who refuse to spend their chips, but I've found it is less than in a regular discussion.

Your job as facilitator during this kind of discussion is to collect the chips cuing that a student can speak.  Also, keep watch for your quiet students.  As soon as I saw a quiet student raise her hand, I would make sure to get to her as quickly as possible. 

I've coupled this with writing a line up on the board of who can speak next so that students can focus on what is being said versus when they will be called on.  So, if I go around and take chips from Tom, Emily, Kendra, and Casey then I write their names on the board in that order.  I keep adding to the bottom of the list as we go, and periodically erase the names of students who have taken their turns.

If you are working with older students (such as late high school) or a group that is very mature and in tune with each other, you can try stepping back.  Students could instead deposit their chips themselves, maybe by tossing them in a central pot or by passing a bucket.  This adaption allows students to work on the flow of their discussion.

Whenever I did this type of discussion, I would leave several minutes at the end for students who have been forced to be silent to speak again.  Usually, at least one student bursts saying a million things she's kept bottled up.

A couple more points before you put this into practice.

Before you begin, you have to decide on rules about trading and donating chips.  I don't have a problem with students trading the colors of their chips, but I don't allow donating of chips because it goes against the purpose of balancing discussion.

You also might decide to make the colors mean different things.  If you are working on a specific skills, you can make one chip color represent that.  Examples of types of contributions your colored chips could represent include: questions, textual evidence, inferences, facts, opinions, rebuttals, piggy backing, or going up to the board to write or solve a problem. 

Four chips worked well for my classes of about 18 students where we planned to discussion reading for 30 - 40 minutes.  If you want a shorter discussion or have more students, you'll want fewer chips.  If you have a small class of ten and want a long discussion, you might need more chips.

You shouldn't do this type of discussion ever time or else it will become boring and tiring.  But, if you include it regularly students will get used to the procedure and fall into it more quickly each time.