Cogitare Academy

The Harkness table is a roundtable teaching technique that encourages student-initiated discussions and questions. Different from the traditional lecturing methods, students take the lead and initiative to participate actively in class. Using this method, students retain more information and usually take the discussion to a deeper level. Questions are spontaneously generated, and the answers and brainstorms to these sets of questions make students tackle the problem from its root, instead of superficially.

The role of the teacher is a guider and facilitator of such discussions. Teachers usually set the questions, listen to their discussions, record the material, and conclusively sum things up. Usually when a set of ideas are generated, the teachers are there to pose further questions so the students could refine their ideas until they reach a conclusion. These ideas usually coincide with the in-class learning knowledges.