Here's a method I use for seminar teaching which I'd like to share in case it is of value to others and in case there are suggestions for amendment.

This approach is not the only right one, of course. It is one way of getting past (a) the domination of seminar groups by the usual talkative people and hiding by the non-talkative ones; and (b) the phenomenon where everyone switches off during the student presentation then it’s all eyes on the tutor at the end of the presentation. They all look at the tutor because they assume that what they’re hearing from their fellow student isn’t particularly valuable, and they are looking to the tutor because they think that THEN they are going to start learning – they will find out what they REALLY should think. If we as tutors make that assumption ourselves, or don’t assume that but don’t place a different, more positive assumption in the students’ minds – that they are there to develop their own thinking - then we are sunk and it is our fault. Here’s the approach, which needs to be explained in advance to the students. Once they know you will always follow it, it creates the right expectation.

The basic approach is:
1. Student gives a presentation
2. Students break up into pairs (and a three if an odd number left) to discuss what they thought of the presentation
3. Once there is a lull in the conversation or after a prescribed period of say 5 minutes, go round the pairs getting them to say what they have come up with.
4. Have a general discussion with everyone free to pitch in.
5. The tutor adds their own comments
6. The tutor states a question or idea for them to think about and put them back into pairs, this time with the presenter among the pairs. With the presenter now included in the pairs, they have been rearranged and so different people have to talk to each other.
7. Back to three.

In more detail:
1. Explain the approach to the students
2. The presenter sits next to you, and gives their ten minute presentation. If there is no presentation that week, simply remind them of that week’s seminar question and put them into pairs to discuss it. Letting presentations run over time is very short sighted: boring for the class, unproductive for teaching.
3. After the presentation, break the students up into pairs, and if there’s an odd number left, make them a three. Their job is to discuss with each other for a few minutes what their response was to the presentation – did they agree, disagree, what further issues did it raise for them?
4. While the students are doing this, chat to the presenter (which is why they need to be sat next to you), emphasising the positive things in their presentation or even having a non-academic chat. This may be one of the very few times that this student has actually had a humanising little chat with a tutor, and can be really confidence building. It may be the first time ever they have chatted to a tutor. Chatting to the presenter also makes the other students less self-conscious as they think that you are not listening in on them.
5. What do you do about a pair that is sitting there in resolute yet painful silence? Don’t jump in straight away. Leave them to it for a while. They are assuming that they have nothing worth saying, and want you to step in. Resist. In some cases, their assumption is so strong that they just can’t say anything. Then step in, but with just a couple of illustrations of the things that they might talk about, and leave them to it, going straight back to chatting with the presenter.
6. Try to work out the difference between a ‘thinking lull’ and a ‘finished lull’ in conversation in the pairs. If the former, don’t step in. If the latter, do. Or, if you have set a time period, tell the class two minutes left and then draw the dicusssion to a close.
7. Let whoever is going to speak for the pair self-nominate. Just ask ‘Okay what did you come up, Susie and Tom?’ If you think that, the silent one from the pair had something different or additional to say, ask ‘Anything you want to add, Tom?’ If no, fine.
8. It is a difficult choice between going systematically round all the pairs, versus launching into a discussion when a pair comes up with something everyone wants to talk about. But it is better going round the pairs first, because you note what is said and come back to it.
9. Believe it or not, the pairs can be so lively that it looks like there will never be a lull! It is worth intervening to say ‘It is great that you have so much to say, it would be good for us all to find out what you were all talking about, so let’s go round the pairs’.
10. Don’t always go round the pairs in one direction, because that gives first chance to talk to the same people.
11. Very occasionally, you come across a pair that may have said a few words to each other, but which, when asked what it came up with, says ‘Nothing’. Sometimes a gentle prompt will draw them out, especially if you have listened in on them and can say ‘What about X that you were talking about?’ But the resistance really can be total. Some people can be simply panicked. Best to let them go with an ‘Okay, no problem, maybe next time – you don’t HAVE to have something to say’. Such people are scared to think and talk. A seminar group full of such people will still be quite wooden. We are so time pressured that we usually don’t have time to build up a relationship with the student so that they can get out of this. The best thing I have found on this is to try to chat with them before seminars start so that they feel more confident: and believe that whatever they say is worth listening to. But the problem can be deeply personal, and beyond our grasp.
12. A key rule is ‘No interrupting!’. Not by you the tutor, by no one. Especially not the tutor! If someone interrupts, be firm and positive ‘I’m glad you have something to say, but could you hold that thought for a few minutes and we’ll get to it’. When someone is talking, everyone’s job is to listen until they are finished, and not sit there making humphing noises and faces. If everyone knows that they are going to get a chance to talk, they’ll be less likely to interrupt.
13. When you are in the open discussion part, there may be thinking silences. It can help to say ‘Take a minute to think about it’.
14. Students are often afraid to talk because they think they must have a definite view, and that view will be pronounced upon by the tutor. So it helps to say ‘Just think it through, you don’t have to be certain.’ Or ask them ‘What is that you’re unsure about or don’t understand?’ It helps if you say ‘I can’t remember’, ‘I’m not sure’, about some things too. Relieve them of the burden of the right or wrong answer (unless it is simply factual!) and yourself of the burden of being The Authority (which is the thing that worries TAs the most).
15. When it comes to the time for your input, make it substantial. Take at least 5 minutes per round of discussion to set the discussion in context, clear up misunderstandings and fill in points you have missed. If students don’t get real guidance at this point, they will feel lost.
16. A seminar approach can’t develop thinking about reading that hasn’t been done in the first place. One of the reasons students don’t do reading is that they expect it to be boring, and it often is. So it’s up to us to set interesting reading. If we do that, and they still don’t read it…

If you would like to read a book on this method, see Nancy Kline, Time to Think, who wrote it for corporate management purposes. A much more radical take and a fascinating read is Ira Shor's book When Students Have Power: Negotiating Authority in a Critical Pedagogy (University of Chicago Press, 1996). See also his Empowering Education: Critical Teaching for Social Change (University of Chicago Press, 1992) and Critical Teaching and Everyday Life (University of Chicago Press, 1987).