Effective way of discussion.

For quite sometime, during discussion with my students, I used to listen to them. When I am not clear, I used to ask questions about it. I was not comfortable with this method. Usually as the students are not experienced, and sometimes they are working on a problem, which I have not been involved deeply, it was difficult to comprehend what the student wanted to say. This usually will lead to situation, when  the comments and suggestions, new ideas will take more number of discussion meetings on same aspects. During discussions, taking one's own notes - scribblings, which indicates what is discussed, specific question, their relationship with each other, is useful. These notes allows oneself to get a snapshot of the whole discussion. One can de-focus from details and form a bigger picture, ask better questions. One can identify the missing links. Once these are easier to identify, it is simpler to decide on what should be done next. This allows the students to get much better feedback. So, the key is take your own notes and use them for quick recaps at various stages for an effective discussion. One can identify also the undefined stuff, missing links, vague arguments also in this fashion. These inputs once given back to students, can provide better guidance to the students' research.