Thought-provoking topics help students learn.
There comes a time in every educator's career when the instructor has simply run out of things to say. Certainly, there is still material to teach, but doing so in an engaging and inspiring way has become difficult and time-consuming. You need a super-fast, intriguing list of topics to generate discussion among your students. This may be so that you can relate it back to the teaching material, or simply to develop their critical thinking skills.
Current Events
Topics always ripe for discussion include current events taking place in your town, state globally. The particular event should be age-appropriate for the class (i.e., you may want to avoid bringing up genocide with your preschool group), but as long as you follow this rule, the possibilities for discussion are nearly endless. Ask your students whether they agree or disagree with positions being taken on the issue, and why.
Hobbies
Student hobbies and interests may make for interesting discussion topics, especially if a few of them do not involve passive forms of entertainment (such as watching t.v. or playing video games). Encourage your students to focus on the positive effects of active pastimes, such as playing sports or volunteering. Question them about a hobby they have always wanted to take up, and ask why that is so.
Careers
What children want to do when they grow up is also an appropriate discussion topic. Often, in preschool and middle school grades, these answers will be far-fetched and sometimes even impossible. However, as time goes by, high school and college-bound students will have more concrete and goal-directed answers. Feel free to help students analyze their choices, looking at both the pros and cons. You may inspire a student to choose a professional path that he or she hadn't even considered before.
Past Experiences
A smart way to tie in material that you are teaching to discussion topics is to relate it to your students' lives. For instance, if you are studying a book in which a character had to make a difficult moral decision, ask your students when the last time was that they had to do the same. Have them talk about what decision they made, why they chose it, and whether or not they would do it again, if given the choice. Or, you can ask similar questions, but this time have the student pretend to be the character that the class is studying.
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