The DCI Blog

I came to the DeeP Collaborative with some experience with student-centered, discussion-oriented pedagogy, due to prior interest and involvement in promoting inclusive and equity-minded pedagogical techniques. But much of that work was very “individual” and a little haphazard, things I’d pursued or developed on my own as a non-expert, based on my own reading and/or workshops that I’d helped develop from the ground up in grad school (because nobody else was doing it at the time!) — So, my participation in the DeeP Collaborative was an excellent opportunity to approach this element of my courses much more systematically, and with the depth and support the Deliberative Pedagogy workshop provided. 

There are a wide variety of ways in which I incorporated what I learned from the DeeP Collaborative into my classroom, but I think the most immediately impactful change I made involved how I approached and structured “small group discussions.” It can be challenging to come up with small group discussion assignments that help students move past certain somewhat unfocused, superficial, and/or “disagreement-avoidant” discussion habits, and some of the tools I learned through my participation in the DeeP Collaborative were immediately helpful to that end. So, I’d like to share my experiences with that, in the hopes that it will be useful to any other faculty who would like to promote more productive and satisfying-to-everybody student discussion in their classrooms.

Setting Up The Deliberative Environment

I teach an introductory level class on the Philosophy of Love & Sex, which seemed like a prime candidate for building in more Deliberative Pedagogy techniques. I had already devoted Day 1 of classes to having an open discussion about pedagogy, and about students’ own approaches to learning. I added some material from the Collaborative to the assigned readings for that day, including selections from Aikin & Talisse’s “Why We Argue?” as well as Adam Grant’s “Actions for Impact,” in order to orient students towards a deliberation-focused classroom and establish certain deliberative values for our class. 

The Aikin & Talisse reading seemed to have an especially positive effect. In particular, discussing thoughtful disagreement as a form of care and respect really set the tone for the course, and helped get students out of a certain “conflict avoidance” mindset that sometimes keeps them from voicing alternative ideas in the classroom. I believe that this “conflict avoidance” largely derives from an overall positive desire to display respect for differing opinions, so being able to reframe that same respect as expressible throughdisagreement was extremely helpful. I also had students complete a “Discussion Agreements” “quiz” adapted from the DCI’s “Conversation Agreements” after our first-day discussion, in order to make sure students were all on the same page about our values and intentions in our classroom.

Micro-Deliberations

My courses already included in-class small group discussions whenever possible, but my approach to drawing students into productive engagement with each other was mostly limited to trying to come up with really good discussion questions. Very early on in my experience with the DeeP Collaborative, it became apparent to me that what my students were lacking was structure: some sort of guidance through the actual deliberative process. The DeeP Collaborative workshops taught me how to structure these discussions into micro-deliberations, so that they would rise to the level of productive “deliberation” rather than simply casual surface-level discussion. 

Drawing on material from our workshops and discussions with other Collaborative members, I developed a simple set of procedural steps for students to follow during the first several weeks of our class, and I talked through them in detail with students the first time we had an in-class micro-deliberation assignment. These steps included:

1. Describe your own reaction / initial thoughts (every group member should do this before moving on to Step 2!)
2. Diagnose points of agreement and disagreement as a group
3. Discuss your reasons for your initial thoughts, and ask about your classmates’ reasons for theirs
4. Develop these reasons further by evaluating them against each other, and attempting to reach agreement
5. Determine the landscape: have you been able to reach agreement? If so, why/how did you land on this idea, and not possible alternatives? If not, what is the source of disagreement? 

Probably the most important of these was step (1) — the requirement that all students in a small group have an opportunity to voice a “gut reaction” thought in response to their assigned discussion question beforeanyone actually articulates whether or not they agree with each other, let alone begins defending their own view. I think that doing this step well, in a classroom environment that values the exploration of disagreements, sets students up for (2)-(5) to happen rather naturally from there.

On a day-to-day level, this one change — giving students specific deliberation-supporting steps to follow, rather than basically just letting them loose on a guiding discussion question — had probably the biggest immediate impact on my classroom environment. Being guided through the process of voicing their own thoughts and exploring disagreements helped them become much more comfortable with doing those things on their own, and by the fourth week of class I largely did not have to remind students of these steps. I think it was also extremely valuable to make “agreement” equally demanding of explanation — this makes it especially clear that the goal is not mere superficial agreement, but thoughtful and considered unity in light of plausible alternatives. It also makes it more clear that disagreement is not a bad thing; we want to be oriented towards agreement in order to avoid a certain sort of empty relativism, but articulating a genuine disagreement well is more valuable (and completes this set of procedures more successfully!) than unconsidered “agreement.” 

Final Thoughts

It is worth noting that each step of this procedure may require some guidance, especially the “evaluating reasons” section. If your students are not already well-prepared to engage in some real critical thinking at that stage, you may need to include some further general instruction early on in your class and/or modify the assignment in order to set them up for it. That said, this is something that can be worked out in class as well: students in my classes are required to articulate step (5) to the rest of the class (and me) directly, and if the reasoning or explanation there is not especially good, we can work through it together at that point. But even if there may be some sticking points, giving students a clear procedure that orients them towards deliberation, over and above mere “discussion,” is an extremely valuable and powerful tool.  

The Deliberative Pedagogy (DeeP) Faculty Collaborative consists of faculty from Davidson College and other higher education institutions who are committed to learning and implementing new ways to improve and deepen the quality of their class discussions. These faculty come from a wide array of disciplines and backgrounds to study and discuss deliberative pedagogy methods, share their ideas and questions with one another, and work to embed deliberation in their classrooms. In this special blog series, members of the Collaborative describe and reflect on their experiences developing and teaching their deliberation-involved courses.

Neurologist Dr. Helen Riess argues empathy is at an all-time low due, in large part, to the role that social media has played in allowing people to hide safely behind a computer screen, spewing negative comments at one another (2018). According to Riess, 90% of effective communication is non-verbal, including gestures, tone, eye contact, and body posture. And we live in a time where we are more ideologically divided than any time since the 1970s (Pew Research Center*) with no common ground to be found. In fact, many states, including my own, are following Florida’s lead in dissolving Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) offices and staff positions across universities, implementing bathroom bills, and forcing teachers to out their transgender students to parents. The world could use a little empathy.

My job is to prepare candidates to become middle and high school teachers. In this country, we have seen a shift from a majority white student population in public schools to white students now outnumbered by students of color. With the increasing diversity of students in our classrooms, it is critical that future teachers develop an understanding of and appreciation for students from culturally-rich communities that might be different than their own. It is not an option for my teaching candidates to explore issues of race, gender, immigration, and sexuality. It is a must!

Given our polarized climate where DEI is being erased from PK-12 classrooms and universities, I was faced with two challenges: 1) How do I help teaching candidates develop an understanding of and empathy for PK-12 students who likely come from populations significantly different than theirs, especially when DEI is no longer valued by the State? 2) In a cancel culture where people cannot share their opinions without the fear of social repercussions, how do I engage teaching candidates in rich dialogue about controversial topics in a safe and instructive way?

Searching for solutions to these two challenges led me to engage in a year-long professional development program run through Davidson College’s Deliberative Citizenship Initiative. I wondered, “Could a deliberative approach, paired with studying the neuroscience of trauma and empathy, provide the safe environment to have tough conversations that develop empathy for a diverse set of PK-12 students?” I drew up a plan to integrate empathy and deliberation into my 15-week course called Inclusive Classrooms. A brief outline of key activities follows.

Readings

Course Textbook: 

Perry, B. D. & Winfrey, O. (2021). What happened to you? Conversations on trauma, resilience, and healing. Flatiron books.

Excerpts: 

Reiss, H. (2018). The empathy effect: Seven neuroscience-based keys for transforming the way we live, love, work, and connect across differences. 2018 Brilliance Publishing, Inc.

Milner, R., Cunningham, H., Delale-O’Connor, L., & Kestenberg, E. (2019). “These kids are out of control”: Why we must reimagine “classroom management for equity.” Corwin Publishing.

Activities

Weekly journaling with prompts such as “Are you comfortable with talking about controversial topics? What support can I give you if you start feeling anxious during a deliberation or class period?”

Read or watch news that is ideologically opposite of your position for 30 minutes; write a reflection.

Empathy plays in which two students act out a scene depicting an empathic or non-empathic interaction between a student and teacher; use an empathy observation protocol to note key empathic moves.

Deliberations

Engage in three class deliberations, twice as an observer and once as a participant. The three class deliberations were facilitated by the instructor with eight new students each time. Observers were given an observation guide to note the facilitator’s moves, the norms of the deliberation, and new content that was learned. All candidates were given a deliberation guide and one class period to work in small groups to help the deliberator prepare. The three topics involved poverty, book banning, and tracking in PK-12 education.

For the fourth deliberation, candidates were divided into four small groups, assigned a facilitator, and given a deliberation guide on the North Carolina Parents’ Bill of Rights. The facilitators were responsible for video recording the deliberation and sending it to me for assessment. 

For all four deliberations, each participant and observer turned in a reflection afterward. For the first three deliberations, teaching candidates were allowed to argue their own position, but for the last deliberation, I assigned each person a role that I knew would take them out of their ideological comfort zone.

Final project

Deliberation and me portfolio – each student submitted five artifacts that signified their growth in deliberation over the 15 weeks and a one-page reflection that explained how these artifacts illustrated their growth.

Overwhelmingly, students reported that they are more comfortable talking about controversial topics and can see themselves taking this newfound confidence and skill set to discussions outside the classroom. Additionally, they said that the trauma and empathy readings helped them understand why they needed to develop their empathy skills and that deliberation was the approach that helped them do this. As one student said, Overall, I have learned so much about the deliberative process and the beauty that different perspectives and collaboration can bring. I look forward to extending this knowledge and applying it to my educational career.

* Desilver, D. (2022). The polarization in today’s Congress has roots that go back decades.