The DCI Blog

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.

As an anthropologist, I feel most comfortable in discussion seminars, working through texts and data with students as a group. The issue, of course, is that undergraduate students may feel more accustomed to lectures and thus may hesitate to contribute to discussion, even when they have worthwhile observations or arguments to make. This holds true particularly at institutions not typically regarded as “elite.” The students are, in my opinion, just as intelligent as at elite institutions in a general sense. However, they often lack the confidence in their own opinions and perspectives that an elite institution instills. I often feel as though I must coax their perspectives out of them. Facilitating discussion has proven difficult at times, and the Deliberative Pedagogy (DeeP) Collaborative offered me the chance to experiment with deliberation in the classroom. 

Anthropology requires nuance and encourages political stances, and I initially resisted the framing of many mainstream issues with which DeeP engages. Indeed, I feel that one of the primary goals of anthropology as a discipline is to interrogate the way that we commonly frame political or social questions. My breakthrough came when I asked students to watch “How to Blow Up a Pipeline” and debate the ethical and political merits of the argument espoused by the film (a fictionalized narrative drawing from Andreas Malm’s essay “How to Blow Up a Pipeline”). In other words, I asked my students whether it was ok to blow up a pipeline, given the risks posed by climate change and government inaction. 

The ensuing debate surprised me, both in terms of the range of opinions within a relatively small class, and in the way that students drew on the texts that we had already read in the first three weeks of the semester. Offering them a yes/no question with strong ethical and political implications and then asking them to justify their opinions led to a far more animated discussion requiring far less guidance from me. They also, eventually, reached a consensus where they agreed that blowing up a pipeline might be ethically permissible but was likely politically counterproductive. 

I realized that simplifying complex issues into a single question on which students could take sides allowed them to mobilize complex readings in new ways and explore their nuances. I think that this stands as the key insight offered by the deliberative literature, though it is not an insight that is frequently made explicit. Operationalizing these insights required some thought, of course. Not every weekly topic can or should be reduced to this format, particularly as I cannot always develop relevant questions. How, for instance, would I develop a deliberation on a unit engaging Indigenous worldviews? Is a deliberation even necessary? Probably not! In some cases, I can and perhaps should continue to guide the students through the literature and highlight any relevant debates. However, I began to formulate questions that would allow students to engage in deliberation while drawing from 3-4 weeks of more complex readings. In turn, I think that the periodic deliberations further encouraged students to talk during the weekly units. 

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.

In Fall 2023, I incorporated deliberation into Economics 227: Economics of Gender and Family. This class covers gender, race, and class differences in labor market experiences and uses economic analysis to examine trends in marriage, divorce, fertility, and government policy surrounding families. This class mostly consists of economics majors and minors in their sophomore through senior years. Previous iterations of the course had been lecture-based; while students engaged in small group discussions and Moodle discussions on economic analysis and the costs and benefits of different policies, they only sometimes brought their own thoughts or experiences to class material. I decided to incorporate deliberation into this class because of the complexity of topics covered, the potential for different viewpoints among students, and the difficulty of translating values into effective policy.

One of the key methods of incorporating deliberation into the class was the use of deliberative assessments, in which students participated in a self-facilitated deliberation. Three assessments covered important areas of debate in both the economics literature and policy circles: 1) whether (and how) government policy should address the fact that boys and men have fallen behind girls and women in school performance and high school and college graduation rates; 2) the use of artificial intelligence in hiring and how it might exacerbate or mitigate discrimination; and 3) how the tax system promotes and discourages marriage and whether the government should promote, remain neutral, or discourage marriage (especially among parents). 

In all deliberations, I asked students to prepare an “opening statement” of about 60 seconds to give their individual views. We then launched into deliberation on the main issues. In the final 20 minutes, the students worked together to develop a policy proposal surrounding the issue. I experimented with different forms of grading (individual grades, a group grade, or a combination of the two), and always had students turn in notes they had prepared ahead of time. At the end of each deliberation, I also asked students to give a brief reflection. Students particularly liked the group grading or group + individual grading. One remarked, “I think that getting graded as a group allowed everyone to relax a little bit and work together rather than independently.”

Relative to unstructured discussions from previous semesters, I noticed several key benefits of structured deliberation (including the assessments, micro-deliberations, and full-class deliberation). First, students focused on listening to each other and making sure everyone’s views were included in the conversation. The “goal” was not to each say something that sounded impressive; the goal was to have a conversation in which everyone’s views were heard and considered, and the best policy proposals could prevail. After one deliberation, a student asked if he had talked “too much;” he and I were able to discuss the balance between sharing his own views and making space for others. I also witnessed students inviting quieter students into the conversation by name. 

Second, students brought their own experiences and values into the conversation at a much greater level than I had seen previously. For example, in the first deliberative assessment, many talked about their experiences with single sex education. 

Third, in preparing for the deliberation, students engaged more deeply with the material than in previous semesters when they just prepared for a test; some even did extra research ahead of the deliberations. They were also able to think more about the complexity of issues such as the use of artificial intelligence in hiring by trying to design a policy. Finally, deliberating with other students allowed them to more deeply understand the topics. Several students provided comments to this effect:

• “I liked how the deliberations brought up new points I had not considered. I really enjoyed hearing people’s different perspectives.”
•  “I learned from other students’ experience[s] and perspective[s], and definitely gain[ed] more nuance[d]…understanding [of] the matters.”
• “Often, we think that our opinion is the only right one, but hearing everyone’s views and creating our unique policy where everyone had to agree was super helpful.”
• “Every time the discussion helped me to understand the readings and topic in a deeper and diverse way.”

The primary limitations involved time constraints inherent in any course. To make space for several class periods to be solely devoted to deliberation, some material was cut from the syllabus. The deliberative assessments also suffered from time constraints: many students remarked that the 50-minute class period was not sufficient to fully explore the topics. In the future, I may consider requesting longer class periods or out-of-class (e.g., evening) deliberative assessments. Another challenge was ensuring that students had sufficient knowledge to engage in meaningful deliberation. While this could be accomplished with a couple class periods and 2-3 hours of preparatory material in the case of gender gaps in education, topics like use of artificial intelligence in hiring may have benefitted from even more background reading and/or preparation in class lectures. In the future, I will try to prepare students better ahead of time (including with in-class lectures) and try to choose topics on which students have sufficient background to fully engage in deliberation.

Overall, bringing deliberation into Economics of Gender and Family improved students’ engagement with the material and appreciation of the complexity of issues. It enabled them to draw meaningful connections between academic material, their own experiences, and their values. I plan to incorporate deliberation into this course in the future as well as in the Economics senior seminar. 

Guest Post by Professor Rick Gay, Professor of Educational Studies at Davidson College

Having students work with the D Teams was a positive experience for both students and instructor. Perhaps the most important benefit was that it encouraged students to consider positions on controversial issues in education other than my own. For example, I am against tuition vouchers for any reason; I am against for-profit charter school management organizations; and I favor college admissions officers considering demographic data. Even though I tell students that they don’t have to agree with me if they approach these disputes with logical support and argument, I realize that they are reluctant to challenge me in class. 

As one student wrote in their reflection about their D Team experience: “The best and most important part of the DCI was the respect shown toward each person and our differing opinions. Practicing the ability to argue or deliberate about a topic without getting hostile, defensive, or personal is something I think is lost in today’s society and deserves more effort.” Another wrote about how much they valued the opportunity to meet new people and hear their perspectives on the issues discussed by their D Team: “Overall, my favorite part of the DCI meetings was being introduced to different people I would not have met without going to each meeting and hearing all their different stories and experiences.”

Students also appreciated the opportunity to learn different ways to engage with each other. As one student wrote, “My participation in this D Team not only provided me with new knowledge, but also with new ways of thinking and interacting with my peers. I consider my participation to have been a great success and hope that students across our campus can be exposed to these great DCI D Teams in the future.”

D Teams include not only Davidson students but also staff, faculty, alumni, and members of our broader community. They are led by the DCI’s student fellows who are trained in how to facilitate challenging conversations. If you’re curious about this experience and would like to try it out, registration is now open for our Fall D Teams (the deadline is Sept. 6). They meet three times every three weeks in October and November. This semester’s topics are campus protests, defensive democracy, and diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. Sign-up today and enjoy some robust and respectful discussions about some important and salient topics facing our society.