Amid ongoing concerns about sensitive curriculum topics, educators must navigate student discussions with increasing awareness of the classroom as a potentially politically charged space. A free, downloadable playbook from the Constructive Dialogue Institute offers educators five practices for setting up classroom conditions conducive to in-depth discussion—especially of controversial topics:
- Co-create classroom norms with students to set shared expectations for effectively participating in conversations.
- Model—and practice—asking nonjudgmental questions to deepen discussion and spark curiosity.
- Make thinking "visible" by having students acknowledge what they don't know and asking them about their thought processes.
- Recognize that dialogue takes practice by helping students "talk about talking," or reflect on how discussions went.
- Use storytelling to bring topics to life and encourage students to recount their personal experiences as narratives.
Rather than tiptoeing around difficult conversations, these practices help educators fully engage students in discussion—and help students make meaning of the complex and sometimes controversial information they receive.
