Fostering Engagement through Democratic Dialogue
Circle Contact: Windy Lawrence (Associate Professor, Arts & Humanities)
Circle Contact Info:
lawrencew@uhd.edu, 713-221-8472
Additional Members: Susan Beane, Aleha Cantu, Jonathan Chism, Beth Secor
Circle Description: For the 2016 – 2017 year, UHD CPD created a circle of new faculty across the curriculums to support their development of deliberative engagement interventions in their courses. Each faculty member went through a hybrid deliberation certification course where they participated in weekly online discussions and watch lectures about deliberation and pedagogy. Then each member of the circle team met with Windy Lawrence to co-create an intervention for their course. Each faculty member agreed that the intervention would take up one class period in two of their courses or two class days in one of their courses. Each faculty member tailored the deliberation intervention to the subject matter of the course. The purpose of the initiative, in partnership with CTLE, is to bring more purposeful and institutionalized democratic engagement skills, theory and thinking to UHD. The Democracy Imperative defines “democratic learning/education” to “describe experiences that teach the knowledge, principles, and practices valuable to a democracy as both a form of government and a culture.” They differentiate “civic learning” from “democratic learning” by noting that civic learning, “while extremely valuable, are often apolitical or separate from learning for and about democratic governance and culture (e.g., volunteerism, service learning).” Our goals for this initiative includes:
•Providing an example to other professors as to how they can incorporate deliberative dialogue into their courses.
•Providing students with an in class activity that refines their communication skills (written, oral, and intergroup and intercultural)
•Giving more students an opportunity to improve their collaborative decision making and public reasoning skills (critical thinking and reflection, conflict management, team work, active listening).
•Developing democratic spaces to practice critical analysis of knowledge and information (research skills, evaluating the quality of arguments)
•Exposing students to the need for personal integrity and a sense of public purpose
All of our goals for DDD intersect with the 21st century skills students need to hone such as collaboration, problem solving, the ability to work in teams, and communication. DDDs have been shown to improve student retention and engagement for many reasons, including that they move the professor from being a “sage on the stage” to a “guide on the side.”
Circle Artifact(s):www.tinyurl.com/2017tclawrence
