B2. Provide opportunities for students to share their own experiences, perspectives, and questions. Offer opportunities for students to develop critical thinking tools to contextualize their positionalities.
Students who have opportunities to share their own experiences, perspectives, and questions feel more valued and empowered to engage in critical thinking and analysis of complex issues. This can help students contextualize their positionalities, understand what contributes to how they make meaning of the world, develop empathy and understanding for others, and explore diverse perspectives.
Strategies & Examples
- Enhance active listening skills through structured activities that promote equal participation and focus on listening to understand another person’s experience or perspective. Ask students to share what they learned from a peer’s perspective, or to paraphrase what they heard from others before adding their own thoughts.
- Use reflective writing, multimedia projects, or class presentations to share personal experiences or perspectives. Provide students with choices in readings or research topics and have them contribute their critical analysis to a class wiki. Create a Choiceboard for students to explore course topics through different pathways.
- Offer multimodal discussion formats. Shared writing activities, online whiteboards for brainstorming or sharing of ideas, and online discussion forums allow students to have silent conversations. VoiceThread assignments give students the choice of responding to a prompt through written text, audio, video, or uploaded materials. Use brief pre-discussion writing activities with quick-think prompts or sentence starters and pair-share activities to get students talking. Role-playing activities, jigsaw discussions, or gallery walk activities are great ways to draw out diverse perspectives. CTL Handout: Faciliating Class Discussion on Diversity Topics
- Use case studies, scenarios, and first-person stories to highlight diverse perspectives and encourage critical thinking.
- Encourage perspective taking. Have students examine a topic from multiple perspectives by zooming in on specific details and zooming out to consider the broader context. Create a consensus building activity related to a controversial text, asking students to explain their reasoning and how who they are, and their unique life experiences have led them to their interpretation and opinion; and then having students ask respectful questions of each other as they work towards building consensus. Use Analytic Teams , a collaborative learning technique that fosters analytical skills by organizing students into groups, each assuming a specific role in the critical analysis process.
Considerations
When teaching large courses, use technology and pair-share activities to promote engagement. Be mindful to structure opportunities for participation in a way that ensures all voices are heard and respected. Provide clear guidelines and expectations for assignments and discussions to help avoid confusion and promote respectful communication. Consider having students collaboratively develop and regularly reflect on class participation norms and agreements.
Resources
Digital Choice Boards and Interactive Learning Materials for Teachers and Students (UMass Scholarworks: TECS)
Flash 15: Analytic Teams. Center for Teaching and Learning.
Flash 15: Jigsaw Technique. Center for Teaching and Learning.
Handout: Faciliating Class Discussion on Diversity Topics. Center for Teaching and Learning.
How do I Engage Students in Difficult Class Discussions Around Sensitive Topics? Center for Teaching and Learning.
How do I Increase Student Engagement with Participation Agreements? Center for Teaching and Learning.
How do I Navigate Hot Moments in the Classroom? Center for Teaching and Learning.