Faculty Posts

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.

By Keith Graves (2023-24 Deliberative Pedagogy Collaborative Faculty Fellow)

A Little Background

Alamance Community College is one of the 58 Community Colleges in the North Carolina Community System. The College is located in Graham, NC, and currently has an enrollment of 5,222 students. At Alamance Community College, generally the degree program of study in Business Administration is sixty-eight credit hours for completion, and approximately 30% of the students are in high school, with the balance being students who are experiencing college for the first or second time in their lives and can vary in age from 18-45 years. Most are women, approximately 70%, and most of the students, close to 100% work part-time or full-time, and an estimate of approximately 50% have families with children!

There is a 100% acceptance rate for students that apply to the college and the college has a current student population of 5,222, with 150 studying Business Administration in the curriculum or college transfer programs. Students in the Business Administration Program must complete 67 credit hours to receive their Associate’s degree and be eligible to transfer to a four-year college for the completion of their bachelor’s degree.

I am a professor in the Business Administration Department and teach a series of courses that includes 100 Level Courses Introduction to Business, Principles of Management, Business Law, and 200 Level Courses Organizational Behavior, Business Ethics, and International Business. Of the six courses I teach, generally 5 are online with 1 on-campus.

Having taught Principles of Management at two community colleges, I noted that the students in this course tended to be more mature, in age and life experiences…and thus I decided to ‘try’ the deliberative process in this course as my sense was that this student population would engage in the deliberation directly and broadly as a function of a discussion forum. After some review of current topics, related to the news and subjects that have an implication or tie into business, and could be considered ‘controversial,’ I decided to have a deliberation on the subject of the Value of War.

Why the Value of War? The course I selected to facilitate the deliberation was  Business 137 (Principles of Management) as I felt that this course, with its objectives of presenting the basic but broad overview of the principles, strategies, and roles of organizational managers would be the best opportunity to facilitate a deliberative discussion forum on a subject that is controversial and presents the best opportunity for learning and engagement. Plus, I had 2 sections of this course with 37 students.

Both sections were to be offered online, so I decided to experiment with an asynchronous deliberative process through the exchange of ideas, perspectives, and arguments through a series of written discussion forums. Students would submit their responses to a general question on the topic, and then respond in writing to their classmate’s submissions.

Typically, although admittedly without any rigorous data, I have found that many or most of my business students do not pay attention to the news and have little awareness of the current conflicts and more specifically the ones that are supported by the United States as a matter of our foreign policy. Conflicts such as Israel and Hamas, the potential that China may invade Taiwan, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, for example.

The ever-expanding American military footprint covers nearly every continent. While the United States has long had a military presence in other nations, the scope significantly expanded following the passage of the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force, which, in the wake of 9/11, permitted the support of foreign forces against various terrorist groups. The U.S. has since had 173,000 troops deployed in 159 countries as of 2020 and currently maintains at least 750 foreign military bases across 80 countries, according to the Conflict Management and Peace Science journal.

As the top military power in the world, according to the Global Firepower Index, the U.S. has a vested interest in the national security of countries across the globe. In situations that do not warrant combative military intervention or would threaten relations with allies, the government may oversee or aid more minor disputes within countries, such as counterterrorism efforts. This type of involvement is known as a “shadow war,” a somewhat covert military operation conducted on behalf of and at the invitation of a smaller power.

Ok, now you know that the US is involved in a number of conflicts around the world, but the question remains where do the weapons come from, who manufactures them, how are they developed as a product, are these US companies, do they employ US workers, where are they located, and how do these companies fit within the Military Industrial Complex? These are some of the questions that I wanted students in the class to think about and grapple with, together.

Learning Prep Introduction

In structuring the intent and the learning outcomes of the exercise, I developed a set of learning competencies for the students with the expectation that all would participate in the online deliberative discussion forum, and they were:

1. Learning to engage with the subject, as facilitated by the discussion forum questions.
2. Developing critical thinking and problem-solving skills that will cause them to think about the problem and move into non-traditional thinking about how to solve the issue.
3. Being intellectually curious
4. Utilizing data for critical decision making
5. Developing the ability to see issues as part of a broad system and as such think about the implications of that system in the development of resolutions.

I also aimed to broaden the thinking of the students beyond their current perspective of the value (or complete lack of value) of war by learning about the implications of war on a national economy and to think about the critical question – who benefits from war?

With that goal in mind, I intended to introduce and set the tone for the deliberative process by providing some initial opportunities for the students to learn about the practice and consequences of war. For example, I provided background textual material, a lecture about the ‘Military Industrial Complex,’ articles such as the “Cost of War” and the book, “The Business of War,”  for them to have as reading and learning materials during week 3 of the 16 week course.  

Teaching/Deliberation Strategy for the Online Learning Environment

I prepared the class for the non-traditional ‘deliberation’ portion of the class by providing them with (1) a lecture and reading on the subject of deliberation, (2) critical reading materials, and (3) the schedule for three deliberations in the course. I also let them know there would be a reflection assignment about the deliberations as well.

The first Discussion Forum focused on the question, “What Do You See as the Value of War?” The second and third Discussion Forums encouraged the students to take a look at what others in the class had written – to read and reflect on their words, particularly those who were opposed to their own point of view. They were asked to consider whether those perspectives challenged them to potentially change their thinking, and if so what impacted their thinking, why, and what did they learn from the viewpoints of others?

In Week 15, the students were asked to write a ‘Reflections’ paper on the learning from the deliberation exercise. The paper was expected to be 2-3 pages and the student was to document at least 3 key learnings from the process. As in all steps, the instructor has the responsibility to monitor, grade and provide feedback to the student. What I noticed in my reading of the summaries was that a majority of the students were impacted in the process in that they ‘changed’ their initial views and understood that from a business perspective that war has and can have an impact on a national economy, and that in itself might have some positive implications.

Summary

As a summary, each student who participated in the Deliberation was asked to provide feedback on the process and the facilitation of the deliberative discussions. Here are a few examples:

“The one thing I learned in the deliberative process is to first listen, deliberate, and then articulate. Most subjects or topics have a way of striking a nerve and sometimes we just jump to speak our minds…I understand that business can profit from war and business will do what needs to be done to survive in today’s economy. They are in business to make money after all but in the end losing just 1 life is too many and we have lost hundreds of thousands of lives to wars. I do think that this type of forum has value because it has gotten the students to engage in the process and understand what factors influence the economy.”

“I would say that my knowledge of the deliberative process in business was helpful but my ability to be objective, which has come in handy for several classes over the semesters…helped me more when it came to considering controversial topics and then discussing them.”

“I did not change my mind throughout the course of the forum’s entirety, but it was interesting to see other people’s reasoning as to their own views on the subject matter and question them as to why they thought in such a way.” 

“The process of deliberation was incorporated into the flow of this course with the intent of establishing an additional pedagogical methodology of learning…and through the use of the discussion forums and a controversial question that focused on the value of war….and with the intent of getting business students to understand the value of war, rather than the sociological consequences….my sense is that the deliberation facilitated a level of learning that was not expected and had a very positive effect on the students abilities and to develop the course competencies, (1) critical thinking and problem solving, (2) analytical reasoning, (3) learning to engage in controversial subjects, (4) being intellectually curious, and (5) learning how to view and solve critical issues as part of a system!”

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.

By Candice Thomas (2024-25 Deliberative Pedagogy Collaborative Faculty Fellow)

As a natural scientist, deliberation wasn’t initially on my radar as something to integrate into my courses. I primarily teach Human Anatomy and Physiology (A&P) and Nutrition courses, and I tend to approach those topics as a platform to inform others about how the body works (A&P) and how to nourish it (Nutrition). I didn’t think that there was much room for discussion in these courses because, in my mind, I just present the facts.

It didn’t take long for me to discover that I might need to reconsider. In my Nutrition course, the idea of adding deliberation as a meaningful approach to difficult topics presented itself when we started to move into more controversial topics such as food deserts and sustainability. I initially approached these topics as I had any other, just present the facts, but then one brave student raised their hand and added their own lived experience into the discussion. Soon, others weighed in and a whole spectrum of unique lived experiences and perspectives presented themselves.

It became apparent very quickly that I would need to allow time for more meaningful discussions in my courses that do not fit neatly into the framework of what is presented in a textbook. I really enjoyed these initial discussions, but I wasn’t certain how to navigate them. I didn’t know how to ensure that every voice was heard, and the environment felt safe and productive for each student in the room. So, when I learned about the DeeP Collaborative, I finally saw a path forward in which I could introduce discourse into the classroom setting in a meaningful and productive way.

Equipped with a roadmap for how to incorporate deliberation into the classroom, I headed into a course that was new to me, Senior Seminar for Health Sciences, this past spring semester. This course serves as the capstone course for all our Health Science students and is a last stop summative experience before they graduate. I saw this as an opportunity to really help our students navigate difficult conversations in a productive way before they left the safety of the college to enter into the real world.

By its very nature, careers in healthcare require that providers interact with a diverse population of patients, caretakers, and others each with their own unique perspective based on lived experiences and background. It isn’t a far stretch to imagine that any of those interactions may be challenging to navigate. Sometimes, I feel that when students graduate, we are throwing them into the fire and hopeful that they will just figure things out without any real guardrails or tools in place to help them with these specific challenges around discourse.

I viewed this course as an opportunity to empower students to think creatively and listen empathetically and truly connect with their future cliental. Ultimately, I decided to introduce controversial topics into the Health Sciences Senior Seminar course and to use deliberation to allow students to express, defend, and consider diverse perspectives in a formal way. My goal was that students could take this experience with them into the next step on their journey and appreciate that they don’t have to agree with everything that everyone says or does, but it is important to be respectful of others and consider their stories. I believe this to be a very important piece of the puzzle in healthcare.

The capstone course had several requirements built in that were not possible to alter as these assignments are required for program assessment. However, I was pleasantly surprised at the ways that I could use the course objectives and projects that were already in place to integrate deliberation into the course. For example, students are required to use published literature in their field of study to write a paper. In preparation, students read several primary literature articles and come to class prepared to discuss them with the instructor and their peers. Students are also required to prepare a presentation based on primary literature, journal club style, walking their peers through the article and fielding questions about the paper.

I decided to use these activities and assignments to have students present a perspective and support it with evidence in the form of peer reviewed primary literature. This served as the expertise on the topic. In addition, I asked students to create a deliberation guide on the topic they presented. As a class, the students selected three controversial topics in healthcare that they were most interested in exploring further.  Students then ranked the topics in order of the topic they were most interested in presenting to the topic they were least interested in. 

There were 18 students in the course, and with three general topics, I was able to split the class up into three groups of six. For each topic, one group of six students was assigned to be the presenters and moderators on their deliberation day (“the organizers”); the other 12 students would serve as participants (“the deliberators”) in the deliberation. The six student “organizers” for a topic were randomly assigned a “side” to defend such that three students would present and defend one side, and the other three students would present and defend the other side.  One group presented one day and the next group presented the following day. These six students then created a comprehensive deliberation guide as a group project and distributed them to the 12 student deliberators for that topic.

On the deliberation day, the student organizers who presented and created the deliberation guides served as deliberation moderators in one way or another, either as the facilitator, devil’s advocate, or rule enforcer. By deliberation day, the deliberating students were to have read two papers, one in favor of a “side” and the other in favor of the other “side,” and the organizing students’ deliberation guide. At the deliberation they were randomly assigned to one of two groups as participants (just to limit the size of the deliberation). Each group needed to come up with a policy that they could all agree on by the end of the deliberation. Each student then completed a reflection. Then for the next topic, the next group of six (six different students) served as facilitators and the process repeated twice.

In the deliberations, the deliberating students came into the deliberation with their own lived experiences, beliefs and values; they were not assigned a position or side. The weeks that preceded this portion of the course were spent learning about deliberation, the creation of deliberation guides and deliberation day rules, and participation in a practice deliberation that I facilitated so that student facilitators were prepared to do it themselves. I did not participate in the deliberations myself and was therefore able to observe and take notes on what I heard and saw to provide insight before the next deliberation and adjust as necessary for future sections.

What I learned is that students really enjoyed participating in deliberations. They enjoyed the formal structure and the fact that there was some oversight by the facilitators that created a safe space to share. Students were able to realize the value of this activity and how it could help them approach difficult conversations in the future. I also enjoyed this aspect of my course; it was very different from what I am used to doing and caused me to step outside of my comfort zone and try something very different. As an educator it is important for me to challenge myself, not be afraid to try new things, and model that for my students.

There were a few areas for improvement as well. It is critical that students come to the deliberations prepared. I found that student participants weren’t reading the papers that were presented on each topic by the facilitators, so they weren’t able to expand much upon what the literature stated, making some of the discussion a bit generic. The unprepared students would often just agree with what someone else already contributed but didn’t add to the conversation. I also found that trying to integrate three deliberations into the course was a bit much. The students and I could benefit from taking a bit more time on the background of deliberation and the importance of it. 

I will continue to incorporate deliberation into my courses but with a few changes. The first change that I will make is to slow down and reduce the number of formal deliberations that we do. I will spend more time on the background of deliberations and work through a couple of example case studies. I have also decided to integrate controversial topics into their final capstone paper in a way that the students have a more vested interest in the deliberation process. Finally, to ensure that students read the literature and engage more with the subject matter, I will have all students reflect on each article and contribute to the creation of a collaborative deliberation guide.

 I am now teaching the second section of the Senior Seminar in which I will implement these changes for a more improved experience with deliberation for my students. I have learned from speaking with students in this new class that some of them have even chosen to sign up for this section of the course so that they can participate in the deliberative process. I find this to be a promising step in the right direction, and I am honored to be part of that process.

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.

By Sally Bullock (2024-25 Deliberative Pedagogy Collaborative Faculty Fellow)

Between the opioid epidemic, COVID-19, measles outbreaks, and the current administration’s push to “Make America Healthy Again,” public health has been in the spotlight a lot recently. As an Assistant Professor of Public Health, one of my biggest challenges over the past few years has been teaching my students the public health fundamentals while also keeping up with all these pressing issues and the wide range of opinions on how to tackle them.

There are certainly evidence-based approaches that work for many major public health problems. But every intervention and policy decision involves complex trade-offs and competing values that affect our individual and collective well-being, which is why people see these issues so differently. While I encourage my students to critically analyze the public health topics we cover, I’ve noticed that this diversity of viewpoints doesn’t always come through in our class discussions or assignments. Students often seem reluctant to explore different perspectives, and many struggle to really understand viewpoints that don’t align with their own.

This concerns me because as future health professionals, my students will need to engage with diverse stakeholders and facilitate productive discussions about complex health challenges that uniquely affect different communities. So, when the Faculty Director of the Deliberative Citizenship Initiative (DCI) approached me about having students in my classes join Deliberative “D” Team discussions on topics relevant to public health, I was immediately interested. It sounded like a great opportunity for my students and dovetailed nicely with my efforts to integrate deliberation into my courses as a member of the DCI’s Deliberative Pedagogy (DeeP) Collaborative.

As part of my Introduction to Public Health and Health Disparities classes, my students participated in “D” Teams where they discussed three challenging public health topics – substance abuse, pandemic preparedness, and healthcare reform – over the course of three sessions. These small group discussions brought together community members, students, staff, and alumni. The format gave students a chance to hear different perspectives on these complex issues, share their own thinking, and work together toward potential solutions.

At the end of the semester, students submitted essays reflecting on their D Team experience. The feedback was overwhelmingly positive; students found the discussions both valuable and surprisingly civil. Many had expected contentious, winner-take-all debates, but instead found themselves in respectful conversations where people listened to each other with genuine empathy.

Despite coming from different backgrounds, students were often surprised by how much common ground they found. While a few wished for more ideological diversity, others saw the ability to reach consensus as encouraging. As one student wrote, “our unity in these conversations gives me hope that real change could be attainable and is best fostered through intentional and thoughtful deliberation.” Another noted, “The best part was seeing people change their views after hearing new perspectives. It showed how effective open discussion can be.”

What excited me most was seeing students bridge course content with their deliberations. They referenced frameworks we’d studied in class, like the social ecological model for understanding the opioid epidemic and used them to help their groups think through complex problems. Students appreciated how the class prepared them to contribute meaningfully, and they could really see the “real world” applications of what we’d been learning.

The impact went both ways. D Team participation enriched our classroom discussions too, as students would bring back perspectives and ideas they’d encountered in their small groups.

I’m thrilled my students had this opportunity. The D Teams didn’t just reinforce course content, they helped students grasp the true complexity of public health issues and develop confidence in contributing to difficult conversations. As one student reflected, “Participating in these deliberations helped me to appreciate the difficulty of public health policymaking, as I came in with opinions, but left with unanswered questions. I think that’s a good thing, as being a ‘deliberative citizen’ means being willing to listen and reconsider views in light of new information and experiences.”

Several students left inspired to keep working on skills like articulating ideas under pressure, improving their listening, and staying open to different viewpoints. Perhaps most importantly, they grasped something fundamental about deliberation. As another student put it, “One of the most important things I learned was that deliberation is not about winning an argument or choosing a side. It’s about understanding the ‘why’ behind different views and finding common ground.”

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.

By José Manuel Batista (2024-25 Deliberative Pedagogy Collaborative Faculty Fellow)

Before the first Deliberative Pedagogy (DeeP) meeting, I wanted to get a better idea of what deliberative pedagogy was all about; so, I read through all the DCI Blogs and found the reports from college professors very instructive. Even though I was not versed in the practice or theory of deliberative pedagogy, the DCI blogs did provide a helpful window into what the DeeP collaborators actually did and what would be expected of participants.

Of all the blogs, I found the work of one professor, the classics historian Dr. Vander Poppen from Rollins College, most intriguing and relatable in terms of how I could use a deliberative approach in my course on “Spanish American Civilization and Culture.” After watching his video, I began to think about adopting role-playing to motivate students to engage with historical events, controversies and documents by drawing up a list of major controversies and historical events to consider for the course.

As I came to fully understand deliberative pedagogy under Dr. Graham Bullock’s direction, and its connection with our democratic ideals as documented by Carcasson, Drury, Hess and McAvoy, and others, I realized that I had to radically transform the course and not just add an extended role-play activity to deepen comprehension of the material. I had to embrace a more humanistic pedagogy that fosters empathy and understanding, and not just critical thinking; a pedagogy that revolves around collaborative learning. The epiphany was important because, for this project, I was able to set aside my fixation on inquiry-based learning and the Socratic method.

The readings, different types of meetings, and the participants were instrumental in the process of developing the course. After reading the “DCI Guide to Different Forms of Discourse,” for example, I decided to include at least one of each type of discourse (conversation, discussion, dialogue, debate, and deliberation) so that students could gain a better understanding of a deliberation by way of contrast.

The initial Deliberation Facilitator Training Program Sessions in which DeeP faculty interacted with Davidson Wildcats was one of the highlights of the entire experience. Dr. Graham Bullock and Willow Paul organized micro-deliberations as well as mini deliberations for us to experience. I personally found these events memorable and meaningful. For example, I decided to use micro-deliberations as a skills development tool from this experience. In this manner, I thought, I could dedicate a particular warm-up session to a basic aspect of deliberation whether its deliberative dispositions, facilitation styles, ground rules, etc.

The DeeP Collaborative Cohort meetings were also helpful. In the second such meeting, I remember the biologist Dr. Kate LeCroy sharing her course plans and I was struck by her emphasis on the debrief and reflective component of the deliberations. Up until then, I had not really considered the value of the debrief or reflection, and, as a result, I made sure to leave ample room for this important step of the deliberation. More importantly, she really seemed to grasp the humanistic element of the deliberation; something that I had not yet fully assimilated.

The Faculty Partner Meetings were also great; I was fortunate to be paired with Dr. Abril Jiménez, a professor of Spanish at Davidison College. As language professors, our discussions helped me better adapt the deliberative approach to my Spanish language content course. Dr. Jiménez also showed me the value of broaching current affairs topics in class. In fact, we now share an ever-growing discipline-specific list of deliberation topics to use in our Spanish-language classroom. As a side note, we may be the first DeeP partners to conduct all of our meetings in a foreign language!

The course I worked on is titled, “Spanish American Civilization and Culture: A Deliberative Approach,” and it’s an advanced undergraduate Spanish level content course. The first two weeks we read a selection from Grant and the first three chapters from Aikens and Talisse. Student wrote brief summaries of the reading assignments. They also thoroughly enjoyed the discussions and found Grant, in particular, incredibly helpful in their own personal lives.

Initially, students were to complete a dozen or more micro-deliberations as a class warm-up. Instead, however, since the aim was to use the micro-deliberation for skills development, the activity ended-up taking nearly the entire 75-minute class session. As a consequence, the number of micro-deliberations were reduced from 15 to five.

Students found these sessions helpful in terms of understanding what deliberations entail, practicing the deliberative rules or dispositions, and, most importantly, managing their emotional response to contrary views. All deliberation topics were contentious current affair topics and given the diversity of the classroom (36% white, 36% latino,18% African American, and 9% Asian) the deliberations were lively and, for some, challenging.

Dr. Graham Bullock’s modeling and the readings from Hess and McAvoy were helpful in handling certain situations. After the micro-deliberations, the course then shifted to two multi-day deliberations. The deliberations were simulated, that is, students adopted a historical persona to deliberate on whether to accept or reject a newly founded republic’s constitution.

Originally, the first deliberation was a role-play and the second would have tackled a current affair. However, after the first simulation, and the wonderful student feedback, I decided to repeat the simulation in order to improve upon it. The students agreed because they felt somewhat unprepared to discuss the first constitution and found it difficult to stay in character.

Given these observations, in the second deliberation on a different constitution, we spent an additional day analyzing the constitution, rehearsed roles with a prop, mask or costume the day prior to the deliberation, and came to class in character for the deliberation. Students stayed in character and saw others as characters. I made an effort to balance political leanings of characters as well as assigning characters opposite to the student’s own political leanings. The students had a blast and the quality of the deliberation was excellent.

I look forward to continuing to improve the course, expanding the use of deliberation in other courses, like an Honors section of a Critical Thinking and Communication course, and perhaps, if time allows, develop yet another course on the Fundamentals of Democracy. I also intend to continue participating in Deliberative Forums hosted by Davidson College. I participated in a couple during the Fall of 2024 to gain more experience with deliberations. At UNC Charlotte, Dr. Andrew Keener and Dr. Mindy Adnot, both DeeP Collaborative alumni, got wind of my involvement with the DeeP Collaborative and kindly invited me to participate in a Faculty Workshop on deliberation that took place on March 17^th, 2025. Even though I was still reading and working on the course, I presented my initial work with micro-deliberations as a skills-development tool. The reception to our workshop was positive and we plan on doing a follow-up next academic year.

Selected Readings

1. Akin, S., and R.B. Talisse. Why We Argue (And How We Should), Routledge, 2018.
2. Bullock, Graham, and Kyle Braxton. “DCI Guide to Different Forms of Discourse”
3. Hess, Diana E., and Paula McAvoy. The Political Classroom, Routledge, 2015.
4. Grant, Adam. “Actions for Impact.” Think Again. The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know. Viking, 2021, pp. 253-259.

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.

By Daina Nathaniel (2024-25 Deliberative Pedagogy Collaborative Faculty Fellow)

I was thrilled when I first learned that I was selected to be a part of the Collaborative in 2024-2025. After all, I had been doing deliberation of some form or another in my classes over the last 20 years or so. What I could not have anticipated was the variety of factors that would come to bear on this deliberative exercise, beyond whether students were understanding the content of the course or not.

My Intercultural Communication course seemed to be the perfect match. While I constantly challenge my students with seemingly off-the-wall comments and questions in all of my classes, I knew immediately that this course, which focuses on intercultural interaction, would be well tailored to discussing relevant issues of the day and within the context of the class without much effort to make it seem so.

While I felt confident about being able to integrate Deliberative Dialogue (dare I say) more deliberately in my class, there were some fundamental assumptions that I went with into the process that were in themselves challenged as a matter of course.

Assumptions about Students

It can be a challenge at times to ascertain student interest in current affairs, and often, we as educators simply try to gauge how much they might know about a particular subject or issue. I used the content units of the course to determine the types of deliberative questions the students would consider to demonstrate a clear connection with the course outcomes and learning objectives. At the same time, however, I really sought to understand what issues got students fired up.

What I learned through the Deliberative Dialogue process is that sometimes students may not be able to identify at the outset what they think about certain issues. They can be reticent about even discussing issues out in the open for fear of being judged, particularly by their peers. As I continue to grow in this practice of Deliberative Dialogue, there is some pre-work that needs to be done to prepare students for the discomfort that they might feel and to provide assurances that the classroom will remain a safe space for them to explore ideas – especially those that may be different from others.

Assumptions about Issues

In designing the prompts for the Deliberative Dialogues, I focused on issues that linked with the unit being discussed, but in a way that connected to the students’ current experiences on and off campus. I thought that given this was my first time (and theirs), it was important to keep the integrity of the exercise but make the issues as relatable to students in their current circumstances.

Should I do this in the future, I will solicit ideas from students, not necessarily about the Deliberative Dialogue prompts directly, but about campus and society related concerns that they might have. These may be specific to our campus but could also have implications across other institutions of Higher Education and the wider community. It is clear that when people have a stake in an issue, they are more likely to engage in discussing it. Since this is likely the first time that students will be expected to deliberate about issues in this way, and even take a position with which they don’t agree, getting their buy-in from the beginning might be a good starting point.

Assumptions about Myself as the Moderator

From the start and after the first set of Collaborative training and readings, I felt abundantly prepared to lead the Deliberative Dialogue process. What I could not have anticipated was that a complete change in circumstances could thwart my plans and to pivot seamlessly was a significant challenge. To me, introducing this process to students (maybe particularly my students) is best done in person. I could not have known that I would have had to switch to online classes by the third week of the semester. At my institution, students are not used to having online classes and few are even offered in my department. Given that the course I integrated this exercise into is required or suggested by a number of different departments, many students have not even had a course in my content area. Needless to say, there can be a steep learning curve for many students who may not be used to the structure and style of our courses.

Switching to the online modality was in itself tough in terms of keeping students interested and engaged particularly when this was not what they signed up for. So, making the Deliberative Dialogue exercises meaningful became more of a challenge. I believe that people who are more familiar with online discussions are better able to engage in these dialogues virtually, but honestly, it all felt quite contrived for my students, who arguably did the best with the situation.

Moreover, should I use this exercise again, I would like to train students to be moderators as well, as I believe it is important that they don’t see me as always being in charge and that they learn the skills of moderation as well – a skill that may not be stressed in the program as a matter of course.

Overall, despite some of the pitfalls, Deliberative Dialogue is a useful tool to get students (and community members) to interact about issues of import in their communities. Many have expressed concern that the growth of social media and the use of technology have made people more reticent to deliberate issues in fair-minded ways to bring about increased understanding. This process, in my view, takes the critical thinking process into the realm of the practical by providing opportunities for those involved to figure out what they think and perhaps, what they think about.