On Friday, March 15th, faculty from Davidson and beyond gathered to learn from Professors Emily Sydnor (Political Science, Southwestern University), Rachel Pang (Religious Studies, Davidson College), Bassil El-Zaatari (Chemistry, Davidson College), and Anthony Kuchera (Physics, Davidson College) about how to integrate deliberative practices into their classrooms over lunch. The panelists spoke about best practices for hosting deliberations in the classroom, facilitating deliberation, providing feedback, and the improved learning outcomes they found in the courses where they had started to practice deliberative pedagogy.
For example, Professor El-Zaatari encouraged STEM faculty not to shy away from deliberative pedagogy in their courses. And Professor Pang spoke about increased student engagement and how students felt an increased sense of ownership over the course in her deliberative religious studies course. All in all, participants walked away with new knowledge about how to update their teaching practice with deliberative practices.
The event highlighted the work that all four professors did as members of the DCI’s Deliberative Pedagogy (DeeP) Collaborative, which is a year-long, paid fellowship program that helps faculty embed deliberation about contentious topics into their courses related to their content. Attendees of the panel and lunch learned about how professors from very different disciplines can update their teaching practice with deliberative practices.
Graham Bullock, Faculty Director of the DCI, moderated the panel and announced that the applications to join the 2024-25 cohort of the Deliberative Pedagogy (DeeP) Collaborative are now being accepted. Review of applications will begin on April 22 and will continue until all positions are filled. If participating in the Collaborative sounds intriguing to you, learn more and apply to be a Faculty Fellow in next year’s Deliberative Pedagogy (DeeP) Collaborative here.
You can learn more about the Collaborative and hear what the panelists had to say yourself by checking out our recording of the panel discussion below…
