Dialogic and Other Tools for Teaching in Turbulent Times

There is a tremendous amount happening locally, nationally and internationally that will undoubtedly shape what you and your students bring to the classroom. Whether conscious of it or not, our personal lives and lived experiences can shape how we talk to one another in the classroom, and can often lead to conflict. Sometimes these moments of conflict occur seemingly out of nowhere and other times they happen as a result of the content that you teach, but regardless of the cause, there are steps that we can take to prevent and diffuse these moments if and when they do bubble up. Below is a sampling of resources and tools drawn from UIC’s Dialogue Initiative and other sources that may be of use as you prepare for and engage in teaching, and provide support for students during challenging times.

General Strategies to Consider

(adapted from University or Oregon’s Teaching in Turbulent Times Toolkit)

• Acknowledge the context
  • It is okay to acknowledge that there is a tremendous amount that is going on in the world that may shape students’ experience in the classroom. Taking the time to do so can help normalize students’ feelings and build a connection to you as an instructor. It also helps bring to the fore that you and your students will need to work together to help navigate how you engage with one another and work towards your course goals.There are a number of steps instructors can take to acknowledge the context around us. You can write a statement acknowledging the current environment and share relevant campus resources in your syllabus. You can share a welcome email message or video with the class naming that students may have concerns about the election, etc. You can build in opportunities throughout the semester for students to connect with one another to develop relationships and find support. One simple way to do this is to create small groups on Blackboard and encourage students to use those groups to connect at least once a week to talk about their experience in the course and get to know each other.

• Create Classroom Community
  • When students feel connected to one another, they are more likely to engage with one another respectfully and with compassion. There are a number of ways to do this. For example, in Dialogue 120, each class begins with a “check-in” where students can engage in small groups and ends with a “check-out.” Check-ins often involve inviting students to reflect on something they learned the previous week and identify how they have seen it applied in the world. Check-outs can be as simple as a kind of temperature check on their learning (e.g. what is one word to describe how you are feeling after the class today?). These activities take little class time and provide simple ways for students to engage with one another.There are numerous other ways to support students in building community in the classroom. For additional suggestions, visit:
    • Carnegie Mellon University, Concrete Strategies for Building Community
    • Western University, Building Community

• Conversation or community guidelines can be a very useful tool to help students to engage productively with one another, especially through challenging circumstances. These guidelines are an essential part of dialogue courses and can be useful for all classroom contexts because they provide a framework for respect and understanding and help students and instructors navigate difficult conversations should they arise. It is recommended that in addition to sharing guidelines, students are invited to review it and offer any modifications or additions. In other words, guidelines are intended to be a “living document” and should be revisited and referenced often.Community guidelines resources & examples:
  • UIC’s Dialogue 120 course, Group agreements
  • University of Michigan Program on Intergroup Relations, Developing Community Guidelines
  • University of British Columbia, Classroom Guidelines
  • Brown University, Sample Guidelines for Classroom Discussion Agreements

• Build a foundation for conversation
  • Prepare for difficult conversations in the classroom by building a scaffold around the potentially sensitive or controversial topics. In the weeks preceding, ensure students are taught how to use the appropriate language or terminology needed for discussing the topic at hand and have them practice citing evidence from course materials to support their statements opposed to relying on anecdotes or unreliable sources. On the day of, start by outlining your objectives for the lesson and providing students with a frame for the conversation, including articulating how the lesson ties to the overall course objectives, how to actively listen and contribute, and reviewing any community guidelines.

• Facilitate difficult moments
  • When a difficult or “hot” (heated, offensive, or tense) moment occurs in the classroom, it is critical for you to acknowledge what was said and address the comment and tension in the room. This can be done in a variety of ways such as asking clarifying questions (e.g., “What do you mean by X?” or “I heard you saying Y; is that what you meant to say?”), pausing the conversation and taking a moment to reflect on what was said, redirecting the conversation back to the course content, or reminding students about the agreed upon community guidelines.For more resources on facilitating difficult moments, visit:
    • University of Michigan Program on Intergroup Relations, Strategies for managing hot moments in the classroom 
    • University of Michigan, Handling Hot Moments in the Classroom
    • Columbia University, Navigating Heated, Offensive, and Tense (HOT) Moments in the Classroom
    • Harvard University’s Office of Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging, Calling In and Calling Out Guide

• Care for yourself and others & share campus resources
  • Practice Self-Care. Just as the challenges in the world around us can impact our students, it can impact us as well. If you have ever been on a plane, you will know that the safety instructions before takeoff include a reminder that should there be a need for oxygen masks, you should put yours on before helping others. As instructors, we cannot be there for our students if we do not have the care we need for ourselves. If you need support, the Employee Assistance Program has many resources you may wish to utilize.

• Support Students.
  • Students are often unaware that the university offers many resources and services to support them in their academic and personal lives. While instructors should not take on the role of therapist or caregiver, it is important to refer students to the campus resources designed to help them navigate the challenges they might be facing in their personal lives. The Dean of Students offers assistance to students who may be experiencing academic, health, or other life crises. They also provide faculty and staff guidance on how best to support students.For more UIC and general resources, visit:
    • Current UIC Student Resources 
    • CATE, Trauma-Informed Teaching in Times of Crisis
    • ACUE Report, Creating a Culture of Caring
    • Equity Accelerator, Communicating with Students During a Time of Collective Crisis
    • Inside HigherEd, How faculty can impart hope to students when feeling hope-depleted themselves 

Additional resources

Teaching during an election. Many of these tools were developed for the 2020 election but remain relevant today.

• How Faculty Can Prepare to Handle the Post-Election Classroom by Nancy Thomas (Tufts University) and Cazembe Kennedy (Clemson University)
• Structuring Classroom Discussions about the 2020 Election by the University of Michigan’s Center for Research on Learning and Teaching
• Navigating Politics by MIT’s Teaching + Learning Lab

Contact Us

For more information about the Dialogue Initiative, please visit our website or contact dialogues@uic.edu.

You may also request a confidential consultation with CATE to talk about applying these strategies in your teaching.