A third alternative to thinking about public discussion as debate or as the immediate prelude to decision-making is to understand it as a means of testing contrasting conceptual possibilities. Testing of contrasting conceptual possibilities—whether these have been developed in sanctuary… Read More »
Category Archives: Education
Public Discussion of Possible Practical Consequences—Testing*
Also posted in Perspectives Tagged choice, consequences, prediction, public discussion, statistics, testing Leave a comment
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Scheduling a Student Discussion using Doodle
As I was digging through old posts, I would like to add my thoughts to the topic “setting up student discussions” 18 months ago. I am particularly going to recommend the website www.doodle.com for scheduling.
Scheduling… Read More »
Public Discussion of Contrasting Conceptual Possibilities*
IF’s public discussions typically move from exploration of an area of concern to exploring and developing contrasting conceptual possibilities for addressing it.
The purposes of exploring and developing contrasting conceptual possibilities. Public discussion of contrasting conceptual possibilities serves the immediate… Read More »
Public Discussion of an Area of Concern*
Citizen dialogue and decision-making processes can take many forms, depending on the objectives of participants, their place in the policy-making process, and the constraints within which they are working. Still, citizen dialogue continues to be thought of almost exclusively in… Read More »
The Uses of Humor in the IF Discussion Process
IF discussions are serious business. But they still allow room for humor. In fact, the more of them I facilitate, the more I’ve come to appreciate the many ways humor can promote good exploratory discussion. (Surely humor can go wrong… Read More »
“Testing” in the IF Discussion Process: Consequences, Values and Purposes
IF’s Citizen Discussion Reports call on participants in public discussions to “test” conceptual possibilities by exploring their consequences. But this does mean that other considerations are irrelevant to testing.
Consider “values,” for instance. IF founder Jay Stern found it… Read More »
Language and Public Discussion*
I want to use this entry as a way of thinking about and using language in public discussion.
Philosophers, social thinkers, and cognitive scientists of various kinds have long argued hotly about the origin and nature of language. But “ultimate”… Read More »
Convergence as an Alternative Approach to Decision-Making in IF Sanctuary Projects*
As the sanctuary discussions that generate IF Citizen Discussion Reports move along, they rely on two distinctive, if not unique, decision-making processes. The first is to preserve any possibility as long as even one discussion participant wants to report… Read More »
Also posted in Perspectives Tagged consensus, interactivity, sanctuary discussions Leave a comment
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What’s “Practical” about IF Discussions—And What’s Not*
People unfamiliar with IF sometimes ask if our “conceptual” discussions are at all “practical.” The answer isn’t straightforward. One could say that they’re practical “in the Aristotelian sense” or that they’re not practical in the “immediately or strictly instrumental sense,”… Read More »
Democratic Deliberations and Self-Interest
I am currently taking a special topics course on Citizenship Learning, Participatory Democracy, and Social Change. Even before starting the course, I knew I would be able to link much of what is studied in the class to things I… Read More »
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