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 »
Tag Archives: Public Discussions
“Testing” in the IF Discussion Process: Consequences, Values and Purposes
Connecting IF’s Public Discussions with the Larger Democratic Conversation*
In my last entry I described citizen discussion reports as a way to connect sanctuary discussion and public discussion. Here I want to suggest several possible ways in which public discussion of our reports might be connected to broader democratic… Read More »
Sanctuary Discussion*
At the mention of “citizen discussion,” we tend to conjure up images of rapid-fire, heated exchanges between partisans, often in the glare of the media spotlight. Haste, partisan heat, and intense public scrutiny may to some extent be inevitable features… Read More »
What Makes a Policy Possibility Worthwhile to Discuss?
I recently participated in a conference on immigration policy in Washington DC. One of the speakers forestalled criticism by saying that his recommendations were neither new nor original, and that that none of the ideas in the current discussion of… Read More »
Posted in Perspectives Also tagged attitude, citizen discussions, contrasting possibilities, discussion process, Project Discussions Comments closed
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Extending the Student-Centered Approach to Public Discussions
IF’s approach to classroom discussion is “student-centered” both in the sense that students do the facilitating and in the sense that students shoulder much of the responsibility for shaping the curriculum, as well. As a result, IF-styled classroom discussions reflect… Read More »
IF Audiences
The Interactivity Foundation (IF) focuses upon three major discussion areas: sanctuary project discussions designed to develop public policy possibilities in our selected areas of concern, public discussions of the contrasting policy possibilities presented in our sanctuary project reports, and student-centered… Read More »
Posted in Perspectives Also tagged citizen discussions, civic engagement, Classroom Discussions, conceptual possibilities, conversations, governance, Project Discussions, student-centered discussion Comments closed
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Possibilities as Catalysts to Discussion
Within the Interactivity Foundation, and as part of our continuing and internal development, we frequently discuss how to make our conceptual possibilities more “useful” for public discussion. And related to that ongoing discussion, we’ve had a number of recent postings… Read More »
Posted in Perspectives Also tagged citizen discussions, conceptual possibilities, discussion process Comments closed
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There are policy discussions and then there are policy discussions
Election time is probably the time when people hear and talk about policy the most. So you may feel that you have already heard way too much about policy debates in recent months. And you may feel—just like me—completely disgusted… Read More »
Posted in Perspectives Also tagged citizen discussions, civic engagement, conceptual possibilities, deliberation, democracy, discussion process, Discussion Reports, facilitation, personal development Comments closed
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How to Evaluate an IF Policy Possibility⎯Part 1
The first step, of course, is to understand the possibility: what it says and what it doesn’t. This almost inevitably means reading the description of the possibility, and the reasoning behind it, and paying attention to the words that describe… Read More »
Posted in Perspectives Also tagged challenges, citizen discussions, communication skills, discussion process, reasoning skills Comments closed
Interactivity of Ideas
There are many different kinds of the interactivity going on in IF public discussions. But the interactivity of ideas is one of the most important ones. Our reports are developed by two groups of people who meet every month for… Read More »
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