IF will participate in and conduct a presentation/demonstration on public discussions of water policy at a Water Ethics Conference held by the D.B Reinhardt Institute for Ethics in Leadership, Viterbo University, La Crosse, WI, April 16-18, 2015. The conference is...
Americans are privileged to enjoy perhaps the world’s strongest legal safeguards on the freedoms of speech, press, and assembly. Yet as undeniably important as these safeguards might be, they do not by themselves ensure either widespread or robust democratic...
A recently concluded “developmental” discussion of energy possibilities reinforced many of the lessons learned about the benefits of repeat participation of those familiar with IF process and materials. That same discussion series also reinforced the developmental...
No, this is not a “how to” on furniture design. It is more in the spirit of how to cross-recruit for both IF project panel discussions and citizen discussions of IF reports (though much of this would work in deliberative discussion generally). My “bench” is that...
The raucous debate last month (March, 2010) over the health care bill was hardly unexpected. For more than one hundred years, efforts to provide better access to decent health care for all Americans have been thwarted. And, in fact, when universal health care was...
It’s time to declare individual recruiting a dead-end approach. The results of upwards of 60 IF public discussions are clear: group-based recruiting is superior. Whether thought of in terms of “’efficiency” or “sustainability,” its advantages over individual...
I'm into week two of my IF-oriented course, and I' m learning more everyday. On Tuesday we had our first official IF-style discussion. I had to bite my tongue often as I suspected, and allow them to generate ideas. I could think of half a dozen objections to...
Hi everyone, Back in that first week of August, when it seemed we all the time in the world to reflect on our teaching, our courses, and the IF process, I volunteered to blog weekly about my Fall course. The reality of the semester has hit, but it looks like...
The entry below is another story from my colleague Jack Byrd about student experiences with a student-centered discussion class. It might help you think about the ways that discussion facilitation differs from making an oral presentation. You might also think about...
Here's another story about student experiences with discussion facilitation from my colleague Jack Byrd (you can find his first entry on developing social confidence here). This story focuses on some of the ways students might expand their social skills by...