Need a new way to shake up academic discourse in your classroom? Try the framework from Deliberating in a Democracy. It’s especially useful for transferring conceptual understanding to a new situation. After you students have begun to build an understanding of a concept – say freedom. Ask they to transfer and refine that understanding by applying it to a new situation. You can either use one of the many topics with great ready-to-go readings already on the site (for example for thinking about freedom I might use the deliberation on freedom of expression or even cyberbullying) or just use the structure and create your own topic and readings.
Give it a try and let us know how it goes in your classroom!
Concepts in Action: Deliberation about Concepts
