January 25, 2010 How are you setting up your student discussion groups? For those of you teaching an IF sponsored course this spring (2010), we'd like you to post blog entries at least 4 times during the semester in which you reflect...
January 4, 2010 Jobs and the Future of a College Education? What is the future of a college education in the USA? The recent economic downturn seems to have sharpened the already well-known trend toward seeing a college education largely in...
September 9, 2009 Little Things That Count: A Human Scale of Discussion When people are invited to take part in one of the Interactivity Foundation’s Public Discussions they often wonder what effect this could have if we meet with just a small...
August 12, 2009 Reflections and Proposals For all the participants in our recent Summer Institute, I hope you find yourself settling back into your lives--and discovering new ideas and insights as these percolate up from the...
August 12, 2009 Talent is Liquified Trouble In his 2005 documentary entitled Sketches of Frank Gehry the filmmaker Sydney Pollock commented that one of his own mentors told him that “talent is liquefied trouble.” Pollock mentions this...
August 9, 2009 Attitudes of Discussion Picture for a moment two very different kinds of citizen “discussions” that took place this summer. Both were focused on issues surrounding health and healthcare in our society. For the...
July 28, 2009 Lauren’s Story 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...
July 28, 2009 Trying Out Citizen Discussions There are 3 focal areas for our activities in the Summer Institute: 1) learning the discussion process, 2) connecting this process to the classroom, and 3) connecting this process to...
July 26, 2009 Diversifying Social Skills, Ryan’s Story 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...