February 11, 2011 How to Evaluate an IF Policy Possibility—Part 4 Once you have a basic understanding of the policy possibility, the reasoning behind it, and whether and to what extent it is likely to work, the final step is to...
February 9, 2011 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...
February 7, 2011 Stories of Unexpected Consequences What consequences might flow from a given policy possibility? It’s impossible to say for sure, but exploring this question is an important part of the IF discussion process. It helps...
February 3, 2011 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...
February 1, 2011 Jay Stern, Activist People are naturally curious about IF’s founder, Jay Stern. They want to know what sort of man he was, and why he started IF. Here’s my own perspective, based...
January 14, 2011 “Chipping-In” as a Key to Developmental Citizen Discussion 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...
January 10, 2011 Great Taste, Less Filling I’ve known it for years: that all great ideas derive from beer—or at least television commercials for beer. Though for my purposes here, perhaps a better version of this slogan...
January 10, 2011 What’s in it for the panelists? I have almost completed recruiting panelists for my new project on Human Migration. All of the panelists I have recruited are enthusiastic about the project. But I am still looking...
January 10, 2011 Playing with Metaphors When IF project panels are beginning the transition to generating public policy ideas, I’ve found it helpful to have the panelists explore different metaphors for thinking about the policy area....