January 20, 2015 IF at the Water Ethics Conference 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...
September 27, 2011 Some Limitations of Current Democratic Discussion* 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...
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...
December 28, 2010 Building a “Bench” for Deliberative Discussion 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...
April 7, 2010 The Right Stuff 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...
March 5, 2010 Recruiting for Public Discussions: Use Groups, Don’t Create Them 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...
September 11, 2009 Dealing with Personalities 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...
September 4, 2009 Day One 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...
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...