Overview
This workshop has been adapted from a graduate-level course. Therefore, there may be some references to student activities and assessment. You can interact with these activities individually to support your understanding of the content.
Welcome to Teaching Contentious Topics! In this workshop, we will discuss the benefits of and considerations for teaching contentious topics in a variety of classrooms and outline specific strategies that you can use to set up, prepare, facilitate, and conclude a discussion on a contentious topic in your course or discipline. Bringing contentious topics into your classroom can be a great way to stimulate discussions while challenging your students to become critical thinkers and develop their communication skills. However, when using contentious topics as a teaching tool, we must consider how to incorporate these topics in a way that enhances student learning while maintaining student safety and well being. While completing this workshop, you can develop a plan for action to set up, prepare, facilitate, and conclude a (real or hypothetical) discussion of a contentious topic in your classroom. You can fill in this Teaching Contentious Topics Worksheet througout the workshop to develop your own plan.
By the end of this workshop, you should be able to:
- Distinguish between contentious topics and ‘hot moments’
- Develop strategies for teaching contentious content
- Describe strategies for promoting learning during ‘hot moments’
Definitions
Defining Contentious Topics
In this section of the workshop, we introduce contentious topics and “Hot Moments” and consider how the former can support student learning. We also hear from an instructor at McMaster as they reflect on their experiences and suggestions for approaching discussions on contentious topics in the classroom.
Key Definitions
You can consider and reflect on the term “contentious topics” by noting your thoughts to the following questions on the Teaching Contentious Topics Worksheet.
- What do you think are contentious topics?
- How might you define contentious topics?
- What are some of the common elements or characteristics of contentious topics?
Watch the video presentation below to clarify the key definitions of contentious topics.
Benefits of Teaching Contentious Topics
Benefits of Teaching Contentious Topics
Now that you have learned about the differences between contentious topics, stuck conversations, and hot moments, we will review some of the benefits associated with teaching contentious topics. Then, we will hear about the challenges and benefits of engaging students in discussions on contentious topics from the perspectives of three experienced TAs at McMaster.
You can consider and reflect on the following questions on the Teaching Contentious Topics Worksheet.
- Why you might teach with contentious topics in your classroom?
- What are the real or potential learning benefits for your students and for you as their TA?
Watch the video presentation below for more about the benefits of teaching contentious topics.
McMaster TA Reflections
Reflections from Experienced TAs at McMaster
Let’s hear from some TAs at McMaster about their experiences teaching contentious topics. Below, meet Dr. Sarah Whitwell, Jessica Hider, and Creighton Avery as they discuss the benefits and challenges they experience when teaching with controversial subjects and the strategies they use to set their students (and themselves!) up for success.
As you review these reflections below, you can take note on the Teaching Contentious Topics Worksheet of anything that clarifies your understanding of contentious topics, why you might use them as a teaching tool, and how.
Strategies
Strategies for Teaching Contentious Topics
In this section of the workshop, we review strategies to engage students across the stages of a discussion. We will consider how you can adapt and apply these strategies to meet the needs of virtual or online classrooms and review suggestions for how you can prevent and respond to “hot moments” that might derail classroom conversations. In each section, we have also included recommended resources for you to bookmark and explore after completing the workshop.
Describing Your Teaching Context:
First, try describing a real or hypothetical discussion in “Section 3: Describing Your Discussion” on your Teaching Contentious Topics Worksheet. Include a brief overview of the topic and one learning outcome or goal for what you hope your students will (or could!) achieve by discussing this topic. If you’re unsure of what topics might be addressed in the course, look to the course syllabus or consider one of the example topics below.
Example Topics:
- The future of artificial intelligence and the human workforce
- Censorship and freedom of speech
- The death penalty or capital punishment
- Abortion and reproductive rights
- Civil rights
- Religious freedoms
- Gender expression and inequality
- Racism and white privilege
Setting the Stage
To have a productive discussion that facilitates student learning, it is essential for both you and your students to be and feel prepared. You can prepare by familiarizing yourself with the topic and materials, identifying possible contentions, and considering how you will prevent, recognize, and respond to hot moments.
If you are a new instructor or TA for a course, start by understanding your role. Request information about who has taught the course previously and if they had any insights to share about what challenges they experienced and how they recommend preventing and responding to those challenges.
You can support your students leading up to the discussion by creating community guidelines, outlining your expectations, preparing discussion prompts with learning in mind and assessing student preparedness.
As you review each of these strategies below, complete “Section 4: Set the Stage” of your Teaching Contentious Topics Worksheet by answering the following questions:
- What strategies will you incorporate into your teaching practice and how?
- What questions do you have for your instructor about preparing yourself and your students for discussions on contentious topics?
Review the strategies below.
The Discussion
Facilitating the Discussion
Once you have established community guidelines for your course and sufficiently prepared for having challenging conversations, you are ready to start facilitating discussions of contentious topics! Below, we outline strategies that you can employ when facilitating discussions including having students write out their responses first, using small groups, embracing the silence, and organizing debates.
As you review each of these strategies below, please complete “Section 5: Facilitating the Discussion” of your Teaching Contentious Topics worksheet by answering the following questions:
- What strategies will you incorporate into your teaching practice and how?
- What questions do you have for your instructor about facilitating discussions on contentious topics?
Responding to Hot Moments
Sometimes, despite our best efforts to prevent classroom conflicts and ensure an inclusive learning experience for our students, we may encounter a “stuck conversation” or “hot moment” that gets out of hand.
As an instructor, it is critical that you take ACTION to respond to challenging moments in the classroom. Souza’s (2018) ACTION model below outlines steps you can take to respond to challenging or inflammatory comments that students make in class to maintain a respectful learning environment and turn a problematic situation into a teachable moment.
As you review the ACTION model below, please complete “Section 6: Managing Hot Moments” of your Teaching Contentious Topics worksheet by answering the following questions:
- What approach(es) will you take when faced when a challenging or hot moment? What questions can you ask your student(s) to model the ACTION approach?
- What questions do you have for your instructor about managing and responding to challenging or hot moments in the classroom?
- Ask clarifying questions to help you better understand the student’s intention. For example, you might say “I want to make sure that I understand what you were saying. Were you saying that…?”
- Come from a place of curiosity, not judgment. Listen actively and openly to the student’s response, and explore their intent behind making the comment. For example, you might ask them to explain what they were hoping to communicate with their comment.
- Tell what you observed as problematic in a factual manner. Position your observations with “I” statements (e.g., “I noticed that…”) and refer to the specific wording that the student used as needed.
- Impact exploration: ask for or state the potential impact of such a statement or action on others. For example, you might ask the student to consider what others may feel when they hear comments like those made by the student or ask what the impact could be for their fellow learners.
- Own your feelings and thoughts on the potential impact. Position your reflections as “I” statements. For example, you might start by saying “When I hear your comment, I feel…”.
- Next steps: request that the student take appropriate actions in the future. You can redirect the student to your discussion guidelines or classroom code of conduct and request that they avoid making such comments in the future as they deter from student learning and are harmful to others.
Importantly, if a classroom discussion goes off-track and threatens student learning or is potentially harmful to students, share this with your instructor as soon as possible and complete any required documentation (e.g., an Incident Report Form).
Concluding the Discussion
Regardless of how the discussion goes (or does not go!), how you conclude the discussion can have a lasting impact on students’ learning. When concluding the discussion, you can debrief and collect feedback to summarize and confirm important takeaways, revisit the intended learning outcomes to re-position the discussion as a learning tool, and follow up with individual students or documentation as required.
As you review each of these strategies below, please complete “Section 7: Conclude the Discussion” of your Teaching Contentious Topics worksheet by answering the following questions:
- What strategies will you incorporate into your teaching practice and how?
- What questions do you have for your instructor about concluding discussions on contentious topics?
Case Scenarios
Apply Your Learning: Case Scenarios
Below, we present you with three case scenarios for you to review and consider.
As an optional section of this workshop, we invite you to select the case most relevant to your teaching context and apply your learning to respond to the scenario and questions presented.
Case Scenario Instructions: Use the “Next” and “Back” arrows at the bottom of the presentation slides to move through each case. On the second slide of the case you’ve selected, spend a few minutes reviewing the scenario and reflecting on the case question(s). On the final slide(s) of each case, we present some further questions, strategies, and resources for you to consider.
Note any takeaways that might apply to your teaching context or lesson(s) on your Teaching Contentious Topics worksheet.
Teaching Contentious Topics Module Summary
Summary
Thank you for joining us in this workshop on Teaching Contentious Topics!
We have discussed the benefits of and considerations for teaching contentious topics. We also reviewed strategies for setting up, preparing, facilitating, and concluding a discussion on a contentious topic in your course or discipline, and considered how to respond to “hot moments” in the classroom.
Now that you have completed this workshop, you should now be able to:
- Distinguish among “contentious topics,” “stuck conversations,” and “hot moments.”
- Outline some benefits to using contentious topics as a teaching tool.
- Identify strategies for teaching contentious content and promoting learning during “hot moments” by creating a plan for your teaching context.
Learning Catalogue Module Reflection and Feedback
At present this reflection and feedback form is currently only available to those with a McMaster email address. If you would like a copy of the form, please contact mi@mcmaster.ca.
To record your final reflections for your journals or portfolios and to help us enhance and improve the learning experience of this module, please complete the Learning Catalogue Module Reflection and Feedback form.
- You will need your MacId to access the form.
- Ensure you select the option Send me an email receipt of my options at the bottom of the form.
References
- Brookfield, S. D., & Preskill, S. (2005). Discussion as a Way of Teaching: Tools and Techniques for Democratic Classrooms (2nd ed.). Hoboken: Wiley.
- Warren, L. (2006). Managing hot moments in the classroom. Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning, Harvard University.
- Fournier-Sylvester, N. (2013). Daring to debate: Strategies for teaching controversial issues in the classroom. College Quarterly, 16(3).
- DeTemple, J., & Sarrouf, J. (2017). Disruption, dialogue, and swerve: Reflective structured dialogue in religious studies classrooms. Teach Theol Relig, 20(3), 283-292. doi:10.1111/teth.12398
Additional Resources:
Setting the Stage:
- Northeastern University Center for Advancing Teaching & Learning Through Research. (n.d.). Developing a learner-centred syllabus: Setting the structure, pacing, and tone of your course. https://learning.northeastern.edu/developing-a-learner-centered-syllabus/
- University of Michigan Center for Research on Teaching and Learning. (n.d.). Guidelines for classroom interactions. https://crlt.umich.edu/examples-discussion-guidelines
- McMaster University Student Support and Case Management. (n.d.). Netiquette. https://sscm.mcmaster.ca/the-code/netiquette/
- Rasmussen, R. V. (1984). Practical Discussion Techniques for Instructors. AACE Journal, 12(2), 38-47.
- Vandervelde, J. (2016). Discussion rubric examples. Northwestern University. https://www.northwestern.edu/searle/docs/Discussion%20Rubric%20Examples.pdf
- Chen, B., deNoyelles, A., Thompson, K., Sugar, A., & Vargas, J. (2014). Create discussion rubrics. In B. Chen & K. Thompson (Eds.), Teaching online pedagogical repository. Orlando, FL: University of Central Florida Center for Distributed Learning. https://topr.online.ucf.edu/discussion-rubrics/.
Facilitating the Discussion:
- University of Waterloo Centre for Teaching Excellence. (n.d.). Online discussions: Tips for Instructors https://pilots.uwaterloo.ca/centre-for-teaching-excellence/teaching-resources/teaching-tips/alternatives-lecturing/discussions/online-discussions-tips-for-instructors
- Souza, T. (2018). Responding to Microaggressions in the Classroom. Faculty Focus. https://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/effective-classroom-management/responding-to-microaggressions-in-the-classroom/
Concluding the Discussion:
- Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching. (n.d.). Difficult dialogues. https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/difficult-dialogues/
McMaster Resources:
- Learning in Colour (Faculty of Social Sciences): Resources and information for fostering and maintaining safer campus spaces informed by the experiences and narratives of Black, Indigenous, and racialized students at McMaster.
- McMaster’s Injury/Incident Report Form
- McMaster’s Equity and Inclusion Office
- McMaster’s Student Wellness Centre
- McMaster’s Student Support & Case Management Office