Navigating Together: Teaching Students to Discuss Sensitive & Controversial Topics Productively

IGC 728

Fee: $675 ($575 Early Bird)

TBD

Earns 3 Graduate Credits through Gordon College (Equals 22.5 pdps)

This course equips Massachusetts educators in grades 6–12 with the facilitation skills, discussion structures, and professional dispositions needed to lead productive classroom conversations about sensitive and controversial topics — including current events, historical injustices, civic controversies, and ethical dilemmas.

Distinguish between controversial and sensitive topics and apply appropriate discussion structures and facilitation strategies to each.
Design and facilitate Socratic Seminar, structured academic controversy, and other evidence-based discussion protocols aligned to Massachusetts curriculum standards.
Create and maintain psychological safety in classroom discussions, including strategies for preventing harm, managing disclosure, and responding when discussion breaks down.
Apply awareness of teacher positionality, neutrality, and advocacy to make intentional, professionally defensible decisions about how to engage with controversial content.
Develop a personal facilitation framework and professional plan for building and sustaining a classroom culture of productive, respectful discourse.