Suffern High School Students Build Long-Term Skills for Constructive Dialogue
The strategies students learned and cultivated in class discussion gave them the confidence to have difficult conversations in and outside of the classroom.
The Challenge
Jessica Minick teaches a Cambridge Assessment International Education® course, “Global Perspectives and Research,” at Suffern High School in which her students often engage in challenging discussions on global issues. When the class size doubled from 15 to 29 one year, these conversations grew more polarized and mediating them became significantly more difficult.
Rather than limit or censor these in-class discussions, Ms. Minick sought a solution to help her students communicate more constructively with each other in this course and in dealing with these types of conversations going forward.
The Partnership
Ms. Minick wanted to find a solution that would build a foundation for effective discussion without targeting or alienating any particular group within her class. While exploring the Constructive Dialogue Institute's(CDI) resources, she found herself personally learning from the research-based content and found their approach to be ideologically neutral. In addition, CDI's online learning program, called Perspectives, was a convenient and accessible platform to roll out to her students.
Outcomes
Students regularly applied active listening techniques from Perspectives, including paraphrasing and clarifying questions both during and after the program.
Dialogue skills gained from Perspectives translated into students' personal lives, equipping them to engage confidently and respectfully with friends and family on complex topics.
Every student who completed Perspectives saw its value, earning full buy-in across the classroom, a trend that has remained consistent over time.