Dangerous Discussions Home Page
Engaging Dangerous Discussions: Heat and Light Without Flames

Dangerous Discussions: 
Topics, Questions, ... WITHIN COURSES

Sample topics/questions:

1. Personal vs. Professional 
   Click here for more... about Boundaries:  Personal vs. Professional vs. Academic
   To what extent, how, and when should “personal” issues enter course discussions?  Death or birth in the family?  Chronic illness of the faculty member?  Where are the boundaries between “personal,” “professional,” and “academic”?

2. Relevance of Outside Experience 
   Click here for more... about Boundaries:  Personal vs. Professional vs. Academic
   To what extent, how, and when should students’ outside-the-classroom, off-campus experience in “relevant” areas be acknowledged or discussed?

3. Challenging Beliefs 
   To what extent, how, and when should students be pressed to respond to data, facts, or theories that challenge some of their own beliefs?

4. Political Values
   To what extent, how, and when should faculty and students reveal their political positions?  Political values?

5. Preferential Treatment
   To what extent, how, and when should issues of fairness or preferential treatment of individual students be discussed?

6. Membership in Special Groups
   To what extent, how, and when should age, educational background, race, gender, learning style, sexual orientation, accommodations for disabilities, be acknowledged or discussed?  To what extent and in what ways might membership in one or more of these or other groups influence the ways in which students interact with each other or with faculty?

7. Expressing Strong Feelings
   To what extent, how, and when should hostility or other strong feelings evoked by course work or the comments of teachers or students be expressed?

8. Different Treatment in Different Academic Subjects
   In what ways does the subject matter of the course influence the answers to any of the above questions?  [I.e., How, if at all, should/did a math class discuss the events of 9/11/01 on the first class after that event?]

See:
<<http://www.tltgroup.org/dangerdisclinks.htm>>
and
See links associated with Deirdre Cobb-Roberts at:  <<http://www.tltgroup.org/profacdev
/GuestPresenters.htm>> 

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