Ways to Get Students Talking Across Differences: Advice From Two Faculty Innovators
When I ask students to engage in a classroom discussion on a high-stakes topic, I worry about the possibility of heated, perhaps even disrespectful, arguments. In my experience, however, the more common challenge is getting students to voice a disagreement at all. The risks of social and academic censure may seem too high. This piece highlights two instructors who come at this challenge from different angles: Rebecca Scharbach Wollenberg’s Pluralism Workbook uses short written reflections, where students can surface their fears and what might be gained from a difficult discussion, along with practicing skills and developing language to use in a difficult discussion. Alternatively, Sara Ahbel-Rappe illustrates how an extended role-play can encourage perspective-taking and provide students with some distance from their own deeply held positions.
Our last blog post explored productive engagement across diverse viewpoints, values, and backgrounds, essential skills of democratic citizenship. In this post, we continue that theme by highlighting two projects, each of which was designed to teach students to talk across differences of worldview. Professor Rebecca Scharbach Wollenberg developed a set of exercises to promote open inquiry which can be incorporated into courses in a range of disciplines. Students in Professor Sara Ahbel-Rappe’s course take on roles of historical figures and create podcasts in character to develop skills at listening and responding to differences of viewpoint. Both were recognized last year with Provost’s Teaching Innovation Prizes (TIP). (FYI, The 2026 TIP competition is accepting nominations and self-nominations through January 30th.) Below, you will find descriptions of each project, including brief video comments by Professors Scharbach Wollenberg and Ahbel-Rappe along with some suggestions for adopting these approaches.
The first winning teaching innovation that we’re highlighting is a tool developed by Professor Rebecca Scharbach Wollenberg (Judaic Studies). She was looking for a solution to a problem that many instructors are facing in the current environment. Students are quite reluctant to engage across differences in outlook and opinion. Instead, they try to suss out the professor’s expectations and parrot them back, which feels much safer and more comfortable than risking disagreement or even censure from classmates and the instructor. She is careful to point out the social reasons for this phenomenon and how it differs from faculty experience...