Code of Conduct / Discussion Guidelines and Strategies 1 SEP 2022

  • Prioritizing talking to other students before talking to professor
  • Using names of other students wherever possible rather than “you” or “him” or whatever. Same for addressing professor.
  • Professor can intervene when conversation stalls
  • HOWEVER, “All Hands on Deck” mentality. That means students will be given ample opportunity to move discussion along. First resort is students, not professor to intervene.
  • One or a handful of people should not dominate discussion. Start to take note how often you are speaking in class. If you find you are doing so more than others, hang back. Take a mental note or write in a notebook how often you are contributing vs. rest of class. If you are contributing around 30-50%, that is a good sign to hang back. An alternative is to ask a question for the class rather than a comment, too.
  • Be active, take notes. Helps with comprehension and retention but also with getting you good ideas for comments and questions in discussion (writing helps thinking)
  • Lots of opportunities for group discussion and think-pair-shares
  • Lots of opportunities for writing prior to discussion to get ideas out
  • Do not talk over others, be respectful
  • Grant good faith in others in listening to them. If problems, professor will handle someone acting in bad faith. Be open and let’s try to work through any issues. Absolutely no room here for personal attacks or belittling others.
  • There is room here for challenging ideas as we want to get as many ideas out there as possible. There is also room for addressing any harm done in this process (e.g., mediation, honoring respectful requests, offering content warnings for difficult subjects)
  • Prof will try to keep things fresh and engaging, but students can do this too