Common Learning Portal

Overview

This page provides access to a “starter kit” of resources to help you develop and hone your skills in facilitated dialogue. These resources are provided for self-study — in your own time and at your own pace. They can also be used for staff development.

There are several ways to engage with this material — either in-depth with the self-study guide, or exploring resources as you need them. The content is presented in a way that can be updated and revised, as our collective understanding of these skills evolves and new resources and examples are developed.

The Study Guide provides activities, questions and links to additional resources and guides you through the content in a thought-provoking way, with opportunities for personal application to your site and your work.

What you’ll find

Facilitated Dialogue — A Venue for Interpretive Conversations:

• Study Guide: Intro to Facilitated Dialogue
• Handout: What Is Facilitated Dialogue? 
• Handout: The Arc of Dialogue
• Worksheet: Designing an Arc of Dialogue (revised 01/15)
• Chart: Facilitated Dialogue Techniques NEW
• Form: Dialogue Coaching — Elements of Success NEW
• Article: “The Art of Powerful Questions” by Eric E. Vogt, Juanita Brown, and David Isaacs

Additional Resources

Facilitated Dialogue

• Facilitating Reflection – A Manual for Leaders and Educators, Julie Reed & Christopher Koliba, John Dewey Project for Progressive Education
• Tenement Museum Training Manual, explains the basics of facilitated dialogue as taught at one of the first museums to embrace this method of audience engagement
• How to Craft Questions, handout from conversationcafe.org
• Visible Thinking — Core Thinking Routines, the core routines are a set of structures which target different types of thinking and learning – they also make good dialogue-development techniques

The Nature of Truth

• Excerpt from Truth and Reconciliation Commission Report on the Four Truths (full report available at the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development website)

Interpreting Controversy

• Handout: Embrace Controversy – Avoid Conflict
• Interpreting Controversy Teaching Notes by Kim Sikoryak (from 2005 TEL satellite broadcast)