- Acknowledgment and respect
- Agree to understand
- Empathy and kindness
- Active listening (listen to understand, not to respond)
- Genuine questions and priority in making each other feel heard
- Think about how you say things ( tone, body language)
- It’s okay to be wrong
- Having an open mind
- Step out of your comfort zone
Things to consider:
- Notice your own reactions and recognize how your own identity e.g. race, class, gender,
- sexuality, ability, etc informs your perspective
- Think critically about your biases and social positionality.
- Be okay with feeling uncomfortable when learning new things. Discomfort is a part of growth.
- Avoid making assumptions about people or groups of people.
- Strive for intellectual humility.
- Differentiate between opinion--which everyone has--and informed knowledge, which
- comes from sustained experience, study, and practice. Hold your opinions lightly and
- with humility.
- Identify where your learning edge is and push it. For example, whenever you think, I
- already know this, ask yourself, how can I take this deeper? Or, how am I applying in practice what I already know?
- Share responsibility for including all voices in the conversation. If you tend to have a lot to say, make sure you leave sufficient space to hear from others. If you tend to stay quiet in group discussions, challenge yourself to contribute so others can learn from you.
- Be open to changing your perspectives based on what you learn from others. Try to explore new ideas and possibilities. Think critically about the factors that have shaped your perspectives. Seriously consider points-of-view that differ from your current thinking.
- Understand that we are bound to make mistakes in this space, as anyone does when approaching complex tasks or learning new skills. Strive to see your mistakes and others’ as valuable elements of the learning process.
- Understand that your words have effects on others. Speak with care. If you learn that something you’ve said was experienced as disrespectful or marginalizing, listen carefully and try to understand that perspective. Learn how you can do better in the future.
- Take pair work or small group work seriously. Remember that your peers’ learning is partly dependent upon your engagement.
- Understand that others will come to these discussions with different experiences from yours. Be careful about assumptions and generalizations you make based only on your own experience. Be open to hearing and learning from other perspectives.
- Make an effort to get to know other students.
- Understand that there are different approaches to solving problems. If you are uncertain about someone else’s approach, ask a question to explore areas of uncertainty. Listen respectfully to how and why the approach could work.