From Trolls to Tact: The Art of Civil Discourse in Online Discussions

I'm a weeble I wobble but I don't fall down. That is the secret to civil discourse. Be a weeble.

Today on the pedagogy Toolkit Amalie and Camie will be talking about how to introduce civil discourse to your online discussions.

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So, Amalie, have you ever been singing a song that you really know well, and you are singing with all your heart and then your friend says, what did you just say? And then you and your friend argue about who is right and who is wrong until you both finally give in and Google it. And you find out that you've been singing the wrong lyrics for years.

I mean, like all your life probably.

Oh yeah, I have to tell you the one that I'm the most embarrassed of. Do you know that Simon and Garfunkel song? Mrs Robinson? And he says, heaven holds a place for those who pray. I always thought that was heaven holds a place for old toupees and I envisioned. I was a little kid but my parents listened to it all the time. And so I would be singing along in the car.

You know, heaven holds a place for all toupees. I, I pictured every cloud had its own toupee on the cloud and Jesus was just there holding court over old toupees. You know, my sister was, she used to think, excuse me, while I kiss this guy. That was a really common one, but that was one of hers. But, I've yet to find another old Toupee person.

So I've, I've never heard the old Toupee and I love it and now that's what I'm gonna hear every time heaven holds a place for old Toupees. It's good

There's also a Bob Marley song. could you be Loved? And the, the, background singers sing. Could you be Loved? And I thought they said, gootch ya. Good night. I don't even know what that means. But I sang it, man. I sang it hard in the car and my dad with a just, I did, did absolutely what you just said, looked at me and goes what he like turned the radio off and went what? And I was like, yeah, dad gootch ya. Good night. He said no. Like what's a, it was a situation.

Hard pass on that lyric. Oh, that, that is really great. I love it. and we all have those stories, you know, where we've, it doesn't matter if it's a, a phrase or a song that we sing and it's the wrong lyrics or the wrong phrasing. because we all have different perceptions on what we hear or experience and what makes sense to us, you know, as Children or, or, or in, you know, in our reality here, maybe different than some of others.

And so it turns out we all have these inherent beliefs about all kinds of things and they are supported by that perception by our reality of the world. And we bring these beliefs to everything we approach in life, including school, especially school. And, and I think sometimes that's because learning can be a really vulnerable moment for a lot of people. It's hard to be in a position where you're kind of admitting the weakness of not knowing something or not

being as skilled and adept at something. And so when we get into class discussions, especially over controversial or sensitive topics, you know, ones that we may be really passionate about students can sometimes feel like their beliefs and even their identity are being attacked.

I see that a lot I feel like in, I mean, you see it with, with young kids and you see it with young people in general. But I think seeing it at the college level and seeing it in academia is really common because by the time we're in college, we're starting to study the things that really matter to us and that becomes our identity in a lot of ways. I'm not just someone who studies this particular era, that's, that's who I am. I am the person that does that.

Yeah, I'm, I'm the expert in this.

This is what I spend my time doing and so much of my time doing that, it becomes such a big part of who I am that it becomes your identity. And while we know that academia is built to challenge assumptions and search for truth, you know, that's the basic premise behind academia,

which that's kind of the irony of it is we get so embedded in that when we start out thinking, I love this so much and I, I'm all in and then when somebody puts a little pinprick to your bubble, it just completely bursts like you're, you're left kind of holding the bag.

And I will say, especially professors sometimes really see that the purpose of their course and academia in general is kind of challenging those beliefs that you start building up, especially if they hold a different belief than you do. And so, it can be in essence, a very disrupting experience to learn and honestly kind of should be a little bit of a

disrupting experience to learn. but disruption in that kind of way when it's challenging your beliefs and maybe what you view as your identity, it can be really uncomfortable.

This is where well, we talked last week about questions and I think this is where learning how to model questions and being curious, you can't do this without pairing curiosity with civil discourse.

You really can't this, you know, the whole questioning strategy and especially at the, if you're teaching undergrads, because graduate students are going to be a little more fine with, you know, arguing against you a little bit in class, they'll be a little more fine with having those conversations, but undergrads, especially in an online discussion.

Once the instructor, you know, comments in the discussion, that's it. That's the final answer. And sometimes they can be a little reluctant maybe to go against what the instructor has said. I mean, sometimes they're not,

but they are coming out of at least 12 years of a system where you don't, you don't question your teachers generally. Even, even the teachers, you do question they are the authority on that subject.

Yeah. And so incorporating those questioning strategies that we talked about last time on the pedagogy toolkit can be really important for students so that you can, they can see that you aren't giving a definitive answer. You're really drawing them more into the discussion. So setting expectations that that's what will happen in the discussion, first of all, and then second of all really using those questioning strategies.

Now, I do want to take a note here just for a minute to talk about that disruption piece and because education is disrupting people's inherent beliefs and we also need to be supporting students because, you know, we've all heard about the mental health crisis that's been going on.

It's really important that we also are building these relationships with students that, you know, also encourage them and support them and give them mental health resources along the way so that they actually can grapple with some of these changes in their lives building that, that safe space within your, your classroom.

And I mean, I use the term safe space very carefully because I know that there's a lot of controversy around calling it a safe space because we are, we are ultimately talking about ideas. But for a lot of students, they're coming to the university is the biggest environment they've ever been in in online. This is, you know, this is the widest variety of people that they've, that they have ever been around and so by and like you said, it's vulnerable, coming into a classroom and

especially coming into a class where you don't know everything you are, it is it's vulnerable. And so building that, that place where students feel comfortable being wrong, building a culture where or being different or being so like, not even wrong, it, it's, it's sort of understanding difference, right?

And especially again for the traditional undergrad ages that 18 to 22 year old, they're still very much in a social development phase where peer acceptance is really important and so it can be really difficult for them to go against what other people in class are saying, what peers, you know, because we do have on campus students in our online classes sometimes, what those peers that they're going to see in other places may say.

And so you want to make sure that you're giving, you're creating that safe space that students need and by safe, we just mean a place where students are respected for what they are saying and contributing to the class.

I like thinking of it as a place where taking risks is valued that it's, it's more than just feeling comfortable because often when you feel comfortable, you don't take risk, you can kind of sit back and just let it all happen. But, but in a space where you are encouraged to take those risks and it not be the end of the world if it doesn't pan out, right.

So safe is really just making those risk, low stakes. Yes, it's low stake risk. And you, you want to build those into your course as much as possible because that is how people grow little bit at a time. Yes. One little tiny risk at a time, you're able to, you know, stretch out, really make yourself slightly uncomfortable to learn the knowledge, whether that's carving out the time to do it because we know that, the students in our online programs, a lot of times are very busy with jobs

and families and, you know, just life. and, and so whether it's carving out the time to do that and prioritizing that because that can be really uncomfortable or admitting that you're really just not getting it and going to those office hours.

Yeah, that is another, that's a huge part. having that, that place where it's, it is encouraged and accepted to say I'm, I'm not sure and I need help here. So do we want to dive right into students to, to things that are really heated or things that they're really passionate? Because students have, I know students have opinions, they have got opinions. And I remember teaching argumentative writing and the students always wanted to pick the most controversial hot topic that they

had big thoughts about. And I often discouraged that unless I had a class that was ready to, to grapple with that, but generally, I mean, how do we begin getting them to that point because they can get there but it's going to take some work.

They are. And I, and I will say so, you know, our, our biggest area where we see civil discourse as a need in online courses, especially asynchronous online courses is gonna be the discussion board. And so let's walk through how we get to those big tough topics. and, and talk about kind of the, you know, in terms of the discussion board. So on a discussion board or some people use voice thread.

that's another way that people do that. You're gonna have online discussions and you don't want your first discussion to just pop out there with the most controversial topic you can think of, right? You don't wanna mention the, you know, upcoming United States presidential campaigns, right? We're not trying to get people riled up. That's not the purpose of this. The purpose is going to be exploration.

And so you start with something that's really low stakes, something like are hot dogs classified as sandwiches. I love that one. That's one of my favorite ones. Also. Tacos is another one. and it gets people so fired up because I don't know why people are very passionate about this, but they are very passionate about how hot dogs and tacos are classified.

They are and, and are they dogs or cat people and dog and cat people? I mean, the dog people are usually like, we're solidly dog people and the cat people were just like, we love animals.

So I don't know, I've seen some, some, I've seen them get very, very fired up about it, but not personal, right?

They get very fired up but not personal,

it's not personal and also it doesn't matter, right?Ultimately,

none of those questions are going to be like whether a taco is classified as a sandwich or not, is not altering your belief about your identity. So it's not something that's threatening you, but it's a way to model one. It's a way to introduce students to one another in a way that's not.

What is your name? What is your major? Where are you from? You know, because we get tired of those questions. But also it's a way to, to start modeling the, the way to argue which, which sounds really crazy. Like why do you need to know how to, why is argument a skill?

But with a topic that is, that can be either both sides are correct, right? Or both sides are wrong. There's, you know, nobody is there. This is again, these are those open questions. This isn't the closed question, things that have specific answers, you know, the the boiling point of water is 212 °F. It is 100 °C period done, right?

But if you enter the discussion and say, you know what, I'm actually a horse person, that's still a fine answer to that discussion, right? It's an open question.

But establishing what the difference is between facts and opinions. Yes, it is an important one.

And so following up a discussion like an intro discussion like that, an icebreaker discussion with, hey, notice this, this and this about this discussion. maybe even have a little quiz about, you know, again, low or no stakes quiz about some of the things that happened there, you can get feedback from students that way. There, there are all kinds of things that you can do to really set students up for success in discussions and get to those harder topics.

But you do have to build up to them because students have to get used to the procedure in your class that this is the norm. This is the culture we come into. This is how we treat each other even in an asynchronous online class for adults. That's gonna be true no matter what you're doing because it's a new space and you as the instructor set the tone. So you and I have talked in the past kind of about this time period and how at this time, especially online when you are disagreeing with

someone. It is not just I disagree with you. It's a, we can never be friends. I'm unfriending you. I can't believe you've said this thing that is your opinion and I no longer want to know you because you're not a person worth being known, right? It's a rejection. It's a complete rejection of who you are as a person because of a disagreement.

And I think so much of that comes down to we have a lot of options for who and what and the ideas we surround ourselves with because of the online space that especially when you have students that are, that are basically living within that online space, no matter what your interest, opinion, belief, anything, your identity, anything. I, if that is who you are, there is a discord for that. Yes, there is a, a Tumblr for that. I Tumblr still happens. I have seen it.

It still comes up when I Google search sometimes. But I, I can't remember the last time I actually looked at Tumblr

I had students who were hardcore in their Tumblr just a couple of years ago.

But that's, there is a, there is a special group for your specific point of view. And so you, you never have to be in that uncomfortable place.

Well, it's almost like you have a lot of opportunity to interact but less opportunity to connect. Yes. And that's something especially again in the online space that students and well, people in general struggle with is building connections in an online space, especially when there is a short and limited time that you're going to be together in, in that space because you know, at the university level, you've got semesters, you don't have year long courses where you're,

you're with one another. And so building relationships in the online environment through these online discussions through some optional synchronous meetings, whether those are your office hours or a tutoring session That's actually really important

having video responses.

So things having audio responses, having ways to humanize the person because it is so easy to just see those as words on a page. So I've been reading this book called think again from Adam Grant. And he talks about there being three different responses to argument or to engagement in, in discussions that are more complex. And so he talks about there being the prosecutor, the preacher, and the politician.

And that, that is the response that, that people will take sort of, that's sometimes all three sometimes combinations of the three. And that his sort of his thesis is that you should take the scientist, the scientist approach.

The preacher tries to proselytize you. The lawyer is trying to,

prosecutor is trying to like prosecute pin you down is trying to pin you down

and the politician will listen to you only as long as you believe what he's saying or they are saying

and we see it all the time,

but the scientist is approaching with logic and discovery and discovery and we are going to put a caveat here.

We are not against preachers, prosecutors or politicians. We love all of the professions equally here.

This is just the archetype archetype of how people respond to having their beliefs, questioned or their opinions questioned.

And people, you know, like these archetypes are not something that maybe you inherently have. Generally, these are things that have been built within you and that you can actually gain a skill set to do. So that scientist archetype, maybe that isn't your and I'll, I'll say natural inclination. But, but, but skeptically because I think that our natural inclination is often built by our environments.

But the scientist, that logical approach to this person isn't attacking me, let me think through what they said and how do I grow from what they learned to maybe question them in return? Like that is a skill set that students can be taught that we all can learn.

It is upsetting your default setting is I really like that phrase of it. That's David Foster Wallace talks about your default setting that that we all have this default setting that we revert back to because we're the only one who has experienced our own lives. And so we only can see things truly through our own lens that we have to take an actual effort to step outside of that, that, that learning is not college isn't so much about teaching you how to think it's teaching you how to

turn off your default setting and, and break out of that, it teaches you to open yourself to new experiences so that you can learn from it. And that that is, I think that's a huge part at the sort of at the root of being able to have those civil discussions is teaching our students how to take a step out of their default settings and think, I mean, it's things as simple as one of the analogies he uses of somebody cutting you off in traffic.

it's easy to get mad at them because how dare they cut you off in traffic. But maybe they are in a hurry to get somewhere because someone is sick and dying or, because, you know, there's, somebody's about to have a baby. Something, something has happened. We don't know. It's probably not the case but it might be. And that's the point.

Yeah. I mean, Brene Brown touches on this in a lot of her books and it's just that, you know, that, that belief that people are doing the best that they can in their circumstance. And, and that's kind of what we want to build in here is we want to approach discussions with that assumption of good intention. And one way to do that is definitely to incorporate the skill of civil discourse because that's not just a noun, it is a verb. and civil discourse, people think of this as just a

respectful discussion, but it actually goes a lot further than that. It's not just about engaging in a, in a respectful discussion with one another, but it also is about aiming your conversation, understanding and constructive communication rather than finding the right or the truth or the, this is my way kind of thinking it's, it's about opening yourself up to exploration

sort of a team approach to moving the conversation forward.

Right.

Right. And as we've discussed that is what academia is all about is moving the conversation forward. That's, that's a foundational purpose if you will, is to move the conversation forward on these various academic topics. And so giving students expectations right up front, which we've talked about before setting the tone so that they know not only what to expect from you in discussions, but also how they should respond and interact with one another in discussions. Let them know what's appropriate, let them know what's not

be explicit and model that there is definitely there's some research as well that I was reading about recently where they sort of prime people to either look for similarities or prime them to look for differences and that people can come out of things coming into it with completely opposite opinions, but they can find a middle ground because they've been primed to look for the middle, the middle ground.

Yeah. And, and I will say here's kind of the other thing with that is we do want to find a middle ground so that we can connect, but we also want to celebrate each other's differences and celebrate the fact that we can be different but still be connected and still have a relationship.

And that's kind of going back to what you were, we were talking about the, this sort of this, this generation feel like an old person.

Well, not, yeah, but the time period that we're in right now.

But because I mean, I thought about it with my, with my own kid.

that when I was growing up, I was part of a, a group that was really, it was sort of every misfit in town. So we had, there were a lot of us who had nothing in common except that we had nothing in common with anyone else. And that was, that was the one thing we had in common. So, our group of friends had, you know, hardcore libertarians and liberals and conservative republicans and vegans and hunters. And, I mean, it was, it was every, every shade of people. And I still, I think about the

conversations we had where we completely were completely different about things and how close that made a lot of us as well though because we knew we were different. But we, but it was like we were different together from everybody else. And II, I hate that because I see my, my own kid and I see my students, where they can just hop online and talk to only the same people that believe exactly the same thing and get in that echo chamber and, and there's so much richness that you lose. I mean, not to sound cheesy, but

I think it's ok to sound cheesy when it's true because you do lose a lot of richness and being able to embrace and, and really think on a new idea for you that doesn't mean that you have to accept it, you might want to, you know, it might be something that you end up loving and, and really getting behind.

But also it doesn't mean that, that you have to just because someone has put an idea out there, that doesn't mean that you suddenly have to say, oh, I've got to start living my life differently. I'm a completely different person

and maybe you will incorporate it into the things that you understand about the world.

Not, it doesn't have to replace the things you understand. It doesn't necessarily have to, cut down the things that you believe.

It just, sometimes you can find ways that, that it is incorporated and strengthens what you believe or it, it supports it.

it makes you understand people who have that belief a little bit more because it can, it doesn't just change maybe your idea of yourself. Sometimes it can change the way that you view other people in a really positive way. Sometimes it's not positive but I think when it's not positive, you probably just haven't looked closely enough yet.

I like that because I think that's true

Well, you know, when I was growing up, I did grow up in a small town.

So this was very different, I think for people who grew up in, in larger cities maybe. But, you know, you may have had a conspiracy theorist in your town or multiple, but you knew who they were and you'd be like, oh, that's just Tom, you know,

you just rolled your eyes and yes.

And you were just like, oh, Tom, thanks for telling me that. See you later.

You know, Yeah, we have these people, in our, in our lives. But it was just like, oh, that's just them. And we still accepted them as part of like the community. But it wasn't like we all bought into their conspiracy theory and we had to do that to be their friend. You know, like we, we let each other do the things that we do. And the small towns aren't always the greatest example of this because we do know the, the, you know, stereotypical characteristics that everyone talks

about, like with the gossip and things going around, you know, but, but there is the other side of that and that is just very much that in a community you do respect one another and you help each other to survive. And I think in an online environment that kind of survival, enjoying life thing is kind of overlooked because you're so into whatever you're doing,

you're getting your dopamine fixed, right? That you're assuming everyone is fine. Number one or number two, you're not thinking of them as a person that needs support.

I was just gonna say there's a need factor there because I don't, I think when you're in that, that sort of your small town analogy. That's, there's a survival piece to that. You, you have to get along with people. There's not, there's not a lot of choice in that respect. You're, these are your people that you're stuck with. Yes.

And, and that was, .

but you're not stuck with them. It's your echo chamber, right.

But, but now you're not stuck right now. You don't have to.

There is no, you don't, you don't have to put up with Tom's crazy because here's the thing, I'm going to see Tom every morning when I go get my coffee, whatever.

And he's going to talk to me about it and I better just get along with Tom because because you're going to see him all the time, I see him all the time also.

But also, You want to because you're looking Tom in the face. And because you realize that, you know, you know, Tom's cousin, right? When you're in the small town and you don't have that in the online environment, you know, we briefly mentioned earlier the mental health crisis that is going on. And this is true K 12 and university. And I mean, at university, I'm not just talking about undergrads.

I also mean, the graduates and the faculty like this is across the board, we're having a mental health crisis and while COVID may have exacerbated it, it did not start it. And so that's something to kind of keep in mind the online environment can be super isolating if we allow it to be. And so having that check in moment checking in on your students, having your students build that peer to peer connection in those online discussions.

And again, when you build in the civil discourse with that respect for one another that's supporting that peer to peer connection, then you're able to have those check in moments a little bit easier. And we don't think of our classrooms as you know. Well, that's not the place for that. We're just giving our academics here.

We're just trying to get to the semester. But every touch with your students is that opportunity. And if mental health is a barrier to their education, then yeah, we need to do everything we can. I mean, within our power, our power is to build the connections and give the resources. Right.

Yeah. And if those, if understanding where your students are and where they're coming from is gonna help you teach them something better, then then absolutely, then that connection, if the connection is going to help them learn, then it is part of your job.

But it is because part of our jobs as instructors is reducing the barriers, it's not necessarily part of our job so much as part of our role, which this sounds a little pedantic. But, but it is because of our job, we're put in this role in student engagement. We talk about the course community. That's one level of support for students that is necessary, not just maybe they have optionally, but it's necessary for them to succeed.

Simon Sinek talks about courage being an external thing. We think of courage as being this internal force, you know, that, that we, we have deep inside us. but he talks about courage, being ex dependent on external factors that you can be courageous when you have a safety net. And that building, that class community is building that safety net for your students to take those risks in

conversation, to take those risks in their academic pursuits, you know, to be vulnerable in those ways because they know that there's a, there's a net when they're on the high wire.

Yeah. And, and that brings us back to our low stakes risk.

I'm a weeble, I wobble but I don't fall down.

And now I will have that song in my head.

Be a weeble, be a weeble. That is how that is the secret to civil discourse, be a weeble

and all of these things that we've been talking about here.

We really want to focus on the fact that this is what builds civil discourse in your class. It's how students can grapple with, you know, topics that may be sensitive to them or controversial in nature. All of the practices that Amalie and I have been talking about and the ways that you can support or explore these areas in your life. These are things that you can do with your students to build into not only their civil discourse.

but also these are skills that go beyond your class. These are skills that build into the program of your department and that they take with them into the workforce. So if you want to build civil discourse into your classroom, start with setting those expectations, make sure you're modeling them, check out the questioning strategies that lie and I talk about in the past episode and don't forget to humanize as much as possible for your students engage with them on a personal

level. So they know that you recognize their, their humanity, you know that it's OK for them to have weak spots that you are only going to work to build those weak spots up and not judge them and that you're building that kind of culture in your entire course for one another so that we can celebrate differences and find our common ground. Thank you for joining us this week on the pedagogy toolkit. Don't forget to subscribe.