Uncontroversial International Teacher Event 2024
Tuesday, 5th of November – Teacher Event Uncontroversial – Day 1
Here you can find
the toolbox (Didactical methods/strategies – Topics)
& PowerPoints/materials for the teacher event
9.30 – 9.45 | Opening of the event – day 1
- Welcome
- Program
- Practicalities
9.45 – 10.30 | Keynote ‘Controversial topics’
• What are controversial topics and teacher positions?
• How can teachers design their lessons?
In this keynote Uncontroversial staff from KdG and EUR will present insights into theories on controversial issues and how to deal with them and also discuss the findings of the interviews that have been conducted in the project.
10.30 – 10.45 Coffee/tea break
Icebreaker – Get to know each other
10.45 – 12.15 | Round 1 – Workshops didactical methods ‘Addressing controversial topics in the classroom’
1. Debate
In this workshop, we will zoom into the didactical form of debate, through the method of Parallel histories. Parallel Histories offers a way to study history that is controversial. This teaching method lets students examine source material, discuss alternative interpretations and form their own opinions, with the opportunity to debate them with their peers. Debate will be approached in such a way it is relevant for all social science subjects. This workshop will be provided By Stefanie Van Brussel. Stefanie is a history and geography teacher at GO! K. Atheneum Antwerp and is associated with
the team of Parallel Histories.
2. Dialogue
In this workshop we provide hands-on philosophical dialogue exercises that can help you discuss controversial topics. We focus on how you can aim for multiperspectivity and critical questioning in your class to respectfully explore other opinions. In addition, this workshop will introduce a set of dialogue cards to discuss the schools’ approach on controversial issues amongst colleagues. This workshop will be provided by Ama Amitai, who works at both at Karel de
Grote and Odisee university of applied sciences. She is also a member of the Uncontroversial team. Her work for this workshop is situated at the research centre ExploRatio (Odisee), which is focused on critical thinking and philosophical dialogue. The workshop will be showing the method and set of dialogue cards ExploRatio developed.
3. Play – exploring Forum Theatre: games and play exercises
In this workshop we will focus on the didactical method of role play. The specific type of role play we will explore is Forum Theatre, which was developed in the 1960s by Augusto Boal, using role play and theater as tools for social and personal change, inspired by the awareness processes of Paulo Freire's pedagogy. It focuses on giving a voice to oppressed groups but it does not want to convince its audience of a certain proposition. Instead, possible solutions are sought together with the audience. This workshop will focus on the use of games and play exercises in general as well as the path to create a Forum Theatre play with a group. This workshop is hosted by Axcent, a pluralistic organization that works on creating dialogue and exchange between people with different religions and worldviews. Together with partners from Italy and Spain they have just finished the project “To Believe or Not To Believe”, an Erasmus+ project on the use of forum theater for interconvictional dialogue with young people.
12.15 – 13.15 Lunch
13.15 – 13.45 | How can we stimulate in-depth discussions with students?
During this session, we reflect on how we can enrich dialogue, debate and role play with document-based methods and knowledge about controversial topics.
13.45 – 15.15 | Round 2 – Workshops didactical methods ‘Addressing controversial topics in the classroom’
1. Debate
2. Dialogue
3. Play – exploring Forum Theatre: games and play exercises
15.15-15.30 Coffee/ tea break
Information market with didactical material
15.30 – 16.30 | Roundtables with moderators– specific exchange and tips on topics
Israel – Palestine
Gender – LGBTQ+IA
Mental health
Racism
Electoral politics
Within these roundtables, teachers will discuss (good) practices considering specific controversial topics. We have conducted 55 interviews with teachers from all countries and we will use input of the interview data for this, material
of other schools and organizations and theoretical perspectives. Each roundtable will be led by a moderator. Teachers are able to present something about their school or lesson practice during this roundtable.
Wednesday, 6th of November – Teacher Event Uncontroversial – Day 2
9.00 – 9.15 | Opening of the event – day 2
- Welcome back
- Check-in
9.15 – 10.30 | Workshop: From safe to brave space
In this workshop, we focus on exchanging practices in which we provide a safe class climate to have difficult conversations about controversial topics. We tackle questions such as: what conditions should be met? How do you manage classroom rules and what is a good time to address these topics?
10.30 – 10.45 | Coffee/tea break
10.45 – 11.30 | Virtual Reality in Uncontroversial
During this session, we will introduce why we develop Virtual Reality scenarios and how it could be used in the classroom to address controversial issues. We will show an example and the different scenarios to provide feedback, which will be discussed in groups.
11.30 – 12.15 | Bias Awareness Meter (BAM) – Positionality
We all have different biases. Addressing our biases as teachers is important, especially when it comes to controversial issues. We will show a Bias Awareness Meter that we are developing in order to reflect on positionality as teachers and how to deal with this in our schools.
12.15 – 13.15 | Lunch
13.15 – 13.45 | Lesson Study
We show a brief theoretical background of the Lesson Study research method and explain the expectations to try out Lesson Study in the following months of the Uncontroversial project.
13.45 – 15.15 | Collaboration time to plan lessons about controversial topics
During this time, teachers pair up to discuss what they want to try out in their lesson practice, how they will organize it and how they will collaborate. All teachers will be working together in pairs to teach about a controversial issue in the next year.
15.15 – 15.30 | Plenary closing & evaluation of the teacher event