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Devon Wilson is a Research Assistant at Project Zero, where he works on the Out of Eden Learn project and the ID Global project. This blog post reflects work that Devon undertook in collaboration with Carrie James.

Author’s note: In this piece, I describe insights from a series of interviews with educators who creatively utilize the Dialogue Toolkit to support thoughtful dialogue amongst students. I identify six powerful teacher moves and provide more details about how these moves are enacted in these teachers’ classrooms and contexts. For a distilled version of the six powerful teacher moves, click here.

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It can be easy for students to like something on social media or digital learning platforms, but how can we encourage students to expand their repertoire of skills for online commenting and exchange?

The Dialogue Toolkit (DTK) was designed to promote thoughtful commenting and meaningful discussions in online learning communities (including Out of Eden Learn (OOEL), the digital exchange program for which the DTK was originally designed). By highlighting specific moves that students can use in their comments, the DTK aims to slow down the process of responding and exchanging ideas with online peers. It also helps direct students’ thinking, and ideas for comments, in different directions in order to support a higher quality of exchange and mutual understanding between students.

Even with the Dialogue Toolkit as a resource, without teacher support, many students may still rely primarily on “liking” an online post or providing quick comments that do not move the conversation forward. The following strategies for enhancing student dialogue, using and extending the Dialogue Toolkit, emerged from a series of interviews with educators. In these teacher’s classrooms, we observed students using the Dialogue Toolkit effectively and seeing the value of using the Toolkit’s moves to support thoughtful dialogue. Specifically, in these teacher’s classrooms, we observed one or more of the following moves:

1. Model and Practice Different Dialogue Toolkit Moves 
2. Reinforce Physical & Electronic Presence of the Toolkit
3. Coach and Provide Feedback on an Individual Basis
4. Connect to In-Person Communication Strategies
5. Use DTK Moves in Delivering Feedback on Student Work
6. Discuss the Purpose and Value of Thoughtful Dialogue in Digital Exchange and Beyond

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1. Model and Practice Different Dialogue Toolkit Moves 

In Angelia Crouch’s Middle School World History class at St Joseph Catholic School, an emphasis on dialogue moves starts right away, in the initial footsteps (learning experiences) of their OOEL learning journey. After giving students an opportunity to look closely at the Dialogue Toolkit, she guides them in looking together at images and text from a few sample posts, asking them to consider some of the ways they could respond.

Sample Photographs from OOEL students Neighborhood Walk Posts

As she guides students in looking closely at a single post, she asks questions such as:
“What is one thing that we can notice about these pictures that stands out to you?”
“Can you tell from this picture what this student really wanted us to know? Based on how they’re taking the picture?”
“What questions does this raise for you?”

In addition to looking and thinking about a few posts together, students have the opportunity to look back at the Dialogue Toolkit and consider the different moves and ways to engage with other students’ posts. Later on, in the course of digital exchange, we see Angela’s 6^th grade students continuing to comment in ways similar to the shared discussion questions described above. 

Looking closely and sharing details from other students’ posts: 
“I love your map. I like how much color you put into it and all of the trees” (Dog Lord) 
“I noticed all of the foot prints in the snow” (Kathleen) 
“I noticed, when you look out of the window, you can see amazing views. https://s0.wp.com/wp-content/mu-plugins/wpcom-smileys/twemoji/2/72x72/1f..." alt="

I’m a relatively new addition to the Out of Eden Learn (OOEL) team, although I’ve been working at Project Zero for almost a decade.  Part of my background is in museum education, so I’m particularly interested in learning experiences that incorporate objects, whether works of art on a gallery wall, natural history specimens under glass, fish in an aquarium, or commonplace items that surround us.  I’ve thus been especially curious about elements of the OOEL curriculum that invite students to explore objects around them, like the Connecting Everyday Objects to Bigger Systems footstep in the Core Learning Journey 2 curriculum.  I recently set out to see what was happening in that footstep and how students might be exploring systems using objects as inspiration.  In this post, I share a bit about my process and one set of findings, and in the next post, I’ll share a second set of findings as well as some overall questions and implications.

Exploring Student Work in a Footstep of their Learning Journey

The Connecting Everyday Objects to Bigger Systems footstep, like most OOEL activities, is framed quite broadly to allow space for students to explore their own interests. However, as the name of the Core Learning Journey: The Past and the Global suggests, its intent is to help students recognize that everyday objects can be seen as part of a web of larger, often global, connections.  The footstep (which is also available as a stand-alone activity) also engages students in all three of the overarching OOEL learning goals:  students slow down to look closely at an object, they consider the stories it might be a part of, and they make connections between the object and the wider world.  

The footstep invites students “to look closely at an everyday object and then make connections between what you notice and bigger systems that the object might be part of.”  They are prompted to engage in a sequence of activities to explore an object and related systems: they select an object, look closely and slowly at it, write questions they have about it, consider different systems that could relate to it, and draw a diagram of the different parts of one relevant system.  Students are then asked to share their diagram with peers in their walking party, with a picture of their chosen object if possible.  Many students also posted text explaining their diagram, and some only posted a written description, without any visual diagram or object image.

I looked at student discussion board posts from this footstep that were shared on the OOEL online platform from two 2019 walking parties (groups of classrooms with similarly aged students from different countries around the world).  The 2021 posts were still in progress as I began, and the 2020 work was disrupted, like so much else, by COVID-19, so I went back to 2019 posts to get a sense of what might be more typical student work for this particular footstep.  I selected two walking parties with students in diverse geographical locations that had students aged 10-14, although students of other ages also engage with this material.  There were just over 90 students who posted work for this footstep across the two walking parties.  

I started looking through students’ posts, including their written descriptions and diagram images, with some possible questions in mind:

• What kind of objects do students select?
• What systems do students connect objects to?
• Do students discuss their rationale for selecting the object, and, if so, what are the rationales?
• What kinds of questions do students ask about the object?
• What objects/systems seem to spark the most student dialogue?

While the answers to these questions may be interesting and generative, two unexpected patterns really stood out to me as I began investigating students’ work.  These patterns raised questions that I hadn’t gone into the exploration even considering: 1. What did students focus on when diagramming their object-based system? and 2. How were students representing the relationships between system elements in their diagrams? Below, I discuss my observations around the first question, and the next blog post will explore the second question.

What Did Students Focus on When Diagramming Their Object-Based System?

I noticed that the focus of students’ work in their systems diagrams generally fell into one of three categories: parts of an item, a process without human involvement, and people’s involvement in a process.

Parts: Although this was not an especially common area of focus, a few students illustrated the object itself as a system, identifying different parts of the object as the elements of the system.  Students focused on the parts of both natural objects, like this date plant:

as well as human-created objects, like this soccer ball:

Processes: More commonly, students focused on a process in their diagram.  This was most often the process of manufacturing the selected object.  Some of these diagrams illustrated the process without explicitly incorporating people who might be involved in particular elements.  Such diagrams visualized, for example, various parts in the process of transforming raw materials into a finished product, such as this diagram showing steps in the process of transforming sheep’s wool into a sweater:

Other students illustrated the steps in the distribution or sale of their chosen object, like this system of car transport to a dealer:

People: Students who created system diagrams of a process frequently incorporated human contributions to the system, unlike the examples illustrated above.  Some students just identified people as an end user or consumer of the object, like the student below:

Other students identified people involved in the creation, as well as the consumption, of an object, like the bracelet maker and buyer illustrated below:

Although it wasn’t something I went into my preliminary investigation of student work considering, it was interesting to observe students’ focus on the parts of an item, a process without human involvement, or process with people’s contributions in their object-based system diagrams.  In the next post, I’ll discuss the second set of findings from my exploration.

Note: 1. Students select anonymous usernames to represent themselves to peers on the OOEL online platform, and those usernames are provided here when attributing work to students.

This piece was co-authored by Liz Dawes Duraisingh, Sheya, and Nir Aish from the Out of Eden Learn team.

Overgeneralization. Overconfidence. Othering. These three overlapping behaviors make up the Three O’s.

• Overgeneralization: making comments about whole groups of people as if everyone’s experience or perspective were the same.
• Overconfidence: overestimating how much one knows or understands about a phenomenon or group of people, leading to a lack of curiosity or appropriate humility about the limits of one’s knowledge.
• Othering: implicitly or explicitly conveying that one does not consider people from another group to be quite one’s equal, perhaps through a dismissive or overly pitying tone.

This framework emerged from a close examination of what students were generally learning about culture(s) on the Out of Eden Learn platform, as well as what they were learning more specifically about migration from the Stories of Human Migration curriculum. Data from these studies (including student work, dialogue, surveys, and interviews) displayed for the most part highly positive learning outcomes: for example, showing great interest in and concern for one another’s stories; developing more nuanced understandings about culture(s) and/or migration; and exhibiting greater self-awareness regarding their own identities and perspectives on the world. However, we also identified some subtle and occasionally not-so-subtle behaviors that felt less aligned with the underlying philosophy and intent of Out of Eden Learn: the Three O’s of overgeneralization, overconfidence, and othering (read more about these promises and pitfalls).

When we started to talk about these opportunities and challenges, educators unsurprisingly showed interest in the Three O’s: trying to help young people understand and navigate the cultural complexities of our contemporary world can be challenging and complicated. We wondered what further resources we could develop for students and educators and whether explicitly naming the Three O’s upfront would be helpful. During a recent OOEL launch, we piloted a video that attempted to explain the Three O’s to students before they engaged on Out of Eden Learn and asked a group of educators to explicitly discuss the Three O’s with their students in class.

Over recent weeks we held informal Zoom-facilitated focus groups—some with students aged 10-13; others with students aged 13-18. The students came from a range of family backgrounds and geographic locations: Adelaide in South Australia; a village in Bihar, India as well as the city of Thane—and in the United States, small towns and big cities in: Massachusetts, Illinois, Connecticut, Wisconsin, New Hampshire, and the Hawaiian island of Hawai`i.

Did students find it useful to have the Three O’s named before interacting with peers living in different contexts to their own? What did each of the Three O’s mean to them? What connections did they make between the Three O’s and other aspects of their life? Have they Three O’d others? Have others Three O’d them? We also separately interviewed teachers to learn from their experiences and perspectives.

What we have been learning reflects the stark realities of our time and offers a good deal of hope. Students expressed a genuine desire and commitment to learn about—and talk about—the Three Os. They shared experiences and observations from their daily lives in ways that indicated multidimensional applications of the Three O’s. In upcoming blog posts we will share their insights along with practical classroom tools we are in the process of developing. We believe these tools and insights might help other students–and indeed all of us–to interpret and navigate our complex world, both on- and offline.

If you are interested in learning more about the Three O’s framework, join OOEL team members for an upcoming two-part Project Zero online virtual workshop on August 10th and 12th.

We hope to see you there!

Greetings to our Out of Eden Learn Community and other readers of this blog,

We have been thinking about our community members in different places and contexts at this extraordinary time.

As you know, the Out of Eden Learn team is physically situated in the United States, where recent and ongoing events connected to police brutality and racial injustice have reverberated around the world. We recognize the importance of speaking out in solidarity with communities of color—and in particular, the African American community within the US. We did not rush to put out a statement about our values and support for the wave of protests and what feels like a real opportunity for social and political change. As a predominantly white-presenting team situated within a predominantly white research organization, we’ve been focusing our team’s energies on listening rather than speaking, while individually participating in local Black Lives Matter protest events and other advocacy. We’ve also shifted some of the ways we use our social media and have been sharing posts from trusted organizations that more squarely address matters of social and racial justice. It now feels time to open up a more direct conversation with our community.

We believe that our collective work is as relevant as ever at this time—namely, breaking down barriers among young people and encouraging them to learn thoughtfully both with and from one another by slowing down, sharing stories, and making connections. During the past several weeks, for example, we have been conducting virtual focus groups with young people who have been working with our Three O’s framework of overgeneralization, overconfidence, and othering, which supports young people to both reflectively and critically engage with the world—online, in person, when reading the news, etc. Students’ thoughtful responses to our questions reveal that they are finding this framework to be a salient and powerful tool for interpreting and navigating the fraught and complicated world in which we all live. We invite you to scroll through some of their comments in the gallery below, and we look forward to sharing more about this work with you soon.

We have also been learning from educators about best practices for using our Dialogue Toolkit in order to promote thoughtful online and in-person interactions, including among youth who would not ordinarily encounter one another or who know little about each other’s lives. And we have been working on a video that captures what students have been learning about the interdependency of systems related to environmental and human health via our Planetary Health curriculum. We will share these new resources with you soon.

Nevertheless, while we believe all this work to be relevant and worthwhile, there are some genuine puzzles associated with doing international work focused on intercultural exchange across very different settings. Some questions on our mind include: Is OOEL paying too little attention to global inequities, including ones related to racial injustice? Is the project effectively upholding the status quo by not directly promoting activism or more critical debate? Because of the pseudonymous nature of the platform—and the extremely limited sharing of demographic information (e.g. race, gender, etc.)—are OOEL students and teachers steering clear of potentially uncomfortable and complicated, yet ultimately important conversations? As a research team, we recognize that we do not fully understand the specific learning experiences of students who experience various kinds of marginalization in their daily lives, nor have we persistently asked how we might serve them differently or better. Given the composition and geographic location of our research team, we undoubtedly have blindspots and biases in the most fundamental ways in which we develop the program and conduct our research.

As we reflect on what we need to do both in the short term and long term to improve our work, we recognize that we need our community’s help. One first step will be to send out a short survey to our educators in the coming days. The survey will ask the following four questions. We invite you to consider them now, and we warmly—and humbly—look forward to your survey responses.  Stay tuned for an email with the link to the survey.

1. Consider one or more students in your classroom who might experience some type of marginalization and/or inequities—perhaps for different reasons, such as racial-, ethnic- or gender-based marginalization or inequities due to cognitive or physical differences. How, if at all, are they already experiencing safety and inclusivity on OOEL? For example, are there specific footsteps or activities that work particularly well for these students?
2. What additional resources or strategies are you using to help support these students to participate in OOEL?
3. How could the OOEL program be more inclusive for students who experience marginalization or inequity in their daily lives? How might specific features of our program, platform, or curricula be modified to better support these students?
4. Some aspects of the OOEL curriculum encourage students to explore connections between their everyday lives and bigger systems. Are there specific ways that you think OOEL already helps students explore how systemic racism or local and/or global systems that promote different kinds of injustices such as economic, health, or environmental injustices?
5. Would you like OOEL activities to do more to help students delve deeply into how local and global social and economic systems work, and how students themselves might be connected to such systems?  If so, what would you like to see?  What ideas would you like to share with us?     

If anyone reading this blog would like to leave a comment or email us at learn@outofedenwalk.com, we would welcome your thoughts. With resolve, intentionality, and humility, we hope to take the necessary steps to move onward and upward together.

With love,

The Out of Eden Learn Team

Morgan Nixon, an international ELL educator and student in the Technology in Education program at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, is working with the Out of Eden Learn (OOEL) team as a research assistant this semester.

This piece follows up on the one I shared last week. I have taken the time to synthesize some key themes I saw coming up online this week, as educators continue to navigate—and adapt to—the new reality of distance learning.  While I’ve focused on what is happening within the United States, many of the emerging themes should be relevant to readers from around the world: this week’s ‘winding words’ are flexibility, basic needs, voice, special needs, and professional development. I hope you find my presentation useful.

Learning Landscape (4_2-4_9)

This January, nineteen students at the Harvard Graduate School of Education spent two weeks immersed in an intensive course on slow looking. The class was taught by OOEL co-director Shari Tishman. Linked in spirit to Out of Eden Learn’s theme of slowing down to observe the world closely, the purpose of the course was to help graduate students explore the connection between slow looking and deep learning.

The class activities took place in a variety of locations. One brisk January day was spent outdoors at the Arnold Arboretum, a research center and public park in the Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston, where students spent several hours observing a single tree. Another day was spent in a lab at the Harvard Art Museums where students explored the complexity of everyday mechanical objects—first by carefully taking apart a discarded object (broken hair dryer, old phone, electric fan); then by looking at artworks in the museum related to the transformation of everyday objects (Louise Nevelson, David Smith, Willie Cole); and finally by using the parts of the disassembled objects to make assemblages of their own (imagine a large-mouthed monster with the jaws of a phone receiver. The activity was inspired by Project Zero’s Agency by Design project. The website lists several routines and resources available to all educators.

Toward the end of the course, a particularly memorable afternoon unfolded in the cozy interior of Harvard’s Woodberry Poetry Room: Students began by leisurely browsing its beautifully curated collection of poetry, and then settled in to listen slowly and repeatedly to an audio recording of Native American poet Layli Long Soldier reading her poetry aloud. (The Woodberry Poetry Room has an amazing archive of poet audio recordings freely available online in the Listening Booth.)

Several students in the course were professional educators, and they found that the principles of Out of Eden Learn—slowing down, sharing stories, making connections—resonated with their teaching goals. They left the course excited to introduce slow looking into their own classrooms, and excited to introduce Out of Eden Learn to new audiences. Learn more about the connection between slow looking and deep learning at Usable Knowledge, a digital publication of the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Mike McPharlin is a 5^th grade teacher at the Francis Parker School in Chicago, Illinois, USA, and a longtime member of the Out of Eden Learn Community.

Spending the second semester doing a deep dive into Planetary Health opened my students’ eyes to the role of choice and its impact on the interdependence of environmental health and human health. As we looked closer into this topic, our gaze inevitably turned towards our home city of Chicago. With a population of almost 3 million people, 22 miles of coastline, 156 miles of waterways, and over 8,800 acres of park space, Chicago is a fascinating urban example of the successes and failures of how humans choose to interact with the environment around them. The students were excited to learn that the new mayor of Chicago, Lori Lightfoot, has committed the city of Chicago to reaching 100% renewable energy by 2025.

While this made the students proud of their city, we also looked closely at the sobering results of the recent UN report released by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) in the Spring. The report summarizes that, “The health of ecosystems on which we and all other species depend is deteriorating more rapidly than ever. We are eroding the very foundations of our economies, livelihoods, food security, health and quality of life worldwide.” (1) We also read an article about the decline of fireflies and monarch butterfly populations, specifically in Chicago.  The students were struck by statements like, “Chicago and the surrounding area has already seen “significant” declines in its insect and bat population,” said Andrew Wetzler, managing director of the Nature Program at the Natural Resources Defense Council. Monarch butterflies — the orange and black butterflies that flutter around gardens and flowers in the spring and summer — and fireflies, a staple of many Chicagoans’ childhoods, are expected to be among the local insects that will be lost. Insects like butterflies and creatures like bats are pollinators, and plants need to be pollinated to produce food.

“We’re profoundly dependent on nature. One out of every three bites of food that we take are pollinated by an insect or bat,” Wetzler said. (2) While this article pointed to an unfortunate reality here in Chicago, it also gave the students hope that there is still time to make a difference through actionable choices that are already happening throughout the city. Identifying those actions and creating a record of what is being done locally to share with the community, and our walking parties as a means to inspire action became the goal of this mapping project.

The first step was to brainstorm topics that could be the focus for our maps. Students drew from our neighborhood walk in Footstep 1 where they identified things that could have an impact on human and environmental health. This slow look into our immediate area had raised questions like, “How much green space is there? Green roofs?”, “Will habitat restoration really make a difference?”, “How many miles of bike lanes have been established?”, “Do farmer’s markets really make a difference in energy consumption and quality of food?”, “If so, who had access to farmer’s markets and who didn’t?” We considered the choices that had been made in our community of Chicago, and thought about who had the power to make those choices and who didn’t. Ultimately, we settled on the following topics to research further and the students self-selected the specific topic they wanted to explore and map.  Students studied: bike lanes and location of bike share stations, farmers markets, native plant restoration, Chicago River clean up, green roofs, and public transportation.
Students began by researching everything they could find that was happening at a local level, who was doing the work and what the issues were the Chicago community is trying to fix.  They explored innovative ideas like robots being used to clean up the river. They discovered areas of the city that contained no farmer’s markets and were introduced to the concept of food deserts. They discovered the importance of planting native species in their own gardens and the impact that can have on pollinator populations.

From there the students used information they found as KMZ files on the City of Chicago data portal and imported that into Google My Maps. They also dropped pins adding information and links to existing sites to provide  further information. Pictures and videos were added to provide media. Once completed, all of these different layers were uploaded onto one map that can be shared with our community to inform and inspire work that is currently happening.

5M Planetary Health Map – Chicago

This project came together quickly towards the end of the school year so there is a lot of room for development and improvement. Things we are considering for the next iteration of this project (including the time of year we work on it) are possibly focusing on a specific topic and diving deeper into that.  We are also considering a partnership with a local organization and giving students space to develop their interview skills to gather information. This could also include a site visit, which would give the students a chance to create their own content through 360 degree photos or video. We are also interested in exploring the structures of power when it comes to decision making for Planetary Health here in our city. There is also the possibility of exploring other platforms to convey information such as the ArcGIS platform by ESRI for mapping.

With all the challenges our world faces, students need to feel empowered that their voices can be heard and that those voices can be used to teach or inspire others. These maps were a step in that direction.

1. https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/blog/2019/05/nature-decline-unprecedented-report/

2. https://blockclubchicago.org/2019/05/09/fireflies-monarch-butterflies-could-die-off-in-chicago-due-to-climate-change/

Out of Eden Learn (OOEL) is honored to announce a gift from Qatar Foundation International (QFI).

QFI shares with OOEL a commitment to supporting students and educators in developing more nuanced understandings of culture, with a special focus on cultures in the Arab world.  We invite readers to explore QFI’s active blog through which they showcase the inspiring work they do with students and educators in primary and secondary schools, universities, and nonprofit organizations.

Their gift will support OOEL’s ongoing work to connect young people from different places in the world for meaningful exchange. It is also an opportunity to revisit our partner journalist Paul Salopek’s writings from his journey through the Arab world in the earliest stages of his Out of Eden Walk.  We are hopeful that our collaboration will encourage more students from the Arab world to take part in our learning journeys. QFI’s gift will allow us to build on our newer initiatives, including our new Planetary Health Learning Journey,  expanded dialogue toolkit, and ongoing research on culture, online dialogue, and engaging youth around the topic of migration.

We look forward to the next steps along our journey with our new partners at QFI.

[You can read QFI’s announcement about our partnership on their blog here.]

This post was co-authored by Susie Blair and Carrie James.

We recently announced the expansion of Out of Eden Learn’s online Dialogue Toolkit to include three new dialogue tools: POV, Challenge, and Name.

The impetus behind these new tools is to support students to practice dialogue strategies that can deepen their conversations and, in turn, their understandings of their own and others’ stances on meaningful issues.

In this post, we provide examples of how OOEL students have used these dialogue moves. The student work we share is drawn from a pilot we carried out with one walking party (online learning group) taking part in our Stories of Human Migration curriculum in the spring of 2018. The pilot included students and educators in five classrooms in diverse contexts in the United States and one classroom in Australia.

For each move below, we share a few different ways in which students put the move into action. We then point to insights from pre- and post-surveys with students and conversations with educators, offering specific suggestions to support students in their use of each move.

The POV (point of view) move is an opportunity for students to express their ideas and opinions to an authentic audience of young people whose backgrounds (and possibly viewpoints) may be different to their own. In our pilot walking party, we noticed students using this move to share their perspectives on a variety of themes prompted by the curriculum—including “everyday borders,” media accounts of migration, political discourse around migration, and other topics  relevant to migration and students’ related lived experiences.

One student’s Everyday Borders post raised the perspective that social media can erect boundaries in communication because of the absence of facial expression and tone. In response, student Lindashi acknowledged the original poster’s perspective and offered a similar POV:

I completely understand people often communicate with each other on social media. I think we should have more face-to-face communication. Therefore, It can improve the relationship between people. – Lindashi (Adelaide, Australia) commenting on LindaZ’s “Everyday Borders” post

In a later comment, a student from the U.S. shared an example of a different border that was more salient to his experience:

In my point of view it is a barrier to speak a different language because it’s hard to communicate with others. When I was younger going to school was hard because I didn’t understand English which was a big barrier for me. – CM18 (Oregon, United States) commenting on LindaZ’s “Everyday Borders” post

In this comment, CM18 is drawing on his personal experience as a young English Language Learner as the basis of his stated POV.  While we do not require that Out of Eden Learn students “back up” their points of view with specific details of their lives that may be influencing their perspectives (though we do explicitly invite them to do so with our new Name dialogue tool, discussed below) we are encouraged by the fact that some students feel comfortable enough on our platform to share such personal anecdotes.

Our Migration in the Media footstep activity—which involves comparing two journalistic pieces about migration—invites students to interpret and raise questions about media representations of human migration. In doing so, they often express their stances on the author’s handling of the topic itself, stating their own POV in opposition and starting a “dialogue” between themselves and the author.  

For example, one student explored how images of migrants used in news articles may reflect particular attitudes about migrants in the United States, then shared her own POV on the matter:

Every immigrant should be seen as a part of our community and no person can be illegal. I do believe the photographers had the same ideas I had when they took their images. – Angel8all, New Mexico, US

Educators reported that although sharing a POV (especially on a public issue or topic that might be sensitive) did not feel appropriate or warranted across all Stories of Human Migration activities and discussions, students did practice the move in different ways (as illustrated in the examples above). These students’  use of intentionally careful language appears to promote a positive tone in their discussions. In that spirit, the current iteration of our Dialogue Toolkit  includes suggested sentence starters for the POV tool—for example, “From my perspective…” and, “Some argue that… Others say…. In my opinion…”

The Challenge move is intended to push dialogue to go deeper as a means of raising critical questions—albeit while maintaining  a constructive, respectful tone. We encourage students to use the Challenge move not only to challenge one another’s POVs, but also to challenge narratives presented by various media sources as part of our Migration in the Media activity.

For example, in her original post, oReOs4LiFe expressed concern over the absence of refugees’ voices and perspectives:

While this fairly unbiased article gives insight into the diplomacy side of the story, and what the U.S. and Mexican governments have done to combat the issue, the voices of the migrants themselves seem to be absent from this story. There are quotes from the U.S. president, an administrator from the Agency for International Development, and also a member of an independent think tank, but none from the people that the measures taken will directly impact. Although they are a large part of the story, there have been no migrants or relatives of migrants interviewed on how this will affect them. I feel that the migrants, not just in this story but in this topic in general, are being treated like animals that have escaped their cages and are now trying to be shoved back in. –oReOs4LiFe, Maine, US

Like oReOs4LiFe, a student in Oregon shared a critical perspective on the article she examined about refugees. Taking care to own it as her “own point of view,” this student similarly pointed to concerns about missing perspectives:

What I can say from my own point of view [is that] this writer was very blunt and insensitive with the word choice. I feel the way I feel because this article is suppose to be in between, yet I see no in-depth refugee interview, and I think that there should be because this is a article about the people. – Alexis, Oregon, US

As with the previous example, this excerpt serves as an example of both the POV and Challenge moves, as Alexis offers her contrasting point of view as a means to challenge both the tone and substance of the piece she examined. Alexis is also careful to reiterate that she is speaking on only her own behalf—”What I can say from my own point of view”—reflecting that she is aware that her opinion may not be shared by all of her walking partners. This student also is explicit when providing evidence to support her opinion, using the phrase “I feel the way I feel because…”

While educators reported that their students were often hesitant to use the Challenge move in relation to other youths’ perspectives, some tried out the move when commenting on their peers’ work. Lizcheng, a learner in Adelaide, Australia, appeared to carefully “Challenge” some claims made about the usefulness of social boundaries in another student’s Everyday Borders post:

And by your last sentence, could you please give some examples of what lessons can boundary teach us? I can fully understand that you want to hide sometimes to avoid those judgements and questions, but I think sometimes [facing] those judgements straightly and [using] actions to prove your ability might be a better way; you will find the people who truly know you along the way. – lizcheng (Adelaide, Australia) commenting on oReOs4LiFe’s “Everyday Borders” post

Here, lizcheng makes a point to find some common ground with her dialogue partner, stating that she “can fully understand” their point of view on social boundaries yet ultimately disagrees, asking for supporting examples of her walking partners’ claim that boundaries can “teach us lessons” and offering her own perspective as an alternative. This use of the move reflects a sensitivity to tone and tact, a theme that surfaced prominently in student feedback collected before and after our pilot via surveys; a large portion of respondents  advised that an online commenter remain respectful, non judgmental, and kind when challenging another’s POV online.

While it is certainly heartening that students are careful to practice politeness when using the Challenge in online spaces like Out of Eden Learn, it is important that this isn’t overemphasized to the point where dialoguers feel like they can’t disagree for fear of being considered rude. To preempt this potential roadblock, we have crafted sentence starting prompts like “Although I appreciate your point of view, I see it differently. I think that…” and “Another way of looking at it is…” to equip learners with concrete language with which to respectfully—yet firmly—challenge one another’s viewpoints. Additionally, some educators provided in-class time for students to draft comments, get feedback, and revise them before posting on the platform – offering additional opportunities for reflection and feedback on tone.

The Name move asks students to explore and make connections between their POVs and their backgrounds, experiences, identities, or the places they live and/or have lived. This move was designed to prompt learners to critically (and perhaps meta-cognitively) think about where their opinions and perspectives are coming from and to unpack the various pieces of their identity that may be at play (in the realm of social science research methodology, this concept is referred to as positionality).

Some students use this move to point to important features of their family’s and/or their own experiences that shape their perspectives on—and emotions related to—particular issues.

For example, one student used the Name tool in her response to a  “two-voice” poem by another student in Oregon in which they juxtaposed quotes from President Trump with excerpts from immigrant stories

Hi jg00, I really liked your poem. It kind of hit home because my parents and most of my family are Mexican immigrants. I really liked how one of the voices in your post was the opinion or point of view of Trump and the other voice was an immigrant.  – Lisbon (New Mexico, US) commenting on  jg00’s “Migration in the Media” post

Lisbon traces her emotional response to jg00’s poem to an important aspect of her identity: being a second-generation immigrant.  A crucial component of Out of Eden Learn is that students are required to remain pseudonymous, not sharing any identifiable or traceable information (including personal names, specific locations, or photographs of themselves). Some students report that pseudonymity is a positive affordance of Out of Eden Learn—they can feel freer to be themselves with less fears of being judged or stereotyped. By requiring pseudonymity among Out of Eden Learn students, we hope that they can feel free to share any and all parts of their identities that they feel are important and would like to share with others, rather than others making assumptions about them based on their outward appearance or presentation.

In contrast to Lisbon’s example, other students used the Name move to indicate the limits of their understanding, calling out that they had not had relevant or direct experience with the topic at hand:

My own view on migration is that I think it is a very sad and sensitive topic to talk about. I personally can’t say anything about it because my family has never been forced to move out of our hometown. My thought on it is that, each and every person, should be given a second chance at their life. If that means they are going to flee their country, they shouldn’t be stopped and told they have no rights to do so. – adetemple, Utah, US

Quotes like this illustrate another exciting potential of the Name tool. Just as students can use the tool to unpack their positionality as a means to qualify their opinions, they can also use it to detect their own blind spots, think critically about subjectivity, and learn more from those with relevant lived experiences.

For other students, the Name tool functioned as way to share more idiosyncratic parts of their identities—things like personality traits, interests, and attitudes:

I am thinking of how you write about the separation of people/friend groups from the point of view of someone who never really fit into any of them. I think this separation of people is discouraging for people who are going to a new school or group. Seeing people who already have their “thing” sports, art, math etc. it can be hard trying to find where you fit in.  A question i have from this viewpoint is why is it hard for some groups of people mix with people from other groups? I think this border can also be beneficial if you have found a thing you love and want to find others that also like it. – Athens_0 (New Mexico, US) commenting on HockeyGal15’s “Everyday Borders” post

In this comment, Athens_0 expresses an opinion that is specific to her identity as a young person who “never really fit into” any social group. She goes on to ask HockeyGal15 questions that are from this particular perspective: “A question I have from this viewpoint is…” It is important for students to recognize, as Athens_0 has, that their identity, experiences, and backgrounds influence not only their understanding of an issue but the kinds of questions or wonders they have, too.

Taking a cue from Athens_0’s comment, our latest iteration of the updated Dialogue Toolkit includes a similarly structured commenting prompt to support student use of the Name tool: “I am thinking of [the topic] from the point of view of someone who… [name the particular identity/experience that is influencing your perspective on the topic].”

Educators reported that students were initially confused about the definition and purpose of the Name tool and how it differed from offering a POV. Trying out the move helped to clarify its purpose and power, however. As one educator reported, asking two students to Name the sources of their conflicting perspectives on a public issue in an in-class discussion helped each student listen to one another with more respect.

The jury is out on whether students in our expanded dialogue tools pilot feel any more confident when it comes to expressing their points of view and challenging others’, or if they better understand the ways in which their points of view are shaped by their own positionality. However, since the project’s inception, many students have shared that a major strength  of Out of Eden Learn is the diversity of perspectives they encounter. These three new tools are scaffolds to support more nuanced (and, at times, more critical) dialogue around such perspectives. As OOEL student Hockeygal15 commented on a peer’s culminating Collecting Our Thoughts on Migration post:

“…I think it is awesome how you included how important it is to connect with people from around the world because in my opinion, it was the best thing … that we could learn and hear each other’s thoughts and ideas, and whether to agree or disagree.”

As you support your students in using our new dialogue tools, we hope you’ll draw inspiration from the examples shared here. Additionally, we have developed a resource, OOEL Dialogue Tools in Action, containing further examples of these new moves—and all nine of our Dialogue Toolkit moves.