Public deliberation as a teaching andragogy: Implications for adult student learning from a doctoral higher education policy course

Abstract

Public deliberation provides an inclusive and robust mechanism for making shared decisions in community and political settings; however, its application to teaching and learning remains underutilized (McMillan & Harriger, 2007). This manuscript reports on a case study of the use of public deliberation as a teaching andragogy in a doctoral-level course in higher education policy, which showed that public deliberation creates greater ownership of the course, fosters critical thinking and student agency, and implicates taking action. 96 clear answers or technical solutions; rather, they require thinking about issues in complex ways and broad-based action.Once an issue is named, three or four options to address the problem are created, in the framing section. Each option is distinct from the others and represents a set of related possible actions to address the issue. Additionally, each approach contains a set of related tradeoffs that might accompany action items. During the subsequent issue forum to deliberate the topic using the issue book, trained moderators, who act as neutral parties, guide participants through the issue guide by asking questions and encouraging participants to think critically about the issue and possible approaches suggested. Moderators help pace the deliberations so that each approach receives equal consideration. Moderators also facilitate group follow-up and potential future meetings.The lead author of this paper, a higher education instructor in a graduate program, was familiar with public deliberation in community settings, but less familiar with its applications to the classroom. In preparing to teach a doctoral-level higher education policy course, two dynamics were important in considering the course's design. First, he wanted students to have a sense of ownership and responsibility over the myriad, complex issues inherent to higher education policy. He sought to avoid focusing only on the role of state and federal policymakers and intellectualized learning about higher education policy. Second, he wanted to engage the affective domains embedded in higher education policy alongside the cognitive domains that tend to dominate policy discourse. Higher education is a deeply held value in American society, and people often have strong emotions toward issues of access, cost, choice, aid, and accountability. For these reasons, he decided to use public deliberation as an andragogy (i.e., teaching strategies for adult learners) in the course. A more thorough description of the course and study are presented in the methods section.

Practical Wisdom Reasoning through Deliberative Pedagogy

“…The guide introduced three approaches that everyday people might take in their communities to address these challenges of democracy by focusing on more immediate areas in their lives, such as family and jobs, electing the best leaders, or working with others. The guide followed the same structure as the National Issues Forums approach, which is commonly used in deliberative pedagogy (e.g., Johnson et al, 2014). The deliberation included five rounds: (1) an opening personal stake question, (2-4) a round of deliberation for each approach, and (5) a wrap-up, where participants developed a list of actions.…”