{"id":14336,"date":"2025-08-16T17:10:20","date_gmt":"2025-08-16T21:10:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/faculty-excellence\/?page_id=14336"},"modified":"2025-08-27T12:53:46","modified_gmt":"2025-08-27T16:53:46","slug":"course-planning-social-and-political-issues","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/faculty-excellence\/course-planning-social-and-political-issues\/","title":{"rendered":"Course Planning: Social and Political Issues"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">麻豆传媒在线 students value opportunities for connecting their learning to real-world issues. When pressing and often challenging societal issues emerge and instructors are inspired to design new assignments or activities, course planning principles still apply.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">As you plan to introduce an assignment or activity around a social or political issue, whether it&#8217;s planned in advance or during the semester,\u00a0 be sure to plan to:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Position yourself as neutral, open to multiple points of view<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Cultivate a supportive classroom environment<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Select content and activities that are appropriate to your academic field of expertise and are germane to the course subject matter<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0A review of the University\u2019s published course description and student learning outcomes will help you make this assessment.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Be ready to effectively deal with emotional conflicts (Pace, 2021)<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Clear and intentional course design is key to integrating societal, and especially controversial, topics in your courses effectively and without unwanted consequences. Such integration should not happen in an improvised or reactive manner, and instructors should resist the urge to share their views on ongoing issues impulsively. Strategize carefully, recognizing that students may hold a wide range of perspectives, some of which may be very different from your own and those of their peers.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Below is a list of action items that will help you build out your course\u2019s connections to real-world issues.<\/span><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Consider any societal topics and examples within the context of the course\u2019s learning objectives and their place in the disciplinary curriculum.\u00a0<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.aaup.org\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">American Association of University <\/span><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.aaup.org\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Professors<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u2019 work on <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.aaup.org\/issues-higher-education\/academic-freedom\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">academic freedom <\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">and <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">teaching<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> is useful to consult. The FAQs on academic freedom offer this guidance: \u201cFaculty members are entitled to freedom in the classroom in discussing their subject, but they should be careful not to introduce into their teaching controversial matters which are unrelated to their subject, or to persistently introduce material which has no relation to the subject.\u201d<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Choose examples and readings that represent a diversity of viewpoints.\u00a0<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><b>Model dialogic thinking<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">. If some of the materials you\u2019d like to use are likely to elicit an emotional response, carefully weigh the pros and cons of including them:<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Will these materials facilitate meaningful disciplinary conversation?\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Are they the best materials for fulfilling the course goals?\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Are there materials that could achieve the same goals but in less divisive ways?<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Provide high-quality, appropriately sourced materials from reputable sources; the last thing you want to do is model poor research skills and hasty selection of materials that can\u2019t stand up to scrutiny.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Make room in your course plan for laying a strong foundation before any difficult conversations occur. Create a timeline that allows the classroom community to settle into the term first.<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Make all course topics and materials available for viewing before the semester begins.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Send a pre-semester survey. If there are materials or topics you are unsure about, consider adding a question to probe students\u2019 comfort levels.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">If difficult topics constitute a large part of your course, consider inviting your class to co-develop and sign a community agreement.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Design assignments that facilitate dialogue and exchange:\u00a0<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Offer flexible options for earning credit. Assignments should not include mandatory participation in political activism or action, especially if the same participation opportunities may not be available to all students.\u00a0<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><b>For example: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">not all students may be eligible or wish to vote; not all students may be equally willing to join a group project focusing on creating specific forms of protest art or religious expression.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Design discussion questions and prompts that avoid viewpoint assumptions.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ensure that assignments make it clear that students\u2019 political views are not being evaluated.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Resources<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Conlon, Mark Anthony. (2023). Navigating Controversial Classroom Discussions. In<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Analytic Teaching and Philosophic Praxis<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, 43(2), 27-43.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Pace, J.L. (2021). How can educators prepare for teaching controversial issues? Cross-national lessons. In <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Social Education<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, 85(4), 228-233.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">AAUP: FAQs on Academic Freedom: <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.aaup.org\/issues-higher-education\/academic-freedom\/faqs-academic-freedom\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">https:\/\/www.aaup.org\/issues-higher-education\/academic-freedom\/faqs-academic-freedom<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>麻豆传媒在线 students value opportunities for connecting their learning to real-world issues. When pressing and often challenging societal issues emerge and instructors are inspired to design new assignments or activities, course planning principles still apply. As you plan to introduce an assignment or activity around a social or political issue, whether it&#8217;s planned in advance or [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":203,"featured_media":14337,"parent":0,"menu_order":6,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-14336","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/faculty-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/14336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/faculty-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/faculty-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/faculty-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/203"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/faculty-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14336"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/faculty-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/14336\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14371,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/faculty-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/14336\/revisions\/14371"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/faculty-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/faculty-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}