EduCon 2027Pause Before You Respond: Digital Discernment and Dialogue Across Difference
Students meet polarizing issues through fast, algorithm-driven feeds, and they bring those issues into classrooms every day. Teachers are expected to facilitate these conversations with little support.
The Or Initiative at Chapman University partners with teachers and students to study and support these conversations. Our framework centers four competencies: digital discernment, civil discourse, civic and social identity navigation, and intellectual humility. Digital discernment comes first, because students can't discuss an issue productively until they understand how the content reached them and what it is designed to do.
This conversation starts with experience, not explanation. Participants will watch a real social media video together and use toolbox protocols as themselves, not role-playing students. We'll then compare how different tools shaped the discussion and connect those observations to the four competencies.
From there, the conversation turns to questions we are still working on with teachers, including:
How do you choose content that feels relevant to students without derailing the curriculum? When does a topic feel too risky to discuss, and with which students? What does intellectual humility look like in a teenager, and how do we recognize it? How can these tools fit into content-heavy courses like literature-based English classes?
We'll share what we've heard from teachers and students piloting the toolbox, including student journalists at Yorba Linda High School, but participants' experiences will drive the second half. Everyone leaves with access to the tools and ideas from colleagues facing the same challenges.
Conversational Practice
he session is built around participation, with very little time spent presenting.
Experience first: Participants watch a short social media video together, then break into small groups. Each group uses a different toolbox protocol to discuss it on chart paper, engaging as themselves. Compare and connect: Groups share how their protocol changed the conversation. We build the framework from their observations rather than presenting it up front. Open questions: Pairs, then the full room, take on the questions above. We capture ideas on a shared document participants keep after the session. Analog exit: Index cards capture one idea to try, one remaining question, and one colleague to share it with. We use the questions to shape our ongoing work with teachers.
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