Teacher Companion Guide

Share personal stories and experiences with confidence in an honest and open manner to promote understanding.

Students are able to use 'I' statements to share about their own personal experiences and perspectives and avoid speaking on behalf of other individuals and groups.

• I share basic information about myself such as my interests, daily life, or opinions.
• I share more personal information about myself and my experiences using “I” language.
• I talk about my own beliefs and experiences giving examples and using feeling words to say how I feel.
• I share about my personal experiences in detail, explaining how they exist in my life and why they are important.
• I identify and talk about the complexities of the issues/my experiences and ensure that what I am sharing is understood clearly by others.

Students provide clear and detailed descriptions about themselves (including their identity and communities they feel they belong to), their perspectives and experiences, and how they relate to the topic.

Students are able to explain personal values, meanings, and the importance of their own experiences when engaging with individuals and groups from different cultures and backgrounds.

Challenge the perspectives of others with respectful disagreement.

Students can pose challenging questions or statements using language that is unbiased and does not denigrate themselves or others.

• I notice different points of view or opinions to my own.
• I make challenging statements or questions to participate in complex conversations.
• I show I am willing to disagree and take responsibility for my perspectives by using 'I' statements like 'I believe' or 'I think'.
• I respond to other statements or questions with a challenge that is respectful in tone, uses clear language and sentence starters like 'Thank you, have you considered…' or 'In my opinion'.
• I intentionally create opportunities to challenge what I have written (e.g. asking 'Do you agree or disagree? I'd love to learn different perspectives at the end of a post).

Students can respectfully challenge another perspective or idea when in disagreement by using supportive sentence starters such as 'In my opinion' or 'Thank you for your perspective' and 'I think' or 'I feel' statements.

Appreciate and acknowledge the perspectives of others, providing feedback in various forms (written explanation, tone, body language) to demonstrate listening.

Students can demonstrate they are listening to others by acknowledging their contributions with gestures or thanks and responding appropriately to what is being shared.

• I show that I appreciate what my peers say by liking a post or nodding when they speak.
• I say what I really like about what someone has said and give them feedback.
• I reference something specific someone has said and build on it to go deeper in the conversation.
• I explain why someone else's post is valuable for the dialogue and how it helped my understanding.
• I provide detailed feedback explaining how I value someone else's the post, specifically elements that make it a good statement or questions for dialogue, how it has inspired or impacted me.

Students are able to logically build on what is being said in order to go deeper in a dialogue and build a dialogic thread.

Students are able to provide descriptive feedback about why what they are reading/hearing is of value to them and the dialogue.

Analyse knowledge about the world, multiple perspectives, and identity, including what influences who we are, how we think and what we believe.

Students are able to analyse a topic or issue and identify diverse and multiple perspectives.

• I think about a topic or what I hear and state my opinion in response.
• I identify similarities and differences in what I hear or read about a topic and what my peers have shared about their perspective, opinion, or experience.
• I analyse a topic and what I hear or read and identify multiple and diverse perspectives in a dialogue.
• I analyse information on a topic, as well as my own and others' ideas, to understand meaning and the influences that shape the information or personal perspectives.
• I analyse and interpret the complexities of my own identity and others to better understand how I and others relate to a topic and what makes a unique individual.

Students are able to analyse what they hear or read by investigating its meanings and the influences that shape it.

Students are able to evaluate and interpret the complexity of their own and others individual identities, seeing others as unique individuals, not only as members of the groups to which they belong.

Construct and ask questions that promote deeper learning about self and others, and explore the topics of dialogue.

Students are able to construct and ask relevant questions to learn about the values, ideas, perspectives and experiences of others.

• I ask questions about people's favourite things, hobbies, or interests.
• I ask more open questions that seek clarification and information about lifestyles, communities, opinions, and beliefs.
• I ask my peers questions about their experiences and why those experiences are important to them.
• I ask response questions that cannot be answered with 'yes or no' to build a thread in the dialogue based on what my peers are saying (I don't comment once and stop there).
• I construct questions that include plain language, without assumption or judgement, that prompts the respondent to share in detail about their own experiences.

Students are able to prompt respondents to go deeper into the dialogue by constructing questions that cannot be answered with 'yes or no'.

Students are able to evaluate their own and other's questions for inherent assumptions and judgments in an effort to construct questions that promote inclusion and diverse perspectives.

Reflect on the experiences of self and others to make connections with different stories and identify opportunities for deeper learning.

Students are able to think about the experience of the dialogue and recognize the impact it has had on them and/or the group.

• I give thanks for my peer's participation in the dialogue when I am reflecting.
• I reflect on the dialogue and talk about what was said regarding the topic.
• I recall specific details of what was said in the dialogue and how it made me feel or think.
• I say what I learned and note any new ideas or perspectives that came out of the dialogue.
• I form and respond to critical questions about the process of learning, the impact the experience has on myself and others, and think about new ways to move forward and grow.

Students can reflect on the experience of dialogue and say what they have learned from others and about themselves, including any ways the dialogue has helped them to shape new perspectives.

Students are able to identify any challenges and learning opportunities in the dialogue and how this can further their skills development.

• Introduces core skills and attitudes
• General topic knowledge
• Light interaction with peers

Learning Dojo

Topic or Video Conference

Debrief

• Reinforces core skills and attitudes
• Broadens topic knowledge
• Repeated practice with peers

Learning Dojo

Topic

Written Dialogue

Debrief

• Refines core skills and attitudes
• Various activity and knowledge sources
• More diverse interaction with peers

Learning Dojo

Topic

Written Dialogue

Video Conference

Debrief