Best for: Helping students recognize areas of shared understanding while making space for different perspectives, interpretations, and experiences.
Choose a course-related question, topic, case, or idea that allows for more than one perspective.
Give students a few minutes to think or write independently before placing them in groups of 3–4.
Ask groups to explore three questions:
What do we share?
Where do our ideas, interpretations, questions, or observations overlap?
What is different?
What different perspectives, interpretations, or questions are present in the group?
What can we learn from the difference?
Did another perspective add to, complicate, or change how you are thinking?
Remind students that the goal is not to reach consensus. A strong learning community can hold both common ground and meaningful differences.
Students should only share personal experiences or information they are comfortable sharing.
Optional closing prompt:
What helps a learning community make room for both connection and difference?
Reflect:
Did students make space for different perspectives without needing to resolve or minimize them?