Follow to explore the topic selected in Activity 1. If you start with Activity 2 (see above) select the topic (issue) that will be explored (see the Module 0 for details) yourself or let students choose proceed similar as described in Activity 1.
For the Activity 2a it is expected to work with topic where the students are not direct participants of the issue and cannot directly communicate and “influence” the involved actors. If the issue concerned some local or school activity involving direct interaction with the actors follow the Activity2b:

a.   (discussion) Let students decide about specific topic(s) they will be working on. The theme of the topic should be focused, we recommend to choose some actual urgent societal issue like deforestation of Amazonian forest, war in Ukraine, climate change or some topic in the range of the class like historical event from some specific period etc.

-        Let the students explain why they choose this topic (personal interest, actuality etc. Do not go to details, see step II).

b.   (assignment) OR You choose the topic according the subject of class or some specific issue you would like students to work on. (see above Before you start)

                          i.      Briefly explain the topic (do not go to details about possible controversies and different points of views) and go to the next step.

First impression about the topic from the students can be obtained by short discussion session after the assignment of the topic.

a.   Ask students:
Q: What do you know about this issue XXX?

Q: What do you think about this issue XXX?

                                                   i.      The purpose is for teachers to get the general understanding how students perceive the topic and what they know about it.

b.   If you let students pick their own theme, this should be asked when choosing the topic in step I

c.   Do not go into details (do not let student argue about the issue etc.).

                                                    i.      If controversial topic, tell students that it will be interesting to explore and discuss the issue further.

d.   Write down for yourself the first impression formulated by students to remember: use template for teachers 2a-III First impression

e.   Continuously follow the discussion with students by step III.

First identify the relevant actors involved and their differing perspectives perceived by students (based on the first impressions/opinions/information the students have) by discussion in class after the assignment of the topic or following the Activity 1:

a.   Depending on the scope and familiarity of the issue concerned. You can start with assignment to students so they look up the information about the issue and relevant actors first OR if the topic is familiar it would be possible to start right away with discussion:

b.   Assignment: give students time in the class or as a home assignment to prepare for the class to look up information about the issue concerned and to identify relevant actors and their role and perspective about the issue. The assignment can cover the step III and IV. For the assignment let students use the templates:

                                                     i.      A2a-III Identify actors and their primary perspective about the issue perceived by students (first impression)

                                                     ii.      A2a-IV Type of roles and the actors

c.   Discussion: Discuss in the class what actors are involved and their role and perspective:

Ask students:

Q: What actors are involved in the issue?

                                                     i.      Let students identify the actors by themselves, if they omit someone let in this stage be and do not remind them.

Q: What type of actor is it (government, NGO, expert, news organization, university…)?

Q: Why is this actor important? What is his/her role in the issue?

                                                      ii.      Let students identify the (type of) roles by themselves.

Q:  What is the individual actors’ main perspective about the issue?

                                                      iii.      In this stage the perspective of the actor should be identified based on the first students’ findings or impressions

-        need not to go deep and to have it supported by evidence (this will come later).

-        basically it is about collecting the first impressions/opinions of the students about the actors

-        if the students could not agree about the perspective let it be as it is with comment that there is disagreement and that it will be explored later on

-        the perspectives of the actors might be by students even wrongly identified as their own (studetns´) opinion about the actors

                                                         iv.      Use the template (assign someone from the class to write it down or do it your self, but should be accessible to all in the class):  A2a-III Identify actors and their primary perspective about the issue perceived by students (first impression)

The role of actors by students will be explored into more depth.

a.  (discussion) Try to generalize with the students through class discussion the different roles the involved actor might have.

Q:  What types of roles does the actors have? What types of roles there are?

                                                        i.      first let students define the roles and then help to organize the roles into functional categories: decision making, setting the rules, action, expert/opinion maker, influenced by, influencing decisions…)

Q:  How is the role of the actor perceived by other actors?

                                                        ii.      first let students say and then intervene/help them

-        are the actors: cooperating / arguing -  have opposing opinions arguments / different-opposing interests

-        different roles might also lead to different position of the actor to others (as setting up binding rules in case of government authority etc.)

Q:  Did not we forget anyone who is influencing or is influenced in the issue concerned?

                                                          iii.      let students first identify if they did not forget anyone (might be a target group without influence etc.)

-        discuss with student why they thing they forget this actor before

                                                           iv.      Use the template:  A2a-IV Type of roles and the actors

The perceived perspectives of actors by students will be explored into more depth.

                                                      i.      Explain students that you will explore into more depth the perspectives of the actors

a.   (discussion) Go actor by actor identified in previous steps and examine why and on what the students based their opinion about perspective of the actor (depending on time you can choose only selected actors):

Ask students:

Q: First ask/investigate whether it is really perspective of the actor or an opinion/judgement about the actor by students.

Q: On what did you based your opinion about the actor’s perspective?

                                                         ii.      evidence or opinion

-        Remember, opinion is not a bad thing as far as we know that it is an opinion and not a fact

                                                         iii.      is the information provided by the actor themselves or from other source

-        trustworthiness of the source (remember to students what was learned about fact-checking in the Activity 1)

-        distinguish possible proclamation about self and real intentions and motivations

-        understand that even biased information or disinformation is a valuable source of information when exploring differing perspectives (of course when we can see that and how the information is biased/disinformative)

-        remember about lateral reading

 Q: Further investigate. What is declared perspective/goal/motivation of the actor and what is the (potential/arguably/proved) real intention of the actor?

   How the actor what to be seen perceived? What are their real motivations?

                                                          iv.      To reveal underlining factors and deepen understanding about the actors.

-        How is actually the actor framing (presenting) the issue?

-        What is the world view/stand point of the actor about the concerned issue?

-        What is the motivation of the actor?

§  Be careful not do not become “paranoid” to see some profit gaining motives everywhere as “he/she is doing it for the money…”  (many people are doing it because they believe in it)

§  But of course it is important to see conflicts of interests

-        What the actor likes/dislikes – favor/unfavor (attitude)?

-        Can investigate the actions and methods the actors using to achieve his/her objective.

-        What set of norms and believes or habits does the actors have (base their perspective on)?

                                                            v.      Discussion between students (declared vs real)

-        Let students discuss the issue and show their perspective

-        During the discussion look up for possible biases students have (to be used in the next step)

§  By carful to identify even biases towards opinion we might all share as right (if we look to confirm this it is still a bias even we might “be right”)

                                                           vi.      Discussion based on the students opinions and evidence they provide

-        if evidence is missing or would take much time to explore it explain that this have to be investigated more in the future by finding relevant evidence (in the Activity 4)

                                                          vii.      Use the template:  A2a-V Perspectives of the actors

b.   (discussion) Discuss and summarize with students what opinions about perspectives of actors they had at the beginning and what changed or get more cleared (roles of actors, their declared and really expected perspectives). Point out what different opinions between students were and remained (and that it will be further explored). Possibly point out how hard is it to just agree about perspectives of others. Possibly point out if the perspective of the actor was describes as opinion about the actor.

                                                        viii.      If you want to give an opinion or resolve some different opinions in the class provide evidence 

-        If evidence is missing or would take much time to explore it explain that this have to be investigated more in the future by finding relevant evidence (in the Activity 4)

Identify the biases behind our assessment (judgement) of the perspectives of the actors involved. And identify possible biases of the actors.

                                                          i.      This step is actually more about trying to understand why I (the student) perceive the actor as I did.

-        What do I base my opinion/perception?

-        Does it cover the whole picture?

-        It is more about to understand about how we perceive things than to obtain detailed analysis about the actors as this might require more research designed and interpreted id Activity 3 and 4.

a.   (discussion) Discuss with students and explain them about biases. Start with asking them whether they know what biases are. Ask them if they could identify any biased opinions by classmates in previous discussion. Identify biases of the actors.
And then give them some background by yourself.

Q: Do you know what biased decision is? Do you know some biases, can you name some?

Biases made by students and biases by the examined actors:

Q: Can you point out some biased arguments/opinions about the actors perspectives in the previous discussion in the class (biases made by student in the class)?

and

Q: Can you point out some biased opinions that the actors have about the issue?

                                                            ii.      You can start to assess the biases of the actors or biases that the students made (see the question above). Depending on the topic – where were the biases more obvious (see below the biases to talk about).

                                                           iii.      Make sure to create open atmosphere where everyone is accepted and not making fun of. Show students that we are all prone to be biased and that we are all influenced by our experiences and our environment. And that it is actually quite hard to see our biases (blind spot bias).

                                                           iv.      Depending on the knowledge about biases by students complement or correct the information about biases and present the relevant biases.
You can go one bias by time explain the bias and discuss with student whether they have been a) biased by themselves in previous discussion b) what (potential) biases the actors will have towards the issue:

Q: Was the information used to form the opinion about the perspective of other actors reliable and relevant?

-        Anchoring bias

§  Q: Did not we asses (judged) the perspectives of the actors based on be influenced by pre-existing information or the first piece of information?

-         Availability bias

§  Q: Was not our assessment of the actors based on the information that is readily available to us?

§  Q: Were we aware that we had limited information?

§  This bias might be very well connected with social bubble and information gap phenomena, so you can pint this out to students (see chapter 1.7 in Module 2)

-        Representativeness bias

§  Q: Did not we asses (judged) the perspectives of the actors based on the quantity of information rather then on the quality of the evidence?

§  …connection with the availability bias

Q: How were our position influenced when assessing the perspectives of the actors?

-        Confirmation Bias

§  Q: Did not we asses (judged) the perspectives of the actors influenced by our own opinion?

§  Q: Did we clearly identified the perspectives of the actors or more likely presented our opinion about the actors?

§  Q: Could you by opinion formulated by students (XXX) about the actors identify opinion of the student itself?

-        Projection bias

§  Q: Did not we asses (judged) the perspectives of the actors based on our own projection (based on how we see the world thinking that everyone sees the things the same way)?

-        Fundamental attribution error

§  Q: Did not we project our attitudes toward the person to explain his/her action/opinion instead to see the whole context of the situation?

§  Q: Did we recognized how the context influences the behavior/opinion of others?  Did we consider/recognized the situation the actor is in?

Q: Were we able to see also our own biases or only the biases of others?

-        Blind spot bias

§  we recognize biases in others but fail to see them in your selves

                                                             v.      Use the template:  A2a-VIIa Biases (actors) and A2b-VIIa Biases (in the class made by students)