Final Reminder to Register for the Summer Learning Springboard

Next week, July 25th - 30th, is NCDD's second annual Summer Learning Springboard. This is a week-long virtual event with 18 unique and captivating sessions. All are welcome to attend! 

​Registration Information:
General registration includes access to all twelve included sessions and is set this year at three rates:
$100 Individual, non-member ticket
$50 Student, non-member ticket
$25 NCDD Member ticket (member dues must be in good standing)
The non-member ticket prices include a one-year individual or student membership to explore all that NCDD has to offer!

Register Here

Find out more about the sessions below: 

​Monday July 25
​12:00-12:45 PM Eastern/9:00-9:45 AM Pacific
Welcome to the Summer Learning Springboard
Join NCDD for the Springboard opening session! We will provide a brief orientation to the Springboard and the QiqoChat platform which will serve as the home base for all events and networking. Attendees will also have the opportunity to participate in a brief networking round.  (All levels)
​Registration: Included with Springboard general registration

Courtney Breese 
Executive Director, National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation
​
1:00-3:00 PM Eastern/10:00 AM-12:00 PM Pacific
Learning the Empathy Circle Practice
Learn to take part in an Empathy Circle. Participants will learn about the process of an Empathy Circle by experiencing it. An Empathy Circle is a structured dialogue process that effectively supports meaningful and constructive dialogue. The practice increases mutual understanding and connection by ensuring that each person feels fully heard to their satisfaction. The practice is the most effective gateway practice for learning, practicing and deepening listening and empathy skills, as well as, nurturing an empathic way of being. For more see: https://EmpathyCircle.com
(Beginner) 
​Registration: Included with Springboard general registration

Edwin Rutsch
Center for Building a Culture of Empathy

1:00-2:30 PM Eastern/10:00-11:30 AM Pacific
A Little Less Talk and a Lot More Action?
Reframing Dialogue & Deliberation as Formational Practices
Everyone has heard it: I don't JUST want to talk about something, I want to take ACTION. This session draws together several leaders in the field of dialogue and deliberation to complicate this distinction between talk and action. When we frame dialogue or deliberation as something other than action, we run the risk of missing the potential that D&D has to shape people, communities, and institutions. Taking part in deliberation and dialogue is an essential form of action that involves talking, listening, weighing, feeling, imagining, connecting, being seen and heard, and so on. When we take part in these practices, they shape who we are and have potential to shape the communities where we live. This 90 minute session engages participants in reframing the distinction between talk/action, suggests activities that can help explore this, and provides examples of the way that D&D has been a meaningful formational practice for individuals, communities, and institutions. (Intermediate)
​Registration: Included with Springboard general registration

Brad Rourke
Program Officer, Kettering Foundation
Elizabeth Gish
Program Officer, Kettering Foundation
Pastor, Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)
Katya Lukianova
Program Officer, Kettering Foundation
Michael Nygren
President, Live Your Best Life, Inc.
​
3:00-4:30 PM Eastern/12:00-1:30 PM Pacific
Convening and Facilitating Deliberative Discussions:
How Can We Encourage and Safeguard Voting?
In this session, participants will explore the fundamental concepts and practices of deliberative dialogue within the context of convening and facilitating community and campus discussions on the critically important and timely issue of encouraging and safeguarding voting. Participants will receive a wide range of issue-specific and general materials to help them in their future efforts. (All levels)
Registration: Included with Springboard general registration
​
Betty Knighton
National Issues Forums & Kettering Foundation 
​

Tuesday July 26
1:00-2:00 PM Eastern/10:00-11:00 AM Pacific
Helping Communities Share Nothing But "Good News"
Learn how volunteers in West Virginia are bringing "Good News" to their community. At a Good News community engagement event, up to twenty speakers take turns sharing positive community news. Each speaker has a maximum of two minutes to share their “Good News” within a well-orchestrated agenda. These events energize residents to take part in community projects and to celebrate their accomplishments by spreading positivity to their families, friends, and neighbors. This session will help you understand how to orchestrate your own Good News event for your community. (All levels)
Registration: Included with Springboard general registration

Eric Pories
Focus Intent Facilitation Services

1:30-3:30 PM Eastern/10:30 AM-12:30 PM Pacific
Silence in Dialogue: Capturing Possibilities in the Pause
Dialogical practices tend to focus on vocal expressions and verbal forms of communication. In this session, we will focus on the role of silence, pause, solitude, and contemplation in dialogue. For instance, what purpose can silence serve in dialogue and what can silence communicate? What can we draw from silence? Participants are engaged in an interactive dialogue format that will encourage them to notice what is happening within the in-between spaces of pause and examine how Western-centric frames have defined and portrayed silence in conversations. Participants are challenged to consider cultural biases and ableism inherent in privileging verbal modes of communication. Experiential activities will be conducted with participants to practice making space for pauses and leveraging the possibilities that can be cultivated within silence. (Beginner)
Registration: $50, NCDD members $40

Hoa Nguyen
Valdosta State University
Ashmi Desai
San Francisco State University

3:00-5:00 PM Eastern/12:00-2:00 PM Pacific
Hearing, Seeing, and Understanding
Indirect and direct. High context and low context. Affective and neutral. These are just some of the cultural norms that may hinder or facilitate dialogue where cultural diversity exists. Explore important cultural differences and similarities and how you might navigate these given different situations. (Beginner)
Registration: Included with Springboard general registration

Selena Kohel
Cottey College

3:00-5:00 PM Eastern/12:00-2:00 PM Pacific
Reframing Democracy through the Wicked Problems Lens
This workshop is focused on elevating our local conversations about shared problems by building local capacity to engage issues more collaboratively and productively through the use of deliberative engagement processes. Deliberative engagement involves interactive, often facilitated, small group discussions utilizing materials and processes designed to spark collaborative learning rather than merely the collection of individual opinions. An opening session will examine the concept of “wicked problems” as a framework to reframe difficult issues and review recent research on social psychology to help explain why traditional engagement processes are often counterproductive to sparking the high quality communication democracy requires. The workshop will then review the key components to deliberative engagement and explore a variety of in person and online tools and techniques drawn from several dialogue and deliberation traditions. (Beginner)
Registration: $20, NCDD members $10

Martin Carcasson 
Director, Center for Public Deliberation at Colorado State University
​

Wednesday July 27
12:00-2:00 PM Eastern/9:00-11:00 AM Pacific
Taming Trolls, Troublemakers, and Tyrants
This session is about how to set boundaries in online and offline dialogue so you can keep a conversation going and make it productive even when others behave badly. Introduces a four-step, graded process that begins with humanization and ends with termination of dialogue only in cases of abusive behavior. Learn what motivates most bad behavior in dialogue and discover steps that will empower you to turn conversations around. Designed for non-facilitators, but will cover concepts useful to facilitators as well.  (Intermediate)
Registration: $30, NCDD members $15

Karin Tamerius
Smart Politics

12:00-2:00 PM Eastern/9:00-11:00 AM Pacific
Can Deliberation Contribute to a New Democratic Revival Movement?
Even while relentless partisanship and ideological polarization have left many Americans concerned (and some despairing) about the ability of our governing institutions to deal effectively with problems like racial justice, climate change, immigration or gun violence, advocates of democratic deliberation have continued to nurture this indispensable component of self-government. Drawing on Daniel Kemmis' most recent book, Citizens Uniting to Restore Our Democracy, and Wendy Willis' recent thinking about how to bring grass-roots deliberation to constitutional reform, Kemmis and Willis will lead a highly interactive session on how practitioners and theorists of democratic deliberation might contribute to a 21st century movement of democratic renewal. Rather than thinking about deliberation as an end in itself, the session will examine how deliberative democrats might join forces with other democratic activists to address real barriers to reform and build a more just and functional democracy. (All levels)
Registration: Included with Springboard general registration

Daniel Kemmis
Citizens Uniting to Restore Our Democracy
Wendy Willis
Founder and Director, Oregon's Kitchen Table
Executive Director, Deliberative Democracy Consortium

2:30-4:00 PM Eastern/11:30 AM-1:00 PM Pacific​
Introducing the IF Collaborative Discussion Toolkit
In this session, we will offer a tour of the Interactivity Foundation's Collaborative Discussion Toolkit (an open access resource). This toolkit has been created in collaboration with educators and community practitioners. It contains 50+ learning activities, intentionally designed to develop or enhance collaborative discussion skills and habits of mind. These skills are categorized in easy to search modules: creative, critical, culturally responsive, and civic collaboration. The toolkit also contains introductory and practice modules. The learning activities can be adapted to be incorporated into classrooms, communities, or workplaces. Participants will be invited to review the toolkit in advance and during this session we will dive into 2-3 learning activities to experience the learning structure of these activities. Participants will be invited to learn more (after the session) about how to become a Collaborative Discussion Coach and offer certificates in collaborative discussion. (Intermediate)
Registration: Included with Springboard general registration

Lori Britt, Ph.D.
Associate Professor & Director of the Institute for Constructive Advocacy and Dialogue, James Madison University
Shannon Wheatley Hartman, Ph.D.
Vice President, Interactivity Foundation
Jeff Prudhomme, Ph.D.
Vice President, Interactivity Foundation

3:00-4:30 PM Eastern/12:00-1:30 PM Pacific
Somatic Practices to Embody Facilitator Growth
In facilitation, we tend to focus on structures and processes to guide us in collaboration and conversation. That is helpful! But, there’s an essential missing ingredient to facilitating and participating in these spaces: somatic practices. Our participatory spaces benefit from giving attention to what’s happening somatically (in your body) that builds the collective and the individual. In this session, participants will explore the facilitator’s personal development and capacities through somatic practices. (All levels)
Registration: $10

Daniel Little
Co-founder, Round Sky Solutions
Rebecca Fisher-McGinty
Worker owner, Round Sky Solutions
​

Thursday July 28
12:00-2:00 PM Eastern/9:00-11:00 AM Pacific
Translate Your In-Person Dialogue Process Onto QiqoChat & Zoom
Prior to the pandemic the average dialogue participant was not comfortable with Zoom. Now the average participant is comfortable using online tools chosen by facilitators to complement in their Zoom meetings. This opens up tremendous possibilities. If you are interested in learning how to translate in-person dialogue methods into an online environment, join this hands-on and highly interactive session where we will analyze the components of common dialogue processes (and those proposed by the participants on the fly), map them to a variety of online tools, and connect them using the QiqoChat events platform. (Intermediate)
Registration: Included with Springboard general registration

Lucas Cioffi
QiqoChat, Inc.

12:00-1:30 PM Eastern/9:00-10:30 AM Pacific
Intro to Analyzing Power: Building Equitable Futures Together
This session will provide an overview on power analysis by asking people to interrogate their own power in the context of thinking about how we, as citizens and community members, can shift power towards historically dis-invested communities to build equitable futures together. (All levels)
Registration: $25

Nicole Hewitt-Cabral
Director of Public Engagement, Public Agenda
Dhara Shah
​Senior Public Engagement Associate, Public Agenda

3:00-5:00 PM Eastern/12:00-2:00 PM Pacific
Hybrid Facilitation: What's Fixed and What's Flexible?
As we continue to sort out new ways of collaborating across dispersed teams and geographies, our ability to facilitate productive, engaging hybrid meetings is emerging as a critical skill. This workshop explores what we've learned about remote collaboration using several case studies drawn from various stages of pandemic life. Participants will learn what they need to make hybrid meetings effective for all involved, no matter how people join the conversation. (All levels)
Registration: $50

Rebecca Sutherns, Ph.D.
CEO, Sage Solutions
​
​Friday July 29
12:00-2:00 PM Eastern/9:00-11:00 AM Pacific
Creating a Sense of Belonging
“You are not alone. You belong. And it gets better.” These powerful messages in a belonging intervention by Stanford social psychologist Gregory Walton highlighted how much we need to feel a sense of belonging—to ourselves, to one another, to our friends and families, to our culture and country, to our world. Feeling that we belong to a larger group that shares common struggles and aspirations is fundamental to our sense of happiness and well-being. Conversely—isolation, loneliness and feeling excluded undermines well-being. In this session, you will: 1) engage in a mindfulness exercise that explores how belonging starts with allowing in parts of yourself that are difficult for you to accept;  2) explore your experiences of inclusion and exclusion; 3) practice how to more deeply be with your own and another's heart. (All levels)
Registration: $5-$20 sliding scale

Mavis Tsai, Ph.D.
Awareness, Courage & Love Global Project; U. of Washington
Susan Partnow, MA
Sr. Certified Facilitator, Compassionate Listening

2:00-3:30 PM Eastern/11:00 AM-12:30 PM Pacific
Deliberation and Data: Survey and Exit Interviews for Facilitators
This session offers survey templates, ideas, and approaches around collecting "data" at the end of an event to improve facilitation moving forward. We will discuss how data can, from surveys, interviews, and other creative collection methods, can inform facilitators thinking about deliberative and dialogue practice. Working with participants on the structure of a conversation allows for deeper insight and helps create more robust conversations for new events and returning participants. Data also formalizes the practice of reflection, a step that is sometimes overlooked in deliberative inquiry. (Intermediate)
Registration: Included with Springboard general registration

Chris Anderson
Wabash Democracy and Public Discourse at Wabash College
​
3:45-4:30 PM Eastern/12:45-1:30 PM Pacific
Closing Session: What’s Next?
Join NCDD for a closing session of the Summer Learning Springboard. We’ll talk together about where we can go from here, both individually and as a community of practice. Join us to discuss with one another what you will do and think together about what’s next for us all in NCDD! (All levels)
Registration: Included with Springboard general registration
​
Courtney Breese
Executive Director, National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation
​

Saturday July 30
1:00-3:00 PM Eastern/10:00 AM-12:00 PM Pacific​
Learning the Empathy Circle Practice (2nd offering)
Learn to take part in an Empathy Circle. Participants will learn about the process of an Empathy Circle by experiencing it. An Empathy Circle is a structured dialogue process that effectively supports meaningful and constructive dialogue. The practice increases mutual understanding and connection by ensuring that each person feels fully heard to their satisfaction. The practice is the most effective gateway practice for learning, practicing and deepening listening and empathy skills, as well as, nurturing an empathic way of being. For more see: https://EmpathyCircle.com. (Beginner)
Registration: Included with Springboard general registration
​
Edwin Rutsch 
Center for Building A Culture of Empathy