A recent post in the online Teaching Deliberatively website describes a deliberative forum that was held on July 17, 2016 as part of the Teaching Deliberatively summer workshop in Des Moines, Iowa. Forum participants used the National Issues Forums (NIF) issue guide titled Making Ends Meet: How Should We Spread Prosperity and Improve Opportunity? The following is an excerpt from the post:

Ground rules (focus on all options fairly, no one dominates, encourage participation and listening) seem to be crucial in establishing civility. It is the moderator’s job to maintain these ground rules and move the conversation along. If the mindset is a continuum, “my way or the highway” is on one side, but we must try to move closer to the middle, “WE” being the goal on the opposite end. Instead of two options, there should be three or more, as opposing sides leads to argument. The purpose is to deliberate and find a way to move forward.

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