Educator's Center

Welcome to the Educator's Center

This is a space where educators of all kinds can learn more about deliberation and its use in the classroom and other educational communities. It is a place to connect with each other, to share your experiences and to learn how deliberation has been integrated into K-12 curriculum, after school programs, and college courses.

Deliberative learning is an approach to education that emphasizes dialogue, inquiry, and choice making. Deliberative learners explore complex topics in-depth, consider diverse perspectives on these topics, identify and work through tensions inherent to those views, and attempt to arrive at reasoned judgment. When used to support students' development as citizens, deliberative learning takes on a public dimension: students grapple with issues of public significance in order to arrive at a shared decision.

Using National Issues Forums Materials in the Classroom

This section contains information, explanations, and resources for using National Issues Forums materials with students. It includes lesson plans, curriculum standards, issue book materials, and places for your comments and suggestions.

User Contributed Resources

Are you interested in contributing to the educator resources materials? Do you have a document, spreadsheet, PowerPoint or other tool that may be beneficial to other educators? Please submit a request to have your items placed in the educator resource section by filling out the following form.

National Issues Forums Institute Educator ResourcesFor College and University Educators

National Issues Forums Institute Educator ResourcesFor Middle School and High School Educators

National Issues Forums Institute Educator ResourcesFor Non-classroom Educators

National Issues Forums Institute Educator ResourcesOsher Lifelong Learning Resources for Convening and Moderating