Increasing social and political polarization in society and on many college campuses in the U.S. and beyond is amplifying anxieties, tensions and challenges among educators, administrators, students and community representatives in education abroad. When tensions go unaddressed, they result in mistrust, disengagement and “unteachable moments.” Unteachable moments represent a fracture in educational relationships and undermine our aspirational goals for education abroad participants. However, learning how to anticipate H.O.T moments, mediate them in the moment, and work to repair relationships when they are damaged is possible. Join us to learn how H.O.T. moments can be opportunities to foster growth for everyone involved and build awareness of civic habits and skills needed to navigate intercultural and transnational contexts.
This workshop introduces the H.O.T. moments, a framework that study abroad professionals and educators can use to prepare for, identify, and respond to tensions and conflicts that arise on-site. Attendees will examine their own relationship to tension and conflict to understand how it impacts their ability to facilitate constructive dialogue. Participants will practice responding thoughtfully during H.O.T. moments to decrease reactivity, lower the temperature in the room, and turn unteachable moments into teachable ones.
Learning Objectives:
Describe their relationship to and response to conflict.
Express how their relationship to conflict influences their response to varying sources of conflict in education abroad.
Distinguish between civility, civic dialogue and civic discourse.
Distinguish between debate, deliberation and dialogue.
Describe the H.O.T. moments framework and its use in EA contexts.
Apply the H.O.T. moments framework to address unteachable moments in their own work.
