Every instructor knows that classroom conversations are becoming more complicated, and potentially volatile, as civil society becomes more polarized, and norms and expectations of education are contested. Every difficult conversation is different, and you cannot navigate them effectively with a script or a rigid set of principles. But, practice helps, as it allows you to develop a repertoire of techniques that you can deploy flexibly in the classroom.
In this session we will (1) present a repertoire of techniques that are useful for difficult conversations in the classroom and elsewhere, (2) introduce a custom-built AI-based coaching tool for advice and practice on deploying the techniques; (3) each participant will engage with the tool individually, simulating a challenging classroom conversation and getting feedback of their management of the challenge.
Intended takeaways are (a) development of practical skills that can be immediately applied in the classroom; (b) awareness of the potential for AI coaching as a pedagogical tool.
Please note: This session is open to faculty.
About the speakers
Paul Ingram is the Kravis Professor of Business at the Columbia Business School, joining CBS in 1998. He has received Columbia’s Presidential Award for Excellence in Teaching, the Dean’s Award for Teaching Excellence, and serves as a Provost’s Senior Faculty Teaching Scholar. He was on the faculty of Carnegie Mellon University before coming to Columbia. He has held visiting professorships at Tel Aviv University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and the University of Toronto. Ingram's current research examines the intersection between culture and social networks. His publications have received numerous distinctions, including the Gould Prize from the American Journal of Sociology. He has served as President of the College of Organization Science of the Institute for Operations Research and Management Science (INFORMS). He has consulted on issues of leadership, organizational design, and strategy to leading companies in various industries. He holds a Ph.D. from Cornell University.
Hitendra Wadhwa is the author Inner Mastery, Outer Impact: How Your Five Core Energies Hold the Key to Success. He has been a lifelong student of the world's mystic traditions, and his mission is to discover, codify and teach the laws of success in life and leadership. As Professor of Practice at Columbia Business School for 15 years, he has won the Dean’s Award for Teaching Excellence for his teaching on Personal Leadership & Success. He is the founder of the Mentora Institute, dedicated to offering a scientific path to pursuing material and spiritual success in life, accelerating performance at work, and building exemplary leaders and cultures. Previously, Dr. Wadhwa worked as a strategy consultant at McKinsey and Company, and was the founder and CEO of a Silicon Valley startup, Paramark. He received an MBA and PhD in Management Science from MIT’s Sloan School of Management and BA (with Honors in Mathematics) from St. Stephen's College, Delhi.
This event is cosponsored with the Center for Teaching and Learning and is part of the Dialogue Across Difference initiative.
Please note the privacy statement from the speakers: Everything we discuss in this session is meant to be kept confidential. It's critical we all commit to this, to create a free and open environment to share challenges, explore solutions, and practice in a safe space. Our use of technology will also operate under this confidentiality commitment – your data/scenarios, as you use and test the AI platform, is not going to be shared with any public data repository that trains AI models, and every individual's data will be kept confidential for their own use. Any use of case studies or analytics outside this class will be done in a sanitized or aggregated form, or will involve direct approval from the individual to use their example.
