Conference Recap
Making the Most of Teachable Moments
As judicial branch educators one of the most difficult things we have are when inappropriate comments are made by students or even faculty in a teaching setting. It is often difficult to know the best response to these incidents. This session helped to instruct us on how to deal with these types of incidents. The session was instructed by NASJE members Kathleen Sikora, Kelly Tait, Michael Roosevelt and Liz Strong.
The instructors took us through several exercises and allowed us to share not only our own examples of teachable moments, but also we brainstormed about how to respond to such moments.
Some of the helpful advice was . . .
- Don’t defend or argue
- Don’t be defensive
- Try to avoid anger/frustration
- Find the resistance interesting and try to learn more about
it
- Listen to understand from the other person’s perspective
- You are going to turn the energy
behind the resistance back on the resistance itself by: expressing empathy, avoiding argumentation,
rolling with resistance, supporting self-efficacy.
- Express empathy
– Open-ended questions
– Reflective listening
– Giving affirmation
– Summarization
- Affirmations
– “I appreciate your comments.”
– “I’m glad you raised that.”
– “This is important to discuss.”
- Reflective listening
– “It seems to you that…
– “So you…”
– “It sounds like you…”
Kathleen Sikora provided some concluding remarks that energized us to go out and respond to
teachable moments. Her advice was to do something; start by doing something in your personal
life (friends, family, etc.)—because once you master that, you’re “home free;” pre-visualize
a situation (the worst case scenario) and have your response ready; and welcome “teachable
moments”
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