Critical Friends in Community: Who are We Becoming Together?

Critical Friends in Community:

Who are We Becoming Together?

Overview

Dilemmas of facilitation never disappear, but a school can become a place where teachers work through them together. This workshop puts the critical friend, a colleague who helps a teacher see a dilemma more clearly rather than solving it, at the center. Participants bring a discussion plan or recent discussion, or work from a provided classroom case featuring a difficult moment. They name a dilemma it raises, are introduced to the Dynamic Systems Model of Role Identity (DSMRI; Kaplan & Garner), which describes how a teacher's beliefs, goals, self-perceptions, and action possibilities interact, and learn what to notice in a discussion using dimensions of the Social Studies Discourse Instrument (SSDI; Jay et al., 2025), an observation tool. They then work through a critical-friend cycle: agreeing on confidentiality and the handling of classroom evidence, rehearsing or reviewing a discussion, observing it, and holding a critical-friend conversation using DSMRI-informed questions. After rewriting their dilemma and completing the stem “The kind of discussion facilitator I want to become might…,” participants turn to school-level practice: setting up critical-friend pairs, protecting time, and keeping conversations curious and distinct from formal appraisal. Participants leave with a plan naming who they will work with (or, for teachers attending alone, how they will invite a colleague), what they will focus on, when they will meet, a review date for the first cycle, and what evidence they will review, with agreements on confidentiality. No prior attendance is required.

Learning Outcomes

Participants will be able to:

Rehearse or review a discussion, including a difficult discussion moment, from their own or a provided case, and take part in a full critical-friend cycle that uses observation and DSMRI-informed questions.

Show how their understanding of a dilemma and of their facilitator identity has changed through repeated reflection.

Describe the conditions that make critical-friend conversations productive, including trust, curiosity, confidentiality, appropriate handling of classroom evidence, a nonevaluative stance, and a clear distinction from formal appraisal.

Design a sustainable critical-friend structure for their school, including who they will work with (or how they will invite a colleague to participate), what they will focus on, when they will meet, a review date for the first cycle, and what evidence they will review.

Key Competencies

01 Collaborative Inquiry Through the Critical-Friend Cycle

02 Cultivating Trusting, Non-Evaluative Professional Conversations

03 Building Sustainable Critical-Friend Communities

Target Audience

All Educators

Tim Patterson is an Associate Professor of Teaching and Learning at Temple University in Philadelphia, USA. His work focuses on preparing teachers to nurture the values and dispositions of thoughtful, engaged citizens. A former secondary social studies teacher, he studies how teachers make pedagogical decisions about civic and global issues. He is co-principal investigator of DISCUSS Philadelphia (discussphilly.org), a collaboration between Temple University and the University of Pennsylvania funded by the James S. McDonnell Foundation. The project supports teachers in facilitating student-centered discussions of important civic issues. Its collection of “dilemmas,” real classroom scenarios written by teachers, helps educators build respectful classroom communities and handle the tensions that arise when students bring diverse perspectives to the conversation. His research has appeared in such journals as Teaching and Teacher Education, the Journal of Teacher Education, Teachers College Record, and Theory & Research in Social Education.

Patterson has consulted for Singapore’s Ministry of Education and leads professional development on facilitating student-centered discussions of civic and ethical questions. He was named Outstanding Educator in Consultancy by the Academy of Singapore Teachers in 2026 and received Temple University’s Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching in 2022.

About the Workshops - Dilemmas of Discussion: Who am I Becoming as a Facilitator?

Each workshop runs for a full day and is designed to stand alone, so teachers may attend any one day or several. Every day opens with a brief shared foundation (a dilemma hook, the Dynamic Systems Model of Role Identity (DSMRI), and the critical-friend stance), so no prior attendance is needed, and then builds toward its own anchor tool and a ready-to-use product: a dilemma map and one response to trial (Day 1), a rehearsed facilitation move (Day 2), a ready-to-use Character and Citizenship Education (CCE) discussion plan (Day 3), and a school-based critical-friend plan (Day 4). Teachers who attend more than one day deepen their practice rather than repeat it: the identity work of Day 1 informs the moves rehearsed on Day 2, the discussions designed on Day 3, and the communities built on Day 4. School teams that attend together can build a shared language for discussion practice across the school. The series brings together work on discussion facilitation, dilemmas, and the DSMRI with the Social Studies Discourse Instrument (SSDI), the CCE frame, and a sustained emphasis on the critical-friend stance.