Shared Understandings: Teaching collaboration and dialogue to MIT undergraduates

To support Standing Together Against Hate, and more broadly to support our students' ability to work with others effectively--in contentious discussions, on project teams, and in other collaborative settings--we propose to develop and test a curriculum on collaboration and constructive dialogue both in the CI-M classes that WRAP teaches in Course 6 and in the conflict-resolution workshops that the Division of Student Life runs in the dorms. In Course 6 alone, our lecturers reach over 1200 undergraduates each year. We also hope to reach out to other interested parts of the Institute, to form a coordinated working group addressing this topic. It is our goal in AY '24-25 to begin a project that will, over time, enrich the culture of MIT, without losing our competitive edge, to more fully embrace the rewards and promises of dialogue and collaboration.