How to help students have difficult conversations in the classroom

Sociology professor Abigail Saguy has been teaching the sociology of gender at UCLA for 23 years. But it was while on sabbatical in 2023-24, writing a book on debates about sex and gender, that she realized how many people have become afraid to discuss these topics. This led Saguy to begin thinking about how best to teach topics that provoked hesitancy, given today's increasingly polarized political climate.

Jumping into her academic networks, Saguy, who in 2017 received a UCLA Distinguished Teaching Award, joined the Heterodox Academy, a nonprofit group promoting a diversity of viewpoints and intellectual curiosity in universities. There, she signed up for a webinar on the new Sway app, an AI-assisted chat platform that tries to facilitate open and honest conversations between students.

After a few follow-up conversations with developers Simon Cullen and Nick DiBella, two philosophy professors at Carnegie Mellon University, she was invited to be the first professor to use the app in her course. Around the same time, Saguy was selected for the inaugural faculty fellows cohort of UCLA's Dialogue across Difference initiative, where she learned techniques for facilitating discussions.

Newsroom spoke to Saguy to find out how these innovative techniques to promote dialogue are working in the classroom, based on her use of the app in both her fall 2024 sociology of gender course and her spring 2025 Fiat Lux course; she'll use it again in the sociology of gender course this fall.

How did you use the Sway app with your students?

After filling out an online survey, students were paired with another student who held very different views for a 30-minute online anonymous chat. An AI "guide" participated in every chat, acting like an experienced teacher who posed insightful questions to students, clarified vague or incomplete arguments and provided relevant factual information when needed. It also de-escalated tense moments and ensured students weren't talking past each other.

What was it like being the first professor to use the app in the classroom?

At the time, I didn't quite realize or fully appreciate how new it was - and how much of a beta version it still was. But I did it and launched it in the classroom with 225 students in fall 2024. We were guinea pigs and there were hiccups, but for the most part, students liked it.

Could you tell me more about how students responded to using the app?

We tackled many challenging, polarizing topics. We discussed what recommendations medical professionals should be giving to young children experiencing gender dysphoria; whether it's Islamophobic to oppose mandatory hijab laws; whether Kamala Harris' defeat in the 2024 election is best explained by misogyny; and inclusion of transgender women athletes in elite women's sports, among many others.

It was really encouraging to see that the students were eager to have these conversations. They were respectful of each other. Students overwhelmingly reported very positive experiences using the app, leaving with a deeper appreciation of their chat partners' perspectives. The students also did well on the "understanding quiz" at the end of the chats, which gauges how well each partner understood the other.

Why is it important for college students to have a safe space for dialogue?

I prefer to talk about "brave" spaces - developing a higher tolerance for discomfort and strengthening dialoguing skills. Dialoguing is not the same as debating. In a debate, you're trying to win. You're trying to convince the other person. With dialogue, the goal is to better understand a different perspective.

Why is it important for you to create opportunities for dialogue in your classroom?

I think it is my job as an instructor to teach students to engage in critical thinking. Critical thinking does not necessarily mean being critical of the status quo or taking a specific ideological perspective. It means evaluating different perspectives critically, including your own, and being able to step back and recognize your own biases. As a sociologist, I am also interested in how people's views are produced by a certain social context. I try to teach this to my students and to help them learn to step outside of that and imagine how they might see things differently.

I also believe it is part of my job to help create citizens who are thoughtful, who have the skills to independently evaluate claims - whether from scientific reporting or politicians.

Finally, I think it is important to think creatively. We're clearly pretty stuck right now as a nation. We are so polarized, and we need to be able to listen to other perspectives and develop new compromises or approaches that are more productive for everybody. I think this is part of what we want to be teaching students to do in college.

How will this technology and other technologies shape the future of instruction and learning?

First of all, I don't think Sway replaces in-person conversation. I think it can be an additional tool. I hope that the skills that are gained using this platform are transferable to in-person conversations.

And it's a balancing act. I try to be thoughtful about technology. I prefer to have no screens in my classroom except when we're using them for something that's going to promote learning. I encourage my students to take notes by hand because studies show that typing everything you hear into a computer is not as effective as taking notes by hand, which forces you to slow down and choose what to write down.

What is "bullseye reflection," and how is it helpful in breaking down barriers between people of differing viewpoints?

Bullseye reflection is a skill I learned through the UCLA acoss Difference initiative, which adopted it from Resetting the Table, a group that develops training to engage in and facilitate dialogue. I then applied it in my spring 2025 Fiat Lux seminar.

I paired each student with a classmate who had a differing view on a topic. One student in the pair shared their perspective, while the other listened and then tried to accurately summarize the other student's perspective back to them. If they didn't get it quite right, the first student would tell them so and they would keep trying. If they got it perfectly, the first student would say, "bullseye!"

Ironically, social psychologists show that the best way to change hearts and minds is to first demonstrate genuine interest in what someone thinks and feels. If you try to understand another's perspective, that person is more likely to open up and be interested in your perspective. This approach can foster a meeting of the minds, unlike the common tendency toward motivated reasoning. That's where we half-listen and wait to disprove anything that doesn't fit our existing biases, rather than truly trying to understand.