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The Dialogue Center at the Civic Science Collective

Our Dialogue Center offers dialogues that explore complex and challenging science issues with curiosity and compassion. We train community members, educators, health experts, dialogue practitioners, and researchers to lead dialogues as a search for mutual understanding, meeting another person with an open mind, to learn about who they are and what they care about.

CSC can also design and implement dialogues to support community groups, educators, health experts and researchers. 

We invite you to browse this list of dialogues facilitated by CSC or by community members trained by CSC. If these examples align with your hopes for putting dialogue into practice, reach out to us to learn more about how we can support the conversation you want to have.

For Those New to the Practice of Dialogue:

If you want to learn how to plan and facilitate your own dialogues, CSC offers a 5 session, introductory dialogue training. We also provide any combination of these trainings that can be tailored to the dialogue skillset you hope to gain.

Session 1: Defining the purposes of your dialogue: This training defines the goals for dialogue that can support constructive ways of communicating with others and that prevent harmful communication patterns.
Session 2: Dialogue planning based on history and current state of the issue: Trainees learn to design dialogues by analyzing the impact of past conversations, how to support viewpoint diversity and who has been excluded from previous conversations on this topic.
Session 3: Skills for developing group agreements for “sufficient safety”: Trainees learn how to develop group agreements that help dialogue participants listen with curiosity and humility to learn about others and what they care about.
Session 4: Formulating dialogue questions: Trainees learn to create dialogue questions that are open-ended and culturally-relevant that will help dialogue participants share their hopes or concerns on their topic.
Session 5: Inviting participants into dialogue: Trainees learn how to successfully invite and welcome participants holding diverse viewpoints, experiences and identities into dialogue.

The Art of Dialogue Facilitation – A Skills Training  Workshop

This training equips trainees with in-depth facilitation tools to guide small-group dialogues on science-based, health-related issues of societal concern. Trainees learn to foster curiosity and productive communication, even in the face of disagreement through facilitation strategies that manage challenges that can arise during dialogue.

Below is a sample of dialogues CSC has planned and facilitated or trained community based organizations and partners to implement: 

Building Resilience: Promoting AAPI Access to Mental Health CareIn collaboration with Tufts CTSI and the Museum of Science, CSC dialogue facilitators supported a Public Forum to raise awareness about mental health resources and barriers Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) face accessing mental health care. (October 2023)
Dialogue Facilitation on Homelessness and Affordable HousingThis facilitator training series supported members of Tufts CTSI Stakeholder Expert Panel by building capacities to facilitate community dialogues on homelessness and affordable housing in Salem, Massachusetts. (August 2023)
Dialogue for Seniors- “Culture, Community, and Alternative Medicine”CSC dialogue facilitators planned and supported dialogues for Black seniors to support sharing their healthcare experiences related to Alternative Medicine with each other. (January 2023)
Dialogue for Seniors- “What does Healing Mean to you?”CSC dialogue facilitators planned and supported dialogues for Black seniors to share their experiences related to healing in their community and with each other. (August 2022)
The Possibilities of Personalized Medicine: A Public Forum In collaboration with Tufts CTSI and the Boston Museum of Science, CSC trained facilitators and helped plan a public forum to discuss the benefits, barriers, and challenges facing personalized medicine, the emerging field that tailors treatments to individual patients. (November 2021)
Food Justice: A Public Forum In collaboration with Tufts CTSI and the Boston Museum of Science, CSC dialogue facilitators planned and supported dialogues to discuss current problems in the food system and consider action that individuals can take to contribute to solutions. (April 2021)
“Building Communities of Resilience to Support Addicts in Recovery” In collaboration with Tufts CTSI and the Boston Museum of Science, CSC dialogue facilitators supported small group conversations to better understand stigma associated with addiction and to explore more effective interventions to alleviate pain and suffering. (November 2019)
Vaccination Decisions: Recruiting for Clinical Trials In collaboration with Boston’s Museum of Science, CSC dialogue facilitators supported small group conversations exploring how clinical vaccine trials can become more equitable, especially for communities which have been historically excluded from medical testing. (February 2021)
Vaccine Decisions: Rolling out the Vaccine At this town hall, organized by the Boston Museum of Science, CSC dialogue facilitators supported discussions on equity of COVID-19 vaccine distribution. (January 2021)

Teacher training workshops: “The Dialogic Classroom”: 

Classroom dialogues help students see themselves and others through multiple lenses when discussing complex science issues. This workshop trains teachers who want to create classrooms that build a sense of belonging where students respectfully listen to understand others even in the face of disagreement. Teachers learn to weave principles of dialogue into their syllabus to guide students through challenging conversations.

Below are examples of dialogue trainings, workshops and facilitations that CSC has created for educators and classroom teachers to bring dialogue into practice:

Workshop Series to Prepare Inclusive Classrooms to Respond to Difficult Dialogues This training offered teachers skills to create classroom agreements that provide “sufficient safety” needed for students to share their experiences and beliefs and to listen with curiosity and empathy to the experiences of others. (In collaboration with Tufts CELT; February-April 2024)
Dialogue Across Difference: Dialogue Training for the High School Science TeachersThis workshop trained high school science teachers to facilitate classroom conversations where students could openly discuss what they think and feel about controversial science topics that impact their lives. (July 2020)
Western New York Climate Conversations CSC trained high school STEM teachers to create classroom dialogues to help students express their hopes and concerns about climate justice and listen to those of others, even in the face of continuing disagreement. (February 2019)
Massachusetts STEM WEEK:In collaboration with MassBioEd, CSC facilitators  supported small group dialogues to discuss what “belonging in science” means to students studying biotechnology at New Mission High School. (October 2020)
Intellectual Humility in Public Discourse In collaboration with Essential Partner, this Templeton Foundation-funded project trained Tufts University faculty to create classroom dialogues that cultivate intellectual humility and connection across difference to support student growth and learning. (February 2017)
Science Engagement Through Dialogue : Tufts/Gordon College Teaching Project CSC trained Tufts and Gordon College faculty to conduct dialogues on topics such as vaccine acceptance, CRISPR gene editing and the origins of human life for first year Freshman undergraduate students. (March 2021)
Western New York State Masters Teachers Program CSC trained high school STEM teachers to integrate dialogues into their classrooms to help students listen to and respect the values, beliefs and opinions of their peers when discussing controversial science issues. (February 2019)

CSC dialogues build more productive communication within research teams and support bi-directional communication between researchers and communities with a stake in research. We do this through dialogues that can build more equitable and trustworthy relationships between scientists, healthcare providers, and citizens.

Below is a sample of dialogues CSC has planned and facilitated or trained researchers, scientists, and health experts to facilitate:

Tufts Gordon Institute Workshop to Promote Team CommunicationCSC planned and implemented a dialogue workshop series that further advanced TGI’s culture of inclusion across diverse professional roles to enrich the experience of staff, faculty and students. (August 2021)
Community Dialogue: Living with DiabetesIn collaboration with Tufts CTSI, CSC facilitators planned and led dialogues where people with diabetes, their family members, researchers, clinicians, and patient advocates shared experiences about living with diabetes and discussed hopes and concerns on how research can improve the lives of patients. (March 2021)
Harvard Institute of Therapeutic Science (HITS): Dialogues that Build More Inclusive Research TeamsCSC implemented 3 dialogue workshops where members of collaborative research teams shared their values and experiences to foster project teams with a deeper sense of belonging and inclusion. (November 2023 – March 2024)
Breaking the Silence: Confronting Exclusion in ResearchIn collaboration with Tufts CTSI and Tufts Medical School, CSC planned and facilitated small group dialogues for care providers and researchers to address the lack of representation of research conducted by investigators of color and lack of inclusion of communities of color in clinical research trials. (March 2020)
Cambridge Science Festival: Civic Science Roundtable Event on Sports-Related Brain InjuryIn collaboration with the Cambridge Science Festival, CSC planned and facilitated small group dialogues with high school students and their families on the challenges they face in making well-informed choices related to participation in sports that carry the risk of brain injuries. (April 2019)

If any of these examples align with your hopes for putting dialogue into practice, reach out to us to learn more about how we can support the conversation you want to have. 

Looking for something beyond dialogue? Explore our resource hub for more offerings.

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