Facilitator's Toolkit for the Pluralism Playset

Constructive dialogue should not require extensive training, a professional facilitator, or agreement on every issue. The Facilitator’s Toolkit for the Pluralism Playset will provide a free, ready-to-use training package that helps students, faculty, staff, educators, clergy, and community leaders facilitate conversations across ideological, cultural, and demographic differences.

The toolkit will support three tested dialogue games that use cards, images, scenarios, and structured prompts to make difficult conversations more approachable. Participants will practice curiosity, perspective-taking, attentive listening, and respectful disagreement – without being pressured to disclose personal identities, defend fixed positions, or reach consensus.

Audience

Student organization leaders, resident advisers, graduate student instructors, faculty members, student-facing staff, chaplains and campus ministry leaders, civic-engagement staff, and community partners.

What it offers

The project combines self-paced facilitator preparation with experiential, small-group dialogue.

• Learn to organize and facilitate a dialogue event with minimal prior experience.
• Practice listening to understand rather than simply preparing a response.
• Explore how different values and experiences can lead reasonable people to different conclusions.
• Ask open-ended questions grounded in curiosity instead of debate.
• Discuss complex topics in a structured, lower-risk environment.
• Engage through speaking, writing, visual prompts, or observation, with permission to pass.
• Learn how to respond to emotional moments or disagreement without forcing consensus.
• Use evaluation tools to understand participant experiences and improve future events.

The three dialogue games

The Pluralism Playdeck – A scaffolded conversation game that begins with lower-risk interaction and gradually moves toward deeper discussion of topics such as religion, gender, identity, and social or economic issues.

See with Me – An art-based dialogue game in which participants select and arrange photographs to communicate their perspectives on concepts such as family, belonging, love, religion, and the human body. Players compare how different visual choices can express both shared and contrasting interpretations.

WWYD: What Would You Do? – A perspective-taking card game built around morally complex scenarios. Participants are assigned values such as fairness, freedom, loyalty, dignity, tradition, or security and must consider a response that prioritizes that value. The activity demonstrates how differing value priorities can produce different conclusions without making disagreement personal.

Toolkit development and testing

The final toolkit will include:

• A self-paced facilitator orientation.
• Guidance for selecting the appropriate dialogue game.
• Event-planning checklists and templates.
• Short demonstration videos.
• Sample opening and closing language.
• Strategies for recruiting participants with varied perspectives.
• Guidance for responding to emotional intensity or disruption.
• Accessibility and inclusive-participation instructions.
• Quick-start guides and printable materials.
• Evaluation surveys and QR-coded feedback tools.
• Guidance on adapting activities while preserving their core purpose.

At least 36 facilitators—approximately 12 students, 12 staff members, and 12 faculty members—will be recruited from varied disciplines, organizations, worldviews, and levels of experience.

A small cohort will first complete the training and lead six supervised pilot events. After the toolkit is revised, facilitators will independently organize at least 24 additional events in classrooms, residence halls, student organizations, campus ministries, staff-development programs, professional schools, and community settings.

The project anticipates at least 30 test events and approximately 450 participant encounters. At least six events will take place at community-facing sites beyond the primary U-M campuses, with potential participation from U-M Ann Arbor, Dearborn, and Flint and Wayne State University.

Impact on the public good

The project will expand access to dialogue by transferring facilitation capacity from a small number of specialists to a broader network of campus and community leaders. Faculty will be able to introduce structured dialogue into courses without designing difficult conversations from scratch, while student and staff leaders will be equipped to offer events within their own communities.

Because the toolkit will be free, portable, and largely asynchronous, it can also serve educators, clergy, and community leaders who lack funding for formal facilitator training. The project is intended to:

• Increase the number of dialogue events offered on campuses and in communities.
• Reach participants beyond groups already involved in dialogue programming.
• Broaden ideological, religious, disciplinary, and demographic participation.
• Improve confidence in listening, questioning, and engaging across differences.
• Normalize disagreement as compatible with continued relationship.
• Create a field-tested model that can be shared with other institutions nationally.