Templates and sample language for instructors
Adapt the language below for your students and your class.
For offering SwayBeta as a required course component
This semester, some of your assignments will involve discussions that take place on SwayBeta, an educational chat app that’s free for everyone in this class. Sway will pair you with a classmate and use AI to facilitate a discussion between you. To create an account, visit go.swaybeta.ai/register. Use your official [INSTITUTION NAME] email address to register, along with an access code that I will share with you.
Every Sway discussion assignment has two parts:
Complete an opinion survey: You must complete the survey by the opinion deadline to be matched with a classmate. If you miss this deadline, you cannot complete the assignment. I expect you to message your partner no later than [X] hours after the opinion deadline to agree on a plan for completing the assignment.
Not responding to your partner after matching is a serious issue because it prevents another student from completing the assignment. To encourage responsible group work, I'm implementing the following policy: [see sample policy below]Chat with your partner: You must progress to 100% and complete the brief understanding quiz at the end by the completion deadline to receive credit for the assignment. After completing the chat, you’ll take a brief quiz to assess your understanding of your partner’s viewpoints.
Privacy
Students should feel comfortable to explore and challenge their deeply held beliefs, so your chats are private: only you and your partner can read them. However, the platform automatically checks to ensure that students are broadly engaging with the topics that I assign. I will see the results of these checks and I will also see your scores from the Understanding Quiz.
Timing
Your chats will have a minimum duration of [X] minutes, after which you will receive the quiz. (You can continue chatting after the quiz.) The minimum duration is an estimate of how long the conversation would take if you completed the assignment in one go, sending messages back and forth continuously. While you and your partner might arrange a time to complete the assignment in one sitting, you can also complete it by exchanging messages asynchronously at your own pace—just make sure to turn on real-time notifications for new messages!
Viewpoint diversity
Sway will automatically pair you with a classmate based on your answers to the opinion survey. It will try to match you with a student who disagrees with you. However, sometimes you might be paired with a classmate who agrees with you. In this case, either you or your classmate will be tasked with playing Devil’s advocate (i.e., arguing for the side you don’t personally believe).
*Sample policy for students who do not respond to their chat partners
An early adopter found that this policy was effective: If a student doesn't send the first message or respond to their partner within [X] hours of the opinion deadline, the student will not get to participate in the next assignment.
We suggest also considering an "optional-mandatory" participation policy to mitigate the problem of students neglecting their partners: see this article in Science Advances. Such a policy would allow students to choose at the beginning of the semester whether they would like to participate in Sway Assignments. This choice can generate a powerful sense of ownership and increased motivation.
Sample assignment language
Topic focus: Abortion and bodily autonomy
Opinion deadline: Nov 23, 11:59 PM
Completion deadline: Nov 26, 11:59 PM (including quick post-chat quiz)
Minimum approximate chat duration: 45 minutes
Remember, if you miss the opinion deadline, you will not be able to participate in this assignment. To enter your opinions, simply log into Sway before the deadline. If you haven’t already created your account on Sway, leave yourself a few extra minutes to do so.
Sway will attempt to match you with another student who disagrees with you on one of the topic statements. Occasionally, however, you might be matched with a classmate who agrees with you. In such cases, either you or your classmate will be chosen to play devil’s advocate (i.e., argue for the side you don’t personally believe). Sway's Guide will be there to make sure the devil’s advocate formulates the strongest possible counterarguments.
Enter your opinions and get started as soon as you like—just visit chat.swaybeta.ai.
For offering Sway as an optional course component
To give students more opportunities to discuss course materials outside of class, I’ve made SwayBeta freely available to you.
Sway is a chat platform, similar to WhatsApp or iMessage, but it’s specifically designed to facilitate meaningful discussions on controversial topics. It is part of an educational research project at Carnegie Mellon University; you can learn more about it at www.swaybeta.ai.
You can create an account at go.swaybeta.ai/register using your official school email address. Once registered, you’ll see a list of topics, including:
[Example of some topic statements that students can chat about].
When you create an account, Sway will automatically pair you with other students from our class who hold different perspectives. The goal is to explore topics and deepen your understanding by engaging with someone who sees things differently. I’ll periodically add new discussion topics to our class’s Sway chats.
This is an optional component, but I believe that having serious discussions with people who don’t share your perspective should be an essential part of your education. Often, it’s also deeply rewarding on a personal level, so I hope you’ll check it out!
[If you wish to give students the opportunity to earn bonus credit by participating, you can mention the details here.]