Balancing Openness and Interpretation in Active Listening - Key ideas and interactive session reflection

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by jay

Balancing Openness and Interpretation in Active Listening outlines active listening as a core communication practice used across educational development and related professions. The paper traces key historical theories, then frames active listening through two orientations: humanism and professionalism. It argues that openness and interpretation must be balanced, highlighting how listening techniques can be misused when technique is prioritized over genuine engagement. The authors also reflect on outcomes from an STLHE 2015 interactive session and offer ways educators can recognize and correct these risks.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages10

Reading Time25 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

What We Mean by Active Listening

Two orientations: humanism and professionalism

Openness and interpretation as pillars

Interactive session and outcomes

Balancing Openness and Interpretation in Active Listening Joseph Topornycky and Shaya Golparian University of British Columbia Active listening is an important communication skill in a variety of disciplines and professions, including the profession of Educational Development. In our roles as educational developers, we engage in a variety of processes, all of which rely heavily on the practice of active listening. Emerging strategies of active listening praxis have allowed us to highlight the risks involved in applying techniques of active listening while engaging in our day to day practices as educational developers. In this paper, we share a short historical review of theories and approaches to active listening and identify its two inherent orientations: humanism and professionalism. We highlight openness and interpretation as two pillars of active listening and explore ways of maintaining a balance between those pillars as they relate to techniques of humanism and professionalism. We explain aspects of the interactive session we facilitated during STLHE 2015 where, as a group, we named and discussed ways that active listening could go wrong. We explore ways that we, as educators and educational developers, might recognize when we may be foregrounding technique over listening, and how to correct some of these issues. Introduction As edconsuultcaattiioonn, alneeddesvealsoperssessmen, ewoernksgahgeop ainnd program design and facilitation, program coordination, program evaluation, and a variety of other processes, all of which rely heavily on the practice of active listening. There has been extensive attention paid to approaches, strategies, and frameworks for active listening across many professions and disciplines. These strategies can and do help educational developers to attend to the needs of the instructors and teaching assistants (TAs) that they support. However, we have also noticed that these frameworks and approaches can be misused in ways that contravene the intention of active listening. We have observed firsthand a number of ways that active listening can go wrong in the work of educational developers, particularly when the framework or technique used is foregrounded ahead of the actual act of listening. For example, educational developers may use structured questioning techniques to direct conversation in a way that accords with their own agendas over the expressed needs of the faculty member or graduate student, especially during consultation meetings or instances where educational developers, armed with a repertoire of question and response stems (such as: “I hear you saying …”), become little more than note-takers for faculty members who are looking for advice or suggestions. Having identified this major challenge in our line of work, we designed and led an interactive session at STLHE 2015, intended for those whose professional educational praxis rely on active listening (i.e. educational developers, instructors, university management) . Additionally, our goal was to have participants generate a few strategies for finding an appropriate ethical and practical balance between self and other when actively listening. In this paper, we investigate active listening as a humanistic and professional practice among educators and educational developers, we share the theory underlying the approach we used during the interactive session on active listening that we facilitated at STLHE 2015, and reflect on the outcomes of that session and the implications for active listening. What We Mean by Active Listening Active listening (also called empathic listening, speaker-listener technique, reﬂected listening, dialogic listening) is the act of hearing a speaker, avoiding premature judgment, reflecting understanding, clarifying information through restating a paraphrased version of the speaker’s message and asking questions, summarizing, and sharing (Hoppe, 2006; Weger, Castle Bell, Minei, & Robinson, 2014).

FAQs

What does the paper define as active listening?

Active listening is described as hearing a speaker while avoiding premature judgment, reflecting understanding, clarifying through paraphrase and questions, summarizing, and sharing.

Which two orientations does the paper identify for active listening?

The paper identifies two inherent orientations: humanism and professionalism, and explains how openness and interpretation should balance within them.

How can active listening go wrong in educational development work?

It can go wrong when a framework or technique is foregrounded ahead of genuine listening, such as using structured questioning to steer conversation toward the educator’s agenda rather than the faculty member’s needs.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by jay