-: First of this week for our syllabus week
here at the Center for Teaching and Learning
and today's session is called,
Inclusive Teaching: A Faculty Panel Of Lessons Learned.
And I am pleased to welcome our panelists.
We have four faculty
who have agreed to share some of their lessons learned
with us this morning.
And I am going to set up
what the questions were that I sent them to respond to.
And then each of them is going to have a few moments to
talk about some ideas that they've implemented.
Some lessons that they've learned from participating
in the Cornell online course on inclusive teaching.
And then we will have time
for everyone who's participating to ask them some questions.
I just wanted to
get us started off by welcoming you all
and asking you to post your name your department,
along with, if you're familiar with the little GIF
or GIF button that is in the chat
you should be able to post a little
image of how you're feeling on this Monday morning
(chuckles)
the first of many of your weeks back
into thinking about your courses for the spring semester.
And that will just get us started off as far as
to how everyone's doing this morning.
And we're glad that you're here.
Just a couple of housekeeping things.
Please make sure your microphone is muted
during the workshop.
And if you want to ask the facilitators a question
or have a comment,
you can raise your hand which is on the little toolbar.
And also you can post some comments
or questions in the chat as we're going along.
So we just wanna make sure when the panelists are speaking,
that they're not interrupted with either background noise
or questions right in the moment.
So I will be curating the questions along with
my colleague, Jen who is here to help out with tech support,
making sure we're on track
and that the technology is working for folks.
So Jen, would you mind just introducing yourself real quick?
-: I wouldn't mind at all.
(Holly laughs) Hi everybody.
Glad to be here.
Appreciating the GIFs that are coming in
and yeah, looking forward to learning from our panelists.
And feel free to type it to the chat,
if you're having any tech problems,
happy to troubleshoot for you.
-: Thanks a lot, Jen.
And we will be having each of our panelists,
as I mentioned just talk briefly about their own experiences
and because there are four of them
I have to be a little bit careful
with making sure folks have equal amount of time to be fair.
So I will be timing them
as far as letting them know
if they've used up a little bit too much time
and then we'll be able to go back to them
after the fact for any questions that folks may have.
So they each have about seven minutes
to talk about their experiences.
And so the questions that I put out to the panel
and that there'll be responding to are
related to an online experience that took place
over four weeks time.
Some of the participants too took this online course
during the fall of 2019
and some of them took this course during the spring of 2020.
So two different groups of faculty who are represented here.
And in each case we were all taking the same
online course together.
It was a free course through edX
put together by Cornell.
And the topic was,
Teaching in a Diverse Classroom
and inclusive teaching in particular.
And so what I asked each of them to prepare
was a little bit about the course context for you all.
So they're each from different disciplines
and they each taught different courses
in either the spring of 2020
or the fall of 2020.
So they'll talk about that context.
They'll talk about why they participated
in this online learning experience, as well as participating
in a faculty learning community that I was facilitating
where we would come together three times over the course
of the online work that we were doing together in the MOOC.
And during these sessions,
we would talk about what we were experiencing
as part of the learning in the MOOC, as well as
sharing some ideas that had come up in our group.
So there is quite a lot of comradery
that was developed as part of that experience
and in the spring of 2019, excuse me, the fall of 2019
the group of 18 faculty came together in person.
And in the spring of 2020,
we were able to, I believe meet one time in person.
And then we had to do our followup meetings virtually.
So just to give you a little context about how that worked.
And then they'll also talk to you about
the implementation of what they learned
in the MOOC and any assessments
that they changed as a result.
And some of them did change some things
some of them did not change assessments
but we'll talk to you about the rationale as to why.
So that's what we'll be covering this morning.
And again, if you have questions as you're going through
please feel free to either hold them to the question period
or you can post it in the chat
and I'll be looking for those as well as Jen.
And we can try to interject at the appropriate time
as each panelist is speaking.
So we have Lisa is up first, Lisa Schnell
from the department of English.
And I'm gonna let Lisa
turn on her video and introduce herself
and just tell us a little bit about her experiences.
Hi, Lisa.
-: Thanks Holly.
I just wanna make sure that I'm on the screen.
-: I can see you.
-: Okay, good.
My computer's not happy on teams this morning.
So thanks for inviting me, Holly.
And this was a really meaningful
workshop to do with the Cornell course.
The Cornell course was excellent.
And it couldn't have timed it better
really because so many of the things that
we thought about, explored, things that really forced me
to think about my teaching were things that
I drew on in very important ways this fall. (chuckles)
I knew I would have drawn on many of those things anyway
but I think the anti was really upped by
the way that we were needed to teach this fall.
So I did see all of my students
except for my at-home students,
in person, in some ways this fall
I had a mixed class, not an in-person class.
So, one of the things that I was aware of
right from the beginning
was just like incredible equity issues
about who was in the class and who was not in the class.
And I think I would have thought of that anyway,
but again, the Cornell course made me think about
rapport in particular,
like how important it was to create
rapport in my classes,
in any situation but especially
when some students were actually there with me
and the other people were not
and were never gonna be with me in the semester
because they were at home students.
And then also just rapport with masks on
and with the inability to be in a circle
and be closer together and do small group work
and the sort of things
that I would normally have done in class.
It's like, what do I do and how do I do it?
So, the Cornell course was very good
at introducing both ideas
and encouraging professors
to work a little bit outside
of their own kind of personal boundaries a little bit
to share things with their students
that they might not be used to sharing.
And so I did that.
I too was going through what the students
were going through and I made it clear
that I wasn't a person without a context (chuckles)
the same context as they had
in whatever way they were encountering me.
I had to be silly at times.
I had to find ways to lighten the mood and bring us back
to the thing that we were supposed to be doing.
I also just needed to be very honest
again and again and again about
how hard it was but how good it felt to be learning.
And I think it was a way to keep things real
all semester a bout who I was and what I was going through
and hearing what they were going through as well.
And so it allowed for,
I think there was real rapport that was built
in both my classes this semester,
even with the students who were at home
and there were ways I could have made it better, I'm sure
but I think the Cornell course really helped me
just give me the kind of confidence
to do what I needed to do to step outside of boundaries
that I have frequently put up when I teach my classes.
In a syllabus way, the course was really important to me.
I teach in English department
I teach mainly early modern stuff, so 16th and 17th century.
We tend not to think of that
as being anything other than sort of dead white guys.
And I was gonna be teaching Shakespeare this fall.
So I really wanted to be...
I wanted to kind of give myself a bit of a head start
on thinking about how I could teach that course
very differently from the way I've taught it before
by bringing issues of particularly
issues associated with race
and also issues associated with gender and sexuality
into the course in a very explicit way.
The place invite that
if I make the invitation.
And so one of the things that the Cornell course
taught me was, to think about,
what invitation am I extending into my syllabus?
What choices am I making that would make the course
either inclusive of the issues that I think
are tremendously important, not just to me,
but especially to the students right now.
And how can I shut that down or open it up
based on the choices I make in my syllabus.
So I went pretty far outside of the zone
that I know really well
into areas of content that I had not explored before.
I sacrificed coverage for a really deep dive
in issues that were pertinent
and really relevant to our lives today.
And that made a big difference.
Normally I would have read about eight plays instead I read
three Shakespeare plays and two non Shakespeare plays.
I chose plays that were difficult,
A Fellow, Merchant of Venice,
and there were difficult conversations that came up
as a result of that.
And the course was also very good about sort of helping me
through some of those hot button moments.
So I'll stop there and let others
talk about their own experiences
as well, I'm happy to answer questions later on.
-: Thank you so much, Lisa.
I think you did a nice job
of building the context that you were in
as well as talking about specific things that you changed
as a result of being in this learning experience together.
So thank you for that.
And we will look forward to questions in a little bit.
And next up we have Krista Jones from the department
of animal and veterinary sciences, Krista.
-: Hi guys.
So I am a lecture in animal health sciences
and I actually took the MOOC or sort of had this discussion
with everyone last fall, well, a year and a half now
fall of 2019 when it was actually my first semester at UVM.
And this is my first full-time teaching position.
So I think a little bit different
from some of the other folks.
I knew that,
that this was a topic that was very important to me,
but I also, wasn't sort of entirely sure
other than sort of my gut feeling how to sort of
go about approaching, fostering inclusivity in my classes.
And so for a little context,
so these are the classes you can see
that I taught in the spring and fall.
So I had one class that was online
and the other classes were remote.
So mixture, actually that's not true
two classes that would be sort of...
one of my spring classes transitioned
to being mostly online.
And so a combination of online and remote
but I was not doing any in-person teaching which obviously
brings more challenges in terms of that
rapport and connection.
And I think that...
So there are a few things that I sort of really gleaned
from the MOOC.
And some of them I knew that I feel it than others
that were very successful and others I'm not really sure.
So for instance,
one of the things that kind of surprised me,
I guess that came up was how important it is
just to really have an explicit statement
of inclusivity goals on your syllabus
and how that really impacted some of the students at Cornell
and some of the, sort of the research behind that.
And so I certainly done that.
I think I wouldn't have expected that
it would have a major impact
but I do think certainly I always wanted to talk about it
on the first day and I think that's really important
just to make it clear that sort of setting
standards for a little bit around
who I am and what kind of environment to create.
But also then I had the students,
at least when we were in person
I had the students were talking more about class norms
and also getting everyone on the same page in terms of
wanting to have a very open
and respectful, welcoming, and kind of class environment.
I also think something I hadn't
thought too much or I thought about in some ways,
but not in others in terms of really trying to get diversity
of our representation and perspectives in my classes.
And I thought about that sort of culturally I think,
I talk in a number of my classes
about sort of big global conservation and health issues.
And so it was very much on my mind to try and bring in
perspectives from different parts of the world
and different cultures.
But I think I hadn't thought as much about trying to get
diversity of representation in terms of for instance,
just like the stock photos I might pull off
I'm supposed to use on my slides.
And also
my field is quite dominated
in the scientific literature, certainly by white people.
And depending on whether you're looking at
certainly further back it's very male dominated these days
it's getting more female dominated,
but they're trying to find ways that I could identify
some of the people that maybe have a bit more diversity
and trying to make sure I'm incorporating them
into my syllabus as much as I can.
So that was definitely something that was more
of a challenge in some areas than others.
And then the other thing is just really trying to
touch base with the students as much as I could
to see how things were going
and I think was particularly important
once we were not in person anymore.
And so it's much harder when you're
either just looking at a screen of icons
or you're not synchronous at all.
So there were a lot of,
either some of the questions were weekly via Blackboard
or I also used,
when we're in class I used iClickers,
but a lot of questions just about how students were doing,
which things for instance,
I thought one nice question was, what was the thing
that was most confusing to you in today's lesson?
Because that's not making anyone feel bad
but if you are not understanding something,
but sort of making everyone feel like it's okay
to have something and then at the start of the next class
I could go back and revisit the things that
had been identified as being confusing without people having
to sort of draw attention to themselves in class.
And asking questions about,
what might make you more comfortable speaking up in class
or being able to share your perspective
and things like that.
And then I also tried to,
I think I might be running a time here,
but I also tried to give some choices
in terms of assessments.
So options, both in terms of how they gained
some of their points during the semester
or they could participate in discussions
or do online quizzes
or there are a number of different options there.
They had some topical choices
when they were doing either group projects or independent
some different books they could read, for example.
And then also giving them options
when they were doing projects
on how they wanted to present those in the end.
So whether it is creating a website, writing a paper
creating a video, or even a game
they had different ways they could express
on what they had learned.
I think that's sort of...
I think there's still a long ways to go
but as sort of Lisa said
I think it has been very helpful in this particular time
to try and think about alternative ways of connecting
with the students and how to support people who are learning
in very different environments right now
and dealing with different kinds of issues.
-: Thank you, Krista.
Do you have like a sentence or two that you might add
just on how students responded
to these choices for assessments?
-: Yes, I think actually that in terms of the assessments
I think that was very positive.
I think a lot of students expressed it was really nice
to be able to have some choices
and to be able to...
So both in terms of,
for instance with the engagement and response points,
it was nice if they had
weeks that they had personal stuff going on
or they had just a lot of crazy things in other classes
they had some options where,
maybe I wouldn't get as many points that week
and I can make those up another time
without having to worry as much
about sort of missing assignments per se
and also the ability to choose their topics,
especially something they're more interested in.
And also choose,
how it was presented gave them some new skills
for students who were interested in that.
And it didn't have to, for students who just
wanted to write a paper.
And I think they also found it made it a bit
more interesting when we were looking
through all the projects at the end
'cause there was such a diversity of options.
So yeah, it was very positive response, I think.
-: Thank you so much. -: Yeah.
-: Okay. Next step up we have Priyantha.
-: Good morning everyone. (laughs)
Okay, so I taught two classes that's in the spring
and two classes in the fall
and the spring classes
actually one was senior graduate level class.
The other one is a junior level class.
And we had to move to remote instruction.
So I had some plans at the very beginning of the semester
how I wanted to incorporate the concepts
that I learned from MOOC.
And I had to adjust to the remote environment
but I feel like it worked well.
And in the fall I was more prepared because I knew
this is the area I had to teach.
So I think I did better in the fall
in terms of incorporating
these concepts I learned from MOOC.
So why I wanted to participate in MOOC
is I thought I was doing okay.
I mean, my student evaluations were good
and the students seem to
learn the concepts content very well.
But I noticed that some students
especially the international students
and female students are not very proactive
and all this kind of
behind sometimes
in getting things done and working in their groups.
So I wanted to find new ways, how to help them
and the civil engineering, our discipline is male dominated.
And you only see about less than 20% of female students
in our classes.
And in my senior class,
I had only five female students.
So it's kind of challenging.
And also when I talk to the students who have graduated
and the issues that they're facing in their workplaces
sometimes that they have decided to quit their jobs
because of the issues they are facing
lack of diversity and all these things.
So I wanted to tell my students,
even before they graduate,
this is how the world looks like when you graduate.
So prepare and be strong and just give them some support
and some additional resources
that they can do well after they graduate.
So that's one of my goals of taking MOOC.
And the lessons learned,
and I agree with Lisa,
creating an interpersonal rapport is super important.
And the first,
even before I begin my classes
I asked the students to post about their,
I give them an assignment to post
about themselves like introductory assignment.
So they get to introduce themselves to the others.
Talk a little bit about themselves
their goals, career goals, and hobbies
and their favorite songs, movies kind of,
getting to know each other well, even before we meet.
So I continue to use that even in the remote setting
which I didn't have any issues.
And I used a different kind of alternative platforms.
I mean, a discussion platforms because Blackboard
I created that didn't work really well.
So in the summer I used (indistinct)
for these kinds of discussions,
which I saw like work really well.
And the students were very comfortable sharing their ideas
and we were chatting each other identifying their interests.
So that kind of helped to create the community in class
that helped actually in the long run.
So students knew each other even before they met in class.
And also the first day of class,
I actually spend more than 10 minutes
to talk about my expectations
regarding diversity and inclusion.
And I post this nice picture, two salads,
one salad you have the ingredients,
you probably have seen that.
So the first salad dish has ingredients
arranged in the dish but they are not incorporated.
They're colorful nice but they are not incorporated.
And the second center dish has the ingredients
nicely incorporated balanced with the color and the size.
So it's like different ingredients compliment each other.
So I asked the students to identify which salad dish
represents diversity, which one represents inclusion.
And they would always pick the correct one.
And that's how I start my conversation.
And I tell them, this are my expectations.
And I also talk about equity and equality.
Why? Some students need the extra support and how,
you know what I mean? It's okay to ask for extra support
because eventually we all have the same goal.
And also I talk a little bit about
different learning styles,
how they perceive information and how they kind of
get the input and how they process.
These are different from one students to another student.
And I give them a quiz to identify their own learning style
which kind of fun actually
that was the first time some of them have heard
there are something different learning styles.
So they were kind of curious to learn their learning styles.
So I set up the classroom in my Mondays.
It's hard, it takes time and it's even harder
to continue with that throughout the semester
because when in the middle of the semester,
they forget we made this commitment
now we have going back to our old
ways of handling things.
So I had to remind them, no, no, you have to
still commit to your goals.
And again, like bringing the variety course content
can go a long way.
Like I tried to bring variety.
Like, for example, if I teach a topic
a civil engineering topic I would assign them a reading
and post a video.
And also like a demonstrations
even in remote online teaching, I would show demonstrations.
And I remember bringing my long beams and
different types of trestles too. (chuckles)
I was teaching in, what it that?
The alumni center?
So I was carrying that to the class
and show to the remote group
because my steel class was a mixed.
So half of the students were watching remotely
and half the class was with me.
So I was sharing these demonstrations which was so much fun.
And so in terms of delivering, I think that
the variety can bring the students together
because it caters their different learning styles.
And in the assessment options,
this is something I had to work on
but I tried something new, which seemed to work.
So I was seeing one of the book groups
we started in the spring,
teaching creativity book group.
And we didn't, we actually met a few times
and then everyone had to go remote.
So we didn't get to meet after that
but to be with trying different ways of
how we can assign certain assessments,
certain things to students.
So what I did was in the spring
after teaching a topic related to bridge design
I asked the students to appreciate,
pick a bridge of their interest and appreciated it's beauty
as a structural engineer's perspective
using whatever the method they wanted to choose.
So I had like poems and videos, some students created music
and the other nice drawings and letters.
So I feel like they had fun
because I think especially in online and remote contexts
the variety we can bring to a assessment
can be very effective.
I mean, they're like from 8:00 AM until midnight
in front of their (chuckles) laptop their computers
and it can be very boring.
So I sometimes will assign work
that they're supposed to go outside
because structure and take pictures and analyze.
So they had to move out of their houses.
So something like that, I try to incorporate.
And then something I really wanted to share is that
in my senior class last fall
students do this presentation
I call this my favorite structure and they work in groups.
I pick actually two students
because I had a smaller class with 20 students.
So two students pick their favorite structure
and talked about it at the beginning of every class.
And so giving the students choice was really,
helpful and they really enjoyed that.
And something I noticed was that
one student who is African-American
the structure the bridge that student picked
had a history tied to anti-slavery movement.
So she talked about it.
And she was passionate and she's an activist
and has a passion of social justice.
So she discussed that expressed her passion.
And I thought, oh well this is great.
So she's like bringing the content
to her passion.
So I kind of explained to everyone
this is what you should be doing.
You should not separate the topics and your passion.
So if you can bring everything together
that can make a huge difference.
So I think some of the things I tried worked.
I wanted to try more.
It is challenging but it's fun.
So that's what I wanted to share.
Happy to answer any questions maybe later.
-: Thanks so much Priyantha.
I wanted to give you a heads up that there was
a request to see
the learning styles inventory -: Yeah.
-: that you used with your students.
So perhaps you could find that
if you have a moment and put it in the chat for us.
-: I was expecting that question,
(Holly laughs) and I have that in the PDF.
I will attach it to the chat.
-: Okay, thank you.
And we'll be back after Eric
with probably some questions for you.
Thank you.
All right, Eric Ruggles from chemistry.
-: How are you doing up there?
(Holly laughs)
I apologize for all the texts.
This is more like the thoughts in my head.
It's been a long time
since I've actually done a PowerPoint presentation,
I'm more of a chalk talk type of person.
So my name's Eric Ruggles.
I work in the chemistry department as a lecturer.
Hopefully there's a promotion soon coming. (chuckles)
We'll see, I did my green sheets the other day so.
First off CTL is a great place.
That's a great learning environment.
Being a teacher.
I think we are all academics, we all want to learn.
We all wanna gain knowledge, right?
And so that's why I see Holly a lot
and we tend to talk a lot within these types of programs.
I teach general chemistry.
So we're talking about large service course,
usually 200 students
to 250 per section.
This fall, we were lacking a little bit
because of the COVID numbers,
but still I had three sections of about 170 per section.
The way I teach is something I implemented in the summer.
I also teach general chemistry 31,
as well as the second half 32 in the summer.
And that was when COVID was rampant
and everyone was freaking out, right?
So that was when everything went completely virtual.
So not only did I do this program but I also did
the crash course in online teaching through CTL
which is another fantastic program.
And so the way I've taught 31 and 32 this fall,
as well as in the past summer is completely online.
So I've videoed all of my lectures that I've done.
These are chalk talks that are done on notability
as well as being able to incorporate,
demo videos, demos as well.
I mean, I hear a lot of great things
from other teachers that have been talking here,
especially I like the demos of the trestles
and the bridges and things like that,
'cause I think that's so important
especially for the science community.
So incorporating what I would usually give
in an in classroom presentation, but doing that completely
through the virtual network.
So I recorded all of my lectures in that way.
And when I tried in the summer and as well as in the fall
and going forward in the spring is flipping the classroom.
So now what I do is I assign as homework,
my video lectures
as well as homework problems, tie to those videos lectures
and then every class time when we meet it's total Q and A.
The students can hit me
well, from any direction as far as questions they have.
And then we go into discussion.
This can be based off the lecture.
This could be based off of homework
which is typically what it is.
But also I found that that's allowed me to break out
and be more inclusive,
which is really...
What fostered this was part of this Cornell program.
So why did I join this program?
Because while I feel I'm inclusive
and I'm trying to hit all the nails on the table
on the head, I'm not sure, right?
We always had that question, right?
Like, what am I missing?
And while I think all of us have a lot of it already,
it's the little bits that we then pick up, right?
And that we incorporate
and it makes so much more for an inclusive environment.
So, that's the reason why I entered the program,
was to make sure like, okay, am I doing everything I can?
And also it's a great sounding board.
I mean, the conversations I had
with the other people within the program,
the ideas that this kind of spawned in my head,
I'm gonna take it in a different direction,
was invaluable.
And that's why I'll probably will continue to
join these CTL meetings. (laughs)
So I find them very enjoyable.
So as you can say I'm a little bit more specific with
the two lessons learned.
I actually went into the lessons right?
Actually, Kylie, I apologize
but like, I was so much going on
in the spring and the summer
and just all the online stuff I had to like go back
and be like, okay, what was that particular lesson?
What was that particular lesson describing?
There was about five modules I believe, within the program.
And I found module two to be really important to me
as far as social identity,
dealing with students and something that's new to me,
which is gender, gender specific.
How can I deal with gender orientation within the classroom?
Because I wanna make sure that everyone is included
in our conversations and they can feel safe and secure
to have those conversations online virtually with me.
And so I found the, he, she, him her thing
is just a thing to completely avoid, right?
I found in conversations that,
that is an assumption by my part
on that person's orientation.
And I found that those pronouns, oh sorry pronouns
pronouns are an easy way to exclude someone
as opposed to include someone.
So in conversations I found
the student's first name is the best way to go,
making sure you have their first names
making sure you know their first name.
It's a little bit easier in the virtual environment
because they all have your names tag at the bottom,
which is nice, right?
A little bit harder sometimes in the actual office,
but making sure you have an inclusive statement
which I already have in the syllabus,
but it's not only just having that inclusive statement
within the syllabus, it's also about following up in person
or virtually with what you've said in the syllabus, right?
As far as gender non specificity et cetera.
The other would be second module four.
And basically that's representation
of diversity within the actual course.
And I hear these other comments
dead old white people, right?
That's general chemistry too, (laughs) right?
I mean, I teach a lot of
the principles of chemistry of course
but this was all created by a lot of, yes,
dead old white men, right?
So how can I create that in that inclusiveness?
And I found simply very easy to do in my case
is just a little bit of research on my part, right?
Going to the base concepts, but now going
to something more current within the scientific community.
Our scientific community isn't as diverse as we would like
but female chemists are on the rise as well as
African-American, people of color is on the rise as well.
And so trying to find and articulate
how the base general chemistry concept
while it was discovered by this old white male
now relates to the current chemistry
and how someone of color or someone
or a female person has taken that to the next level, right?
Is a great way to incorporate it.
The other thing I found is
in the way I did the virtual class,
meaning that class time was just Q and A,
sometimes there weren't any questions, right?
Sometimes the homework assignment was kind of light
and everyone could do it and it was easy.
And so people still showed up
but they didn't have questions.
And that's when I started to divert
and make sure that,
especially if there was an incident like nationally
is to bring in the national atmosphere to it.
Obviously we had a lot of Black Lives Matter
back in the spring and the summer,
that was really coming to a head.
And so it allowed actually for class time to be used
as a way as a medium, for other people to talk
about what was going on.
This fall it wasn't so much about Black Lives Matter.
It was more about COVID right?
And I was asking, what are your frustrations?
How are you doing in the room?
It gave me a really good angle
of like meeting my class, where I could take 15 minutes
and talk about their concerns and problems
and then divert the rest of the class to Q&A.
I had a chat room going along in teams
where the students would ask their questions.
So sometimes it'd be a vocal question,
sometimes the student might not be vocal.
So they could put it in the chat
which is kind of interesting.
I would bounce back and forth.
I had like three different devices
like going to try to monitor everything.
And I found that that was a great way.
So, if everyone's question that was asked
I would actually answer it.
So sometimes my lecture actually went for like two hours
even though class time would end,
I would still make sure I answered everyone's question.
And I'm also videoing all those class sessions as well.
So the students have ample access to access all of them.
So I found that in a weird way
the virtual environment gave me a better way
to actually be more inclusive with everybody.
And for some reason,
maybe it's the student classes that we deal with nowadays,
they feel more comfortable online
or they feel more comfortable with
this type of communication.
Obviously not all, I ran into some people that weren't
but I thought that was great.
So, I think, using examples within your texts and as far as
like Lisa with the Shakespeare
it was exactly the same idea, right?
Like you're trying to bring those topics within.
So as far as the third
I don't know if I'm running over assessment options.
The problem with general chemistry
is we have four different instructors
teaching five sections of roughly 1200 students.
I've recently pulled us all together
and so now we actually work as one unit.
We give the same exams, we give the same quizzes
we assign the same homework.
We follow the same schedule with lab.
And so it's been nice to see it change
from the lecture is kind of doing whatever they want
to now it being really one class.
And so any student from any section can
talk to any other student and they get the same information.
So the problem with assessment is that, right?
That it is a huge thing and to bring in new assessment,
it takes a little bit time.
So, I didn't do that.
But what I really got involved with
is discussion boards try to communicate in that way.
I found an introductory video is an easy thing to do.
I did it on my iPhone, it was about five minutes.
I talked about like how I love to ski.
I put my dog Greta on it.
And I asked students to do a discussion board introduction.
And I would say
a very, very large percentage actually responded
and not all of a book pictures
but it was a way like Priyantha was saying
it was a way to develop a community
before the class actually begun, right?
And so there was discussion going back and forth.
So I thought that was a really good idea
for inclusion just try to create this environment.
Again, the other thing
that I thought was really really good
in including and making students feel more comfortable
was the idea of taking time out of the class,
just to say how are you doing?
All right, as simple as that.
I mean, as I'm seeing here
I see Holly's beautiful face, right?
But everyone else has like these little bullets, right?
And I would actually ask students to share videos,
I mean, share their face.
And it took a little bit of time,
but eventually students started to catch on with that.
And I thought that was really something good too
as far as these inclusive nature where they now
start to see other people.
I don't know if anyone else has had interesting problems
with students online with their camera.
I think one thing to make sure we tell all of our students
is make sure your camera is on or off (laughs)
depending on what you're doing in the background.
So because of that
I saw some interesting things happening in the background.
So be wary of that.
But some of them we actually joked about
some of my other colleagues had more interesting things.
(laughs) So be wary of that.
But I thought it was fine 'cause in the beginning
there was maybe two people online
and I was worried about bandwidth and things dropping out.
But at the end I would have a full screen of faces
and they would pipe in with their questions
and it really was a great experience.
So I highly recommend this program as well as
most of the stuff that CTL offers.
So I hope that's enough, right?
I don't know, questions?
-: Thank you Eric, that's awesome.
I also wanted to just make a pitch
for the virtual backgrounds are really helpful.
Like the one I have right now.
So if something strange goes on behind me
most of the time it's cloaked. (laughs)
-: Yeah, yeah, yeah, Oh yeah, yeah, yes, yeah.
But I was surprised...
Hey I was kind of surprised sometimes
by the student just letting you in right?
To, their room. -: Definitely, definitely.
-: Right? -: Yes.
-: So that's the room they've been hanging out,
for God knows how long
and as you're looking at them
it's just like a window, right?
Because now I'm looking at you, Holly, but yes I can look
to the left and to the right and behind you
and be like, Oh, there's a poster on the wall.
Okay, what is that poster?
Oh, that's the grateful dead.
Oh, you like the grateful dead?
I'll be like-- -: Yes.
-: So there's another way of connecting,
but there was a couple interesting points
where I was like turn off your video.
(both laughs)
I'm not sure your video is appropriate.
-: Yes.
-: But nothing vulgar.
So at least that was good.
-: Yes. Well, thank you for sharing Eric.
I see there is a hand up, I think it's Kate.
Would you like to unmute
and you can choose to show your video if you'd like Kate.
And if you have a question that's directed
at particular panelists, you can say that
if it's just for everyone, you can say that as well.
-: Yeah, I actually have two questions so maybe I'll ask one
and then see if other people have questions.
And then if there's time, I'll ask my second one.
And I would just love sort of brainstorming help
from all of the panelists on this one.
So I'm in the philosophy department but I teach
the logic course that we offer.
So the logic course fills the QR requirements.
So it really feels much more like
a math course than a philosophy course.
They're problem sets and exams rather
than like readings and papers.
And a lot of students take that course
because they feel maybe not so confident with math
and are trying to figure out
how they're going to fulfill the QR requirement
given that they don't think of themselves
as like math people and predictably, of course
that splits across gender lines pretty dramatically.
Although not exclusively by any means.
And one thing I really struggle with
when I teach this course is creating
right at the beginning, the kind of inclusive atmosphere
in the course that makes a student who thinks
of themselves as not good at math,
feel like this is something I can do
and I'm gonna be successful.
So I frequently get a lot of drops within
the first week or two of the class
and disproportionately
women drop the course.
And so I would like to find a way to sort of ameliorate that
I have tried a number of different strategies.
One thing that is sort of
complicating factor here
is that the course is actually quite difficult.
The content is difficult.
And so
students have to work really hard
and some students fail.
And I don't want to kind of...
I don't want to fix this problem
by sort of hiding the difficulty of the course.
-: Right.
-: And I think it's important to be upfront
about what the course material is going to be like
and kind of,
I have the students get their hands dirty right away.
There's not a big sort of lead in,
which is I think part of why I get a lot of drops
because they get to the first problem set
which is still during add drop period.
And they go I'm out, (chuckles)
but I'm hesitant to sort of change that,
change that timeline,
because I do want students to know what they're getting into
and I think it can be perfectly appropriate or reasonable
for a student to be like, you know what
this semester is just not the time
for me to take this course.
-: Sure. -: That should
take too much bandwidth
that I need to be able to devote to other things.
Okay, so that's kind of the situation I'm in
And I would just love help thinking about
how to brainstorm on that front.
-: Great, and I think our panelists all teach
challenging courses as well.
So if any of them
want to unmute and chime in
that would be super helpful.
I see Jen has also put something in the chat for you, Kate.
-: Hey, Kate.
Yes, it happens.
(laughs)
you got first problem set.
I've tried to do is not sugarcoat it
sounds like you're doing the same.
You have to come out and say, look,
this is a course that requires A, B and C,
and it's going to be demanding.
Teaching general chemistry the concepts are great.
Everyone loves the concepts.
Explain why do you add salt to the roads?
Why do you add salt to your pasta when you're cooking?
The physical things are really interesting to students
but this is a math course
general chemistry is a algebra course.
It's physical chemistry, really.
So, I feel like we're talking
about sort of the same thing, right?
That you're gonna find students that are engaged
in the topic and they like the idea of it
but the math is somewhat holding them back.
So I try to give basically like preemptive
like little study quizzes
I guess you could say,
they're not really quizzes
just like in the beginning of the course
I'll talk about within an announcement,
if you're feeling that your math skills, aren't up to par
here is a great review, right?
These are all the skills that you're gonna need to know,
going forward.
And so it allows those students to possibly
have that like support system, right?
In going forward.
The other thing I mentioned too,
like you talked about the first problem set being
during the add drop period,
I reach out to every student that's dropping
and say, do you wanna talk about your drop?
Do you realize everything that's within the course, right?
That we still have quite a bit of time
before the withdrawal date.
So, obviously this is something
that's either part of your major possibly
at least with Gen Chem it is,
let's talk about it.
And I think that beginning part of communication might,
I don't know if you do that or not Kate,
but might help in some of that retention.
But those are some ideas that I've implemented.
-: Thanks so much Eric.
Are there questions that folks have.
And I see that John has also put
a suggestion for Kate in the chat.
We only have a few moments left.
So I wanna make sure
if anyone has a question for the panelists,
either raise your hand or put it in the chat.
And I am going to also
share with you a survey for this session.
And if you could take a few moments now
and fill it out that would be so helpful.
And I'm just gonna grab that for you momentarily.
I had it on the slide but I stopped sharing the side
so that we could see each other.
So here in the chat, I've put a URL to a Qualtrics survey
and just make sure as you fill that out,
that you select this session for inclusive teaching.
And then I see Lisa has her hand up and then Kate,
go ahead Lisa.
-: Just really quick.
Something that I did last semester
that I was inspired by the Cornell course to do
but I don't think it was a particular suggestion
of that course.
It was just the course really
sort of inspired me think about
ways to bring students in from the very beginning.
This doesn't specifically answer Kate's question,
but what I did was instead of...
I did have my own course objectives,
but actually left them off of the syllabus
until the students could contribute their own
learning objectives for the semester.
So I had a blank on my syllabus and then on teams,
I just created a document and ask them
to add their own learning objectives for the semester
or their course objectives.
And they did and they were really, really thoughtful.
And then I added my own, but I didn't wanna start
with my own and sort of supersede theirs.
And I acknowledged their course objectives
by putting them right in the syllabus.
And also by talking about them
with them about how thoughtful they were.
And I came back to them again and again in the course
actually and just sort of reminded them that,
that we were getting somewhere
with the very objectives that they had written.
So I felt that was really a helpful
invitationals sort of thing to do.
it's not as easy to do that with
introduction to logic class
but it is a way to sort of like give them some agency
in the class from the beginning.
That can allow them to kind of stick in the class.
-: Thanks so much for sharing that, Lisa, it's important.
And Kate, did you have something that you'd like to say
before we leave?
-: Yeah, I guess I can just put my other question
on the table-- -: Okay.
-: and then maybe if people have thought
they could put them in the chat or something.
One thing that I have
struggled with in my more typical philosophy classes is
thinking about assessment and trying to create
multiple pathways for assessment
and kind of how to balance that with
skills related learning objectives for the course
like learning how to write a philosophy paper.
-: That's right.
-: And so I would love ideas especially...
Well I guess maybe even thinking more generally
about how to kind of balance
kind of offering students multiple pathways for assessment
with sort of skills based learning objectives
that require students to sort of do
a certain kind of--
-: Thing (laughs) -: Thing.
Yeah, yeah.
And so that was kind of my other question.
And maybe if people have
any ideas they wanna put in the chat, that would be great.
-: Okay, I mean I'll just say something real quick--
-: Yeah. -: about that question Kate is
what I've experimented with faculty getting them to do is
if there's ways building up to the final paper,
that there can be options.
So can they sketch out in a more,
loose way, some of the ideas they have for the paper,
if there's a way to draw something
that they're thinking about related to the paper,
whether it's an outline or
also breaking it up into scaffolded pieces,
so it doesn't seem like such a ginormous
task for some people who are
feeling really hesitant about it.
So can you offer ways to
put it into slightly more manageable pieces
where they have a chance to practice.
And maybe those are the places where they could practice
some things in different ways
as they're planning out the paper
versus the final actual paper has to be a certain thing.
And that makes sense that it does.
But I welcome any other people to put things in the chat.
I want to make sure that we respect everybody's time.
I realized that it's 10:O3 three right now,
so if you need to
go to the next thing
that is on your agenda, that is perfectly fine.
I thank you all for being here
and a special thank you to each one of our panelists.
It was wonderful to hear your lessons learned
and that you shared all your experiences
that you've had with us.
And we really value those stories
that you each were able to communicate with us this morning.
Thank you so much.