Faculty Learning Communities
Faculty Professional Development Learning Community on Inclusive, Accessible, and Equity-Minded Instructional and Classroom Management Strategies
Next Session Dates To Be Announced
The purpose of this Faculty Learning Community is to introduce faculty members to best practices in teaching and interacting with students of diverse backgrounds as well as to practices that support meaningful and accessible learning for all students.
Sessions will encourage participants to examine their beliefs about diversity and equity, and gain knowledge and understanding about how diversity and identity influence higher education practices. Participants will further explore their biases in ways that help them become more equity-minded in their instruction.
The sessions will particularly address best practices for teaching and working with ethnically diverse students, differently-abled students, first-generation students, and students from low-income families. Interactive sessions and assignments will help participants:
- Create inclusive classrooms by recognizing the diverse strengths and abilities that students bring to the classroom and incorporating their diverse experiences, prior knowledge, and cultural knowledge/skills into our curriculum and instruction.
- Develop strategies that foster equity and inclusivity in teaching, interaction, and assessment in the classroom environment.
- Learn about how race, identity, and culture mediate student development and how everyday racism shapes the experiences of diverse students in the classroom.
- Understand the intersecting identities of our students and how they can be used to facilitate learning in the classroom.
- Understand the nature of micro-aggression and micro-affirmations and how instructors can manage them in the classroom.
- Develop inclusive, learning-centered syllabi, transparent assignments, active learning techniques, and classroom assessment techniques.
- Learn about challenges and strategies for safeguarding student mental health in various modes of instruction.
- Learn about how faculty members could be more mindful and resilient individuals in their daily lives, which will help them become more aware and focused instructors in the classroom.
- Learn how to create an accessible learning environment and support students with varying abilities within the classroom.
- Build community, so that once the program is completed, participants will have a cohort with whom they can remain connected personally and/or professionally.
