Please join us for the Faculty Innovation Center's sixth biannual Inclusive Teaching and Learning Symposium. Day two will take place on Oct. 29. The theme for this fall's symposium is Activating Inclusivity in Learning Environments, and we've identified the following guiding questions to center our presentations and keynote speaker around:
- How does my positionality hinder action or empower me to take action?
- What tools am I using on campus to take action toward anti-racism?
- How can I incorporate anti-racism in my learning environments?
The Symposium will kick off with a keynote presentation from Dr. Nicki Washington, Professor of Practice of Computer Science at Duke University, and will be followed by a series of one-hour interactive, activating workshops spread over two days.
Scheduled Sessions on Day 1 (Tuesday, October 27)
- 9:15am-10:00am Opening Keynote with Dr. Nicki Washington, Professor of the Practice of Computer Science, Duke University
The daughter of a retired computer programmer and K-12 administrator, Dr. Nicki Washington was exposed to computer science (CS) at an early age, including programming in BASIC and PASCAL before high school. However, it wasn’t until she attended Johnson C. Smith University that she realized how unique her path to computer science was; specifically, how unique it was to have a mother and entire village of Black engineers surrounding and supporting her since she was born.
While her career has spanned both industry and academia, including IBM, The Aerospace Corporation, Howard University, and Winthrop University, Nicki has often found herself one of the few Black women, if not the only, at the table. Based on her personal, academic, and professional experiences in CS, Nicki realized the paradigm required shifting. She has devoted her career to changing what, and more importantly WHO CS looks like to students of color.
- 10:15am-11:15am Workshop Session 1: Whose Voices are Missing? Navigating Power Dynamics to Diversify Voices in the Classroom
Facilitated by Kaitlyn R. Farrell, Graduate Student, English
As Teaching Assistants, Assistant Instructors, dually-titled instructional staff, and Non-Tenure Track and Adjunct Faculty, many instructors may feel incapable of prioritizing diverse perspectives and texts in their classrooms. In this session, we will discuss effective strategies for instructors who are seeking to diversify perspectives in their classrooms despite concerns about their own limited power and positionality. We will focus on considering the contextual information and resources we incorporate in our classrooms to ethically frame assigned texts; incorporating inclusive and trauma-informed pedagogical frameworks to diversify student voices speaking during class discussions; and interrogating ways we can both use and challenge existing institutional frameworks to help us develop in our ongoing commitment to anti-racism.
By the end of the session, participants will engage with a processing template to reflect on how they can use their power to rethink course(s), amplify diverse student voices in your classroom, and commit to promoting inclusivity and antiracism in classrooms and departments this semester and in the future.
- 11:30am-12:30pm Workshop Session 2: Use of the Inclusivity Checklist as a Means to Promote Inclusive and Anti-Racist Teaching
Facilitated by Monica Hall-Porter and Brandon Campitelli, Texas Institute for Discovery Education in Science
The recent impact of social awareness surrounding systemic racism in the United States of America has been felt across the academic community. As scholars continue to grapple with racism in their individual disciplines, they are also called to promote inclusivity and anti-racism in their courses. To date, metrics for an anti-racist and inclusive stance in the classroom have not yet been established. The overall goal of this workshop is to provide a working space for scholars in all academic disciplines to discuss the inclusivity checklist developed by Leticimia Fears (Vanderbilt University) to assist instructors in evaluating classroom materials, and evaluate their courses and materials according to the items that it contains.
Attendees will be encouraged to explore and share the impact of racism on their fields of study. During the workshop, participants will engage in active discussion of the current inclusivity checklist. They will be encouraged to edit the list in a discipline-specific manner and also consider ways that it can be adapted for more general use. Participants will leave having evaluated at least one of their courses for adherence to the inclusivity checklist.
Register to receive Zoom links for the Symposium sessions.
This symposium is is made possible by the Mellon Foundation “Creating a Shared Culture of Inclusive Pedagogy” grant, as well as sponsorships from the Cockrell School of Engineering, the College of Natural Sciences, the Department of Computer Science, the Women in Engineering Program, and the Texas Institute for Discovery Education in Science.
