Diversity in action: Broadening participation through strategies for inclusion

Overview

This workshop session is designed to deepen faculty members' knowledge of evidence-based strategies for inclusion. The strategies highlighted in these materials are applicable across all STEM disciplines. A few of the materials refer to examples in geoscience, but could easily be adapted to other STEM fields. The workshop session is designed to take half a day and includes a think-pair-share discussion of three scenarios, a presentation of research data, a gallery walk with posters highlighting evidence-based inclusive teaching practices, small group discussions, and individual action planning.

Session goals

Participants will:

• Learn about the research on issues of broadening participation;
• Explore strategies to design an inclusive classroom and geoscience program; and
• Develop ideas for implementation of inclusion strategies in their work.

Workshop session structure

When we used these materials in a workshop for geoscience faculty members (see the 2017 June Change Agents Workshop program), we structured the session as follows. Details of the timing are listed below.

1. Each faculty member read one of three scenarios in preparation for a think-pair-share discussion on diversity and inclusion. We strongly encouraged faculty members to focus on identifying the underlying issues of access or inclusion and to avoid identifying solutions. This activity was designed to get faculty members thinking about some hypothetical situations involving members of historically marginalized populations. The third scenario is also designed to help faculty identify well-intentioned but counter-productive efforts to support women in STEM.
   • Access and inclusion scenarios are available upon request; send your request to jmcdaris@carleton.edu.
2. We presented data about the lack of diversity in the geosciences, about inequitable educational outcomes, and about research on implicit biases. This presentation reminded faculty participants about why broadening participation is one of the goals of the SAGE 2YC project and about what role faculty members can play in diversifying the geoscience workforce. It also set the stage for the gallery walk, which constituted the bulk of the workshop session.
   • Presentation: Diversity in action: Broadening participation through strategies for inclusion (PowerPoint 2007 (.pptx) 1.1MB Nov1 18) - Jan Hodder, Heather Macdonald, John McDaris, and Carol Ormand
3. We engaged faculty members in a gallery walk exploration of these posters about diversity and inclusion (Acrobat (PDF) 17.9MB Sep27 24). We arranged the posters in pairs, with each pair consisting of one poster on a general topic and the associated poster exploring one of the ideas from that poster in more detail. For example, the poster on building your students' science identity is fairly general, and the associated poster on scientist profiles describes in greater detail this mechanism for building students' science identity.
   

   ×
   • Develop an inclusive community (Acrobat (PDF) 1.8MB Oct22 18)
     • Recognize implicit biases (Acrobat (PDF) 2.6MB Oct22 18)
     • Make implicit rules visible (Acrobat (PDF) 2.3MB Oct22 18)
     • Mitigate stereotype threat (Acrobat (PDF) 1.6MB Nov15 18)
   • Build your students' science identity (Acrobat (PDF) 1.7MB Oct23 18)
     • Scientist spotlights (Acrobat (PDF) 2.1MB Oct23 18)
   • In-class participation of all students (Acrobat (PDF) 1.5MB Nov14 18)
     • Quick around (Acrobat (PDF) 607kB Nov14 18)
   • Student engagement practices (Acrobat (PDF) 2.1MB Oct23 18)
     • Make course content societally relevant (Acrobat (PDF) 1.6MB Oct23 18)
4. After familiarizing themselves with all of the diversity and inclusion posters via the gallery walk, each faculty member chose one topic to explore further, in discussion with their colleagues: developing an inclusive community, building their students' science identity, in-class participation of all students, or student engagement practices.
5. We ended the session with time for individual action planning.

Timing

This entire sequence of activities took a full morning in a multi-day workshop. We spent 30 minutes on the think-pair-share discussion, including time to read and digest the scenarios. The presentation of research data took 20 minutes. The gallery walk was 50 minutes, after which we took a 15 minute break. The next hour was devoted to discussion, followed by action planning for the remaining 40 minutes. Details:

8:15 Short Introduction
8:20-8:50 Scenario think-pair-share
8:50-9:10 Presentation: What does research tell us about issues related to diversity in STEM?
9:10-10:00 Diversity strategy gallery walk

10:00-10:15 Break

10:20-10:30 Go to the poster set that you're most interested in discussing and talk to the others there
10:30-10:40 Go to your second choice poster set and discuss
10:40-11:20 Pick one of the topics and sit with your group to discuss
11:20-12:00 Begin individual action planning in your notebook

Additional resources

• The three scenarios we selected highlighted issues of interest to and relevant to our group of faculty. There are additional, similar scenarios in Handelsman et al. (2007), Scientific Teaching and in Ambrose et al. (2010), How Learning Works: 7 Research-Based Principles for Smart Teaching. If you are a member of the CIRTL network, you can also access their 2006 Guidebook, Case Studies in Inclusive Teaching in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.
• Instructors who want to reflect on their instructional choices and how those choices impact their students may find this worksheet helpful: Reflecting on instructional choices (Acrobat (PDF) 28kB Dec12 17), adapted by Rachel Beane from Scientific Teaching (Handelsman et al., 2007).
• There are many relevant references cited in the posters.