The Office of the Provost and the Center for Teaching and Learning support this inaugural series, which will bring guests to campus to discuss the ways in which inclusive teaching can be enacted in college classrooms. Dr. Kimberly Tanner currently serves as Professor of Biology Education and Director of SEPAL: The Science Education Partnership and Assessment Laboratory at San Francisco State University. Dr. Tanner will host a seminar on Thursday afternoon and will host a workshop on Friday.

11:30 a.m. - 1 p.m.  | Workshop   Lunch provided at 12:30 p.m.   1 p.m. - 1:30 p.m.  |  Follow-up Q&A 

TITLE: “Structure Matters: Teaching Strategies to Promote Student Engagement and Cultivate Classroom Equity”

ABSTRACT: Teaching diverse populations of students requires instructors to construct learning environments that are inclusive and equitable. Research in psychology and other disciplines suggests that how students personally experience learning environments strongly influences engagement, motivation, sense of belonging, and, perhaps most importantly, conceptual learning. In this 90 min interactive workshop, participants will begin by participating in a simulation of a classroom activity as the basis for discussing how different students may experience the same classroom environment differently from one another. Individual participants will then have the opportunity to self-assess their current awareness and use of common equitable teaching strategies that require minimal skill or preparation to implement. Finally, participants will identify those strategies that could be immediately implemented in their classrooms, laboratories, group meetings, or other professional settings to promote fairness and increase access to learning for all students.

The workshop is based on Dr. Tanner’s article: http://www.lifescied.org/content/12/3/322.full

Session participants will have the opportunity to:
– experience a model activity of how learning can be unfair for students from different backgrounds
– explore the difference between a student-deficit perspective and a learning environment-deficit perspective in promoting student success
– observe the modeling of multiple equitable teaching strategies during the session
– self-assess current awareness of and use of multiple common equitable teaching strategies
– identify equitable teaching strategies that could be tried immediately in their classrooms and other professional settings

Workshop length is 90 minutes, lunch will be provided. For who can stay after 1pm, there will be time for a follow-up discussion and questions for Kimberly.