I attended a workshop yesterday for IST faculty called “Inclusive ADDIE” and at one point, we were asked the following questions based on what we had learned so far.
- How would you design a student group project for one of your classes?
- How would you handle dividing students into groups?
- How would you revise the content, examples, resources?
I don’t feel like I had great answers based on what I had learned. I started with what I would do without particular thought to inclusion and diversity.
- How would you design a student group project for one of your classes? Start with learning outcomes, then decide upon an assessment and rubric if needed, develop directions that includes all the required references to relevant learning content, review my content for accessibility.
- How would you handle dividing students into groups? I don’t think I would change. I prefer to form groups based on the order that students made submissions to the first, low-stakes assignment of the course. Having said that, if this were a WC section I would also try to account for timezones.
- How would you revise the content, examples, resources? I would look to make sure that I am considering minority groups at least ⅓ of the time in all of my examples, content, and assessments. This one, I took directly from the content of the workshop.
After listening to some other participant’s responses, I copied or added the following:
- How would you design a student group project for one of your classes? Provide reminders to class guidelines related to etiquette and group work. We have or can find these guidelines, but I wonder how inclusive and diverse those guidelines already are?
- How would you handle dividing students into groups? I didn’t have anything new to add here. Teaching through the WC, I do not get to know the students enough to be able to assign groups in ways that account for inclusion and diversity. I don’t think that’s how groups are formed in the real world, so why should I try to make accommodations in my class? I believe that my role would be to try to address issues around inclusion and diversity if they present themselves. I realize that is a slippery slope because if I am not openly addressing inclusion and diversity through out the course, how will my students know that I will address those concerns when there is an issue in the class. How will students even know to be mindful of inclusion and diversity practices in my class? Perhaps I need to develop a resource for faculty to help us provide guidelines to students about working in groups in ways that are inclusive and diverse? Teaching from the WC course template for the class I teach, I’m not sure we have much information about best practices for students working in groups. Perhaps I need to start there and include universal best practices in that resource from the start.
- How would you revise the content, examples, resources? I believe Jon Hughes mentioned to create group assignments with roles to allow for individuals to have a voice. This reminded me of Col. Jake Graham (ret. USMC) group work assignments where he will assign students different analytical roles depending upon the scenario/exercise he’s provided them. Dr. Lynette Yarger reminded us of something Dr. Alison Murphy shared with faculty during her McMurtry Excellence in Teaching and Learning Award presentation: create something for an under-represented community and through doing so, you will learn more about that community.