Wonderful! Thank you for this encouraging comment.

Hi Victoria--thanks for sharing samples of syllabi.  Having something concrete that aligns with the goals of the project and demonstrates how inclusive practices can be incorporated throughout the course must be helpful for new faculty...I imagine seasoned faculty might benefit too! Loved the email template--a good resource for faculty too.  It made me wonder how students reacted to it, since the message was both informative and inviting.  Thank you for sharing.

Hello Chris-

Yes, fantastic points. We are firm believers in the value of hearing and incorporating students' voices into professional development. As just a couple of examples, Dr. Viviane Seyranian and her team did extensive interviews with students to develop a better understanding of students' specific experiences in calculus and physics to develop the utility value and belonging interventions. We are now using her insights to inform PD around these topics.

We also are having faculty participate in the Motivating Learners course from the motivate lab at U Virginia. In this course, faculty give open ended motivation surveys to get more insights into students' experiences. We then work to use these insights to inform our teaching. It leads to wonderful discussions and insights when faculty work together on these observations.

@Chris, we also have students participate in New Faculty Orientation. It's a small step, but consistent.

Great idea, Victoria!  Would love to hear about the feedback from the faculty and the students on how that works. This is a model that needs to be replicated!

Hi Catherine, I'd say our theory of action is....underdeveloped, so thanks for the suggestion!  I personally rely on some of the research out of UVA regarding "promising" syllabi, and extrapolate it to language and policies generally: if a professor is welcoming in their language and their practices, students will feel more (relatively) welcome in the class and are more (relatively) likely to learn and succeed. But like I say, we could use some work on a ToA.

Frankly....I find it difficult to convince faculty who are not already motivated in this area to try new things or to get motivated in this area.  For those who are willing to try new things, follow-up, follow-up, follow-up, follow-up is necessary to make it stick, which is 1) really hard because it takes a tremendous amount of energy even if not as much time as I perceive; and 2) ironic, because if it's so hard for us (faculty in general) to learn and internalize and really implement new ways of teaching consistently, why are we surprised when learning and persistence in implementing new skills is hard for students?!

If faculty are motivated, then talking to others who are similarly motivated is terrific!  So, my next strategy is going to be peer coaching dyads.

Hi Catherine, Thanks for your enthusiasm for our project. We feel honored that our faculty are open to working with us on these crucial issues.

To build on what Victoria shared, we recognize that faculty are coming to this work with a range of levels of motivation and a range of comfort with some of these topics. They also come with a range of barriers to being able to do this work, for example many of the courses that are vital for establishing belonging and inclusion at the beginning of a students’ career in STEM are taught by lecturers who have large demands on their time.

In response, we are facilitating a large number of different types of PD interventions to support inclusive teaching, with lots of different on-ramps for faculty so we can “meet them where they are.” Victoria has run highly successful summer institutes that focus on topics like engaging students virtually and mastery-based grading. She is also facilitating longer professional learning communities and many other opportunities. We are also trying to reach faculty in other ways, such as Dr. Arlo Caine in mathematics and statistics offering PD specifically for lecturers teaching calculus in which they work together to make student thinking visible and practice responding to student ideas using ConcepTests, an important inclusive teaching strategy. Dr. Jessica Perez is also working with faculty in Engineering who use supplemental instructors to practice more active learning techniques. We have also had some success using faculty embedded in science departments to recruit participants in PD, for example we’ve had 40 faculty (tenure track and lecturers) in biology and chemistry engage with a Motivating Learners course from the Motivate Lab at UVA. Finally, faculty have been valuable partners in our randomized controlled studies of belonging and relevance led by Dr. Viviane Seyranian. The research hook has been an interesting way to get some faculty further engaged in learning about inclusive strategies. We are excited to learn more about these various approaches and our external evaluator Dr. Susan Tucker is hard at work analyzing related data! We will be able to share more next year.

Oh, that is super cool!  What a great experience for everyone all around, I love that.  I'll advise our Academic Innovation group about this, they are trying to encourage CURES and that woudl be a great step in some cases.