I approach teaching and mentoring with the understanding that students arrive at college with unique expectations, experiences, skills, and backgrounds. I strive to co-create with students a learning community where this diversity is acknowledged and valued. My goal is to help students discover connections with the psychology field, their peers, and their communities that will enhance their sense of belonging in college and in psychological science. I want my students to leave college with the tools and agency to actively engage in a diverse world as female leaders.
In my teaching, I acknowledge that psychology often lacks racial, ethnic, geographic, and socioeconomic diversity. I encourage students to critically assess whether specific studies we discuss appropriately reflect the diversity of our world. Early in the semester, I point out that many classic studies were conducted by white, male researchers studying white populations, and that the field is working to become more representative both in terms of researchers and research populations and topics. In Introductory Psychology, I feature scholars such as Dr. Ben Barnes, the first openly transgender scientist to be inducted into the National Academy of Sciences and a pioneer for gender equality in science. I also feature topics such as the impact of a Black person’s language code-switching on how they are perceived by people of different racial backgrounds. In developmental courses, I ask students to consider how the lack of diversity in much of developmental science shapes our view of what “typical” development looks like. I introduce the idea of “WEIRD” samples and have students read articles such as Dr. Christia Spears Brown and colleagues’ 2019 Child Development Perspectives article on equity and justice in developmental science. Using these ideas as a foundation, we can then critically examine the developmental research we read throughout the semester. For example, in learning about motor development, I introduce students to different child caregiving practices from around the world, such as the gahvora used in Central Asia and cradleboards used in Native American communities. We discuss how these practices might shape motor timelines and highlight that even diapering practices influence timelines for walking. I also use a small-group active learning project (ALP) focused on motor development in blind children to get students brainstorming about the social, emotional, cognitive, and environmental factors that influence children’s development of movement and how being blind might influence these processes. This activity helps students consider not only how diverse environments shape development, but also how fundamentally intertwined different aspects of development are for all humans.
I also carefully consider the messages my pedagogical choices may be sending. I intentionally use images and examples that are diverse in race, ethnicity, religion, ability, and family structure in my slides and I reflect on the specific message that each may convey to students. For instance, in preparing for a lecture on family relationships, I looked for videos of racially diverse babies with different attachment styles in the Strange Situation task. I found numerous videos of white babies with secure and anxious attachment styles, but just one video of a Black child, who had an anxious attachment style. I chose not to use this video because I did not want to contribute to the stereotype of “Black = bad” in contrasting the babies’ responses to the Strange Situation task. Such dilemmas highlight how I carefully weigh my pedagogical choices to combat stereotypes and to establish an inclusive and respectful learning environment.
I have found that the conventional approach to evaluating classroom participation by tallying how much someone talks in class can unfairly penalize students who struggle with public speaking or whose cultures value listening over speaking. I believe that engagement in class is more than being vocal, but I realized that my participation rubric in my first course as instructor of record did not fully reflect the range of engagement behaviors I value. I had students who were quiet during large group discussion but would contribute meaningfully by keeping their small group on track, acting as the group “recorder,” or asking a question that got the group thinking from a different angle. I have since reimagined how I assess engagement by tracking active listening and small group contributions, as well as verbal statements. I have also added in pre-class online group annotation of research articles via Hypothes.is as another way for students to engage with course content. I find that students who do not always verbally contribute to class discussions are active participants in the online group annotation of our readings, providing me and their classmates the opportunity to benefit from their contributions. Moreover, I lay out guidelines for group work that are designed to prevent groups from defaulting to stereotypical gender roles or systemic inequities in their interactions. I often predetermine which students will start the discussion, be the group recorder, and report out to the class to break defaults. I collaborate with students in each course to generate specific classroom norms that they agree will provide a more equitable assessment of all students. We then attend to these norms throughout the course, and I continue to reflect on and adjust my course designs based on what I am learning from this shared experience in inclusive learning.
Course assignments are another way to both support diverse student experiences and provide opportunities for students to engage with diversity in psychological science. For at least one or two assignments per course, I provide students with a range of final product options (e.g., written, podcast, video, slide presentation) so that they can select the form that best allows them to showcase their thinking and creativity. I also design assignments to encourage students to apply psychological concepts to the diverse world issues we face today. In my social development course, students complete a project in which they select a policy-relevant topic (e.g., parental leave, foster care, banned books) and create a social policy brief (in the style of the Society for Research on Child Development’s publication, Social Policy Briefs) that discusses current policy and makes recommendations for the future using social development research and theory. In Introductory Psychology, my “Choose Your Own Adventure” assignments include several choices for applying their growing psychological knowledge, one of which is to learn more about a researcher from a minoritized background and read some of their research to bring the spotlight to the growing diversity of the field.
As a research mentor, one of my goals is to provide all students with the foundational skills to excel in research. When interviewing potential undergraduates, I weigh interest and curiosity more heavily than past research opportunities to ensure that those without access to previous research opportunities are not unfairly penalized. Furthermore, because the need to earn income prevents some students from applying for unpaid positions, I work to create paid opportunities for the students I mentor when possible. In 2019, I applied and received a grant from the Charles Lafitte Foundation to hire four Duke work-study students to assist with a research-practitioner partnership at a local public high school. My research students at Grinnell have been paid research assistants via my professional development funds.
I believe that my commitment as an educator is not only to my students, but to the common good via engagement in the broader community. I have been actively involved in local community outreach to encourage students from underrepresented groups to get and stay involved in science. I have worked with middle school girls participating in Duke’s FEMMES (Females Excelling More in Math, Engineering, and Science) Saturday program, introducing them to a growth mindset with the idea that the “brain is a muscle” and highlighting the sorts of questions researchers try to answer. As in my undergraduate teaching, I feature first-generation, racially diverse, and female researchers. I have also worked with local public-school students participating in Duke’s “School Days.” During these “Meet a Researcher” sessions, I introduce students to peer relations research and help them brainstorm their own research questions. I am committed to similar outreach efforts throughout my career and plan to involve my future undergraduate researchers as well because I believe—and research, including my own, shows—that sense of belonging matters for achievement and continued involvement.
I have become increasingly aware of my own and others’ implicit biases and knowledge gaps regarding diversity, equity, and inclusion and sought ways to address those biases and gaps. As a graduate student, I joined Duke SPEAK (Scientists Promoting Equity and Knowledge) to learn more tools for responsibly engaging with diversity and inclusion issues in academia. The conversations on topics such as the lack of data on minority women’s health and the complexities of addressing systemic racism challenged me to think more deeply about perspectives I bring into the classroom and lab. I have come to regularly question how my biases and experiences are shaping how I view a topic, ask a question, or perceive others. This learning process is ongoing but has led to pedagogical changes already. For instance, I made the decision not to use a particular text in future iterations of a course once I discovered that its handling of certain topics did not align with my goal of creating an inclusive learning environment. I also continue to make changes in what topics I focus on and articles I assign to further diversify my syllabi. This learning process is life long and I plan to seek out ways to continue learning and changing throughout my career.