2024 Poster Sessions

Outcomes

• Give students the opportunity to share when they have seen and/or experienced bias.

• Identify one's own biases.

Description

See how one biology professor uses the Peralta Online Equity Rubric Criterion E6, Human Bias, to learn about her own biases, give students the opportunity to share when they've seen/experienced bias, and how to identify their own biases.

Outcomes

• Analyze the impact of artificial intelligence on learning equity, exploring AI resources tailored for educators and assessing their application in course design, academic integrity, and authentic assessment.   

• Implement innovative strategies for integrating AI into teaching practices, drawing on insights from leading community college educators to enhance inclusivity and student engagement in the classroom.   

• Foster collaboration and advocacy for equitable AI use in higher education, developing actionable plans to adopt and promote AI tools that support a more inclusive learning environment for all students.

Description

"Leveraging AI for Equity," spotlights the pivotal role of AI in fostering learning equity across community colleges. This session unveils a curated collection of AI resources specifically tailored for educators, emphasizing the significance of AI as a cornerstone for equity in higher education. Through engaging interviews with pioneering community college educators, we explore practical insights and innovative strategies for integrating AI into teaching practices. Our comprehensive suite of materials cover essential topics such as course design, critical AI literacy, academic integrity, authentic assessment, and enriching web-based resources.

Join us to embark on a journey of discovery and collaboration, where AI becomes not just a tool, but a transformative force for equity, inclusivity, and excellence in higher education. Together, we can harness the power of AI to create a more equitable future for every student.

Outcomes

• Explore how certificates in inclusive teaching can bring together campus partners to foster equity and inclusivity in teaching, highlighting the collaborative framework of such initiatives. 

• Explore the steps for launching a certificate program that empowers graduate students and teaching assistants to incorporate equitable and inclusive practices into their teaching.

Description

In this presentation, I will explore how certificates in inclusive teaching can serve as a platform to unite campus partners, and sharing and building resources for equitable teaching and inclusivity, by using UCSB’s Certificate in Inclusive Teaching (CIT) as a case study. Launched in Winter 2024, the CIT is designed for graduate students and teaching assistants, aiming to empower them with the strategies and tools needed to foster inclusive classroom environments that promote connection and belonging. It underscores the importance of making equity practices accessible to educators, thereby enhancing the learning experience for all students.

Structured around four key components—Course Design, Instruction, Mentorship and Student Support, and Professional Development—the CIT offers a comprehensive approach to addressing the diverse needs of graduate students at various stages of their teaching careers. Participants are encouraged to select workshops that not only resonate with their interests but also align with their goals for professional growth, ensuring the program's relevance across different disciplines.

A foundational element of the CIT is its collaborative nature, which involves leveraging the expertise of various campus units dedicated to DEIA. This synergy among campus entities plays a foundational role in the program's ability to offer a rich variety of perspectives and resources.

Looking forward, the presentation will outline ambitions for the CIT, including plans for expanding collaborations, refining the program based on participant feedback, and adapting the offerings to meet the dynamic demands of higher education. By highlighting the CIT's approach and achievements, the presentation aims to illustrate the impactful role of collaboration in advancing the goals of equitable teaching and inclusivity within the campus community.

Outcomes

• Describe the peer mentoring experience of faculty women of color at an online institution. 

• Describe the lived experiences of faculty women of color at an online institution. 

Description

As awareness of the importance of diversity has increased in society, higher education has begun to recognize the importance of supporting faculty of color on student success and a student’s sense of belonging and inclusion, specifically marginalized students. However, higher education continues to face challenges supporting and retaining faculty of color which has significant implications for student outcomes. Female faculty of color often face specific barriers and challenges that undermine diversity efforts and hinder the ability of colleges and universities to provide a supportive environment. This session will share findings of the Each One Reach One study that sought to determine the effectiveness of peer mentoring between a female person of color full time faculty member and faculty members who identify as female people of color at a virtual university to have direct impact on students’ academic success and sense of belonging with solutions and strategies.

Outcomes

• Articulate the inadequacies of current leadership models.

• Apply a critical lens to leadership practice.

• Demonstrate the importance of identity in critical leadership models.

Description

Leadership is often imagined as an outcome-focused endeavor with stringent governing principles that form the foundation for its practice. Various models offer various epistemological paradigms and theoretical perspectives, including the transformational leadership approach, the participative leadership approach, the situational leadership approach, and the transactional leadership approach.

While these models differ in approach, what they all have in common is the lack of emphasis of the strong individuality within teams, a critical element to effective leadership, especially within diverse teams. This, not necessarily intentional, overlooking of the uniqueness of bodies within these spaces functions as a form of oppression that is embedded within leadership structures, an ultimate form of inequity. While there is always a search for the most effective models of leadership, perhaps the conversation needs to shift to an undoing of how we establish and practice these models – a critical perspective of leadership – a disruption of leadership as a form of equitable leadership norms and practices.

We utilize leadership and critical theories to ground our discussions and postulations of the necessity to meet the diverse and ever-evolving needs in today’s professional higher education environment. We demonstrate the need for heavily individualized and adaptable approaches to leadership practice that seek to capture the diverse and varied lived experiences of team members. This cannot be achieved by steadfastly trying to establish an ideal leadership model. What we need is a critical approach to deconstruct our current normative leadership processes that bound us to homogeneity and normative oppressive practices.

Outcomes

• Identify attitudes toward standard and nonstandard forms of English.

• Articulate the sociocultural origins of shame around dialects.

• Reframe attitudes toward dialects.

Description

For many of us who originate from places in which we speak a nonstandard dialect of English, a creole, we are often in a constant state of flux of embracement and shame. Cultured in language norms and customs that privilege a standard form of English, other forms are ridiculed for their inappropriateness within academic and professional spaces. However, it is imperative that we realize this as a form of oppression if we are to create more equitable spaces – spaces that truly welcome diverse facets of identity, one of which is language.

The sociolinguistic perspective realizes the importance of social factors as they influence our ideological formulations around language development. In this work, we use the analytical socio-paradigms of identity at the exclusive and collective levels. More specifically, we utilize a duoautoethnographic approach to deconstruct the shame invoked by various social powers and constructs that structured our worldviews around what is deemed appropriate use of language. Exploring learned parallels of standard English such as social class and intellect, we reflect on our lived experiences informed by a lifelong social duality of punishment and reinforcement for how we used language.

As we refute these oppressive ways of thinking, being, and acculturation, we recognize the sociohistorical foundations that have paved the way for this larger structural issue of language ideologies rooted in inequities. We conclude with implications for practice based on our reflections and analyses.

Outcomes

• Describe common accessibility barriers to digital access.

• Explore tangible examples and engage in activities that promote inclusivity and equity in real-world contexts.

Description

This session explores innovative strategies to enhance accessibility, foster connection and belonging, and equity in digital learning environments. We will share practical tips for educators on integrating accessible digital practices into their curriculum. Highlighting simple yet effective adjustments, our session aims to demonstrate that small changes can significantly enhance the learning experience for all students.

We will address common barriers, biases, and assumptions to digital access and showcase how thoughtful design and content creation can overcome these obstacles, making education more attainable and engaging for everyone, including those with disabilities. Presenters will showcase real-world examples and activities directly from our classrooms, including the principles of Universal Design for Learning (UDL),  inclusive course syllabi language, authentic assessments, and strategies for offering choice and flexibility in assignments. We will also highlight how to incorporate equitable and diverse images through the use of various free digital tools.

Our goal is to inspire educators to consider how they can contribute to a more inclusive digital landscape in higher education. By fostering an understanding of digital inclusion and providing actionable strategies, we hope to empower community college educators to make meaningful changes in their digital content, benefiting all students.

Join us to create learning spaces that are more inclusive, accessible, and equitable supporting our diverse student body.