Stein: Equiping Educators to Teach Inclusivly

[Geneva M. Stein]

Soon after beginning my job as Assistant Director at our CTL, I joined the Center’s conversations and ongoing efforts to equip educators on campus with the tools to make their teaching more inclusive.  From training workshops for peer educators that I ran and conversations that I had with STEM faculty, I found it challenging to discuss inclusion in ways that both instilled confidence in the practitioners and gave them techniques they could implement immediately.

 

At the POD conference in 2015, I attended a workshop on Inclusive Teaching in STEM run by the Director of another program’s CTL.  I was struck by a detailed worksheet based activity that she and her colleagues developed that enabled faculty to check off what inclusive techniques they already include in their classes and consider other specific techniques that they may like to try.

 

I immediately brought this activity back to our center and began using a version in my peer educator trainings.  I have found that the participants are much more engaged in the training and leave with a better idea of what techniques they can implement right away.  I was also able to bring the worksheet to center conversations about training faculty and use the idea of opening with what the instructor already does as a starting point to individual conversations with STEM faculty.  I can now say that there are hundreds of students a year in classes and learning support programs that have become more inclusive as a direct result of the inspiration of this POD workshop. 

 

Our work matters in increasing diversity and inclusion on campus and sharing our practices through the POD network enables us to get closer to our goals than we ever could alone.

 

Geneva Stein

Assistant Director, McGraw Center for Teaching and Learning

Princeton University