We found 139 results that contain "diversity"

Overview:
Peer grading involves students assessing each other's work based on predefined criteria. This practice promotes active learning, collaboration, and responsibility, aligning with a student-centered approach.
Key Aspects:

Student Involvement: Students engage deeply with the material and grading criteria by evaluating their peers' work.
Feedback Exchange: Provides and receives feedback from peers, fostering a collaborative learning environment.

Key Components:

Empowering Students:

Active Participation: Involves students in their learning journey, enhancing engagement.
Critical Thinking: Develops critical thinking through evaluating peers' work.

Developing Assessment Skills:

Understanding Criteria: Helps students understand high-quality work and improve their own.
Constructive Feedback: Teaches students to provide and articulate constructive feedback.

Promoting Equity and Inclusivity:

Diverse Perspectives: Introduces varied perspectives, leading to a more comprehensive understanding.
Empathy and Respect: Encourages appreciation of different viewpoints and approaches.

Enhancing Engagement and Motivation:

Ownership of Learning: Increases student ownership and motivation.
Collaborative Environment: Fosters a sense of community and mutual support.

Utilizing Technology and D2L:

Efficient Management: Use D2L tools for submission, anonymous grading, and feedback.
Resource Accessibility: Leverage D2L for rubrics, training materials, and discussion forums.


Challenges and Concerns:

Training and Calibration: Ensure students are well-trained in using rubrics and providing feedback.
Bias and Fairness: Minimize biases through anonymizing submissions and instructor oversight.
Balancing Roles: Complement peer grading with instructor assessments to ensure fairness

Benefits:

Enhanced Learning Outcomes: Improves understanding and retention through teaching and evaluating others.
Skill Development: Develops critical thinking, communication, and self-reflection skills.
Improved Engagement: Increases engagement by involving students in grading.


Resources:

Five Innovative Grading Strategies (iteach article)
A Student-Centered Approach to Grading (CTLI workshops)
Teaching students to evaluate each other (Center for Teaching Innovation, Cornell University)
Peer assessment (Center for Teaching Innovation, Cornell University)
Teaching Students to Give Peer Feedback (Edutopia)
Peer review strategies (University of Nevada, Reno)
Kritik (specifically an edtech used for peer review)
Perusall (a social annotation tool with an MSU license that can also be used for Peer Review)

How can a first-year writing course help to create 21st century STEM students with foundations for interdisciplinary inquiry? Could such as curriculum engage STEM students in knowledge production in ways that help to acculturate them as collaborative, ethical, and empathetic learners? Bringing together insights from writing pedagogy, work on critical science literacy, and science studies, this round-table is hosted by the collaborative team leading an effort to rethink the first year writing course required of all students at Lyman Briggs College, MSU's residential college for STEM students. A major goal of the curriculum redesign is to develop science studies-inspired writing assignments that foster reflective experiential learning about the nature of science. The purpose of this approach is not only to demonstrate the value of inquiry in science studies (history, philosophy, and sociology of science) to STEM students as they pursue their careers, but to foster diverse inclusion in science by demystifying key aspects of scientific culture and its hidden curriculum for membership. Following the guidance of critical pedagogy (e.g. bell hooks), we aim to use the context of first-year writing instruction as an opportunity for critical reflection and empowerment. The roundtable describes how the instructional team designed the first-year curriculum and adapted it to teaching online during the pandemic, and shares data on lessons learned by both the instructor team and our students. We invite participants to think with us as we continue to iteratively develop and assess the curriculum.To access a PDF version of the "Reimagining First-Year Writing for STEM Undergraduates as Inquiry-Based Learning in Science Studies" poster, click here. Description of Poster:
Reimagining First-Year Writing for STEM Undergraduates as Inquiry-Based Learning in Science Studies  
Marisa Brandt, HPS Lyman Briggs College & June Oh, English 
Project Overview: Reimagining LB 133 
Lyman Briggs College aims to provide a high quality science education to diverse students by teaching science in social, human, and global contexts. LB 133: Science & Culture fulfills the Tier 1 writing requirement for 80-85% of LBC students. Starting in F19, we implemented a new, collaboratively developed and taught cohort model of the LB 133 curriculum in order to take advantage of opportunity to foster a community of inquiry, inclusion, and curiosity.  
First year college writing and literacy courses aim to give students skills to communicate and evaluate information in their own fields and beyond. While teaching important writing skills, LB 133 focuses on developing students’ science literacy by encouraging them to enact a subject position of a socially engaged science professional in training. LB 133 was designed based on ideas of HPS. 
History, Philosophy, and Sociology (HPS) or “science studies” is an interdisciplinary field that studies science in context, often extended to include medicine, technology, and other sites of knowledge-production. LB 133 centers inquiry into relations of science and culture. One way HPS can help students succeed in STEM is by fostering inclusion. In LB 133, this occurs through demystifying scientific culture and hidden curriculum through authentic, project-based inquiry.  
Like WRAC 110, LB 133 is organized around five writing projects. Each project entails a method of inquiry into science as a social, human practice and teaches them to write first as a form of sense-making about their data. (Column 2) Then, students develop writing projects to communicate what they have learned to non-scientific audiences.  
Research Questions:  


How did their conceptions of science change?[Text Wrapping Break] 2. Did their writing improve?[Text Wrapping Break] 3. What did they see as the most important ideas and skills they would take from the course?[Text Wrapping Break] 4. Did they want more HPS at LBC?  


Data Collection:  
[Text Wrapping Break]1. Analysis of the beginning and end of course Personal Writing assessments. [Text Wrapping Break]2. End of term survey. [Text Wrapping Break]3. Answers to course reflection questions.  
Selected Results: See Column 3. 
Conclusions: The new model seems successful! Students reported finding 133 surprisingly enjoyable and educational, for many reasons. Many felt motivated to write about science specifically, saw communication as valuable scientific skill. Most felt their writing improved and learned more than anticipated. Most learned and valued key HPS concepts and wanted to learn more about diversity in scientific cultures, and wanted to continue HPS education in LBC to do so. 
Column 2 - Course Structure: Science & Culture 




Assessment 


Science Studies Content[Text Wrapping Break]Learning Goals 


Literacy & Writing Skills Learning Goals 




Part 1 - Cultures of Science 




Personal Writing 1: Personal Statement [STEM Ed Op-ed][Text Wrapping Break]Short form writing from scientific subject position.  


Reflect on evolving identity, role, and responsibilities in scientific culture.   


Diagnostic for answering questions, supporting a claim, providing evidence, structure, and clear writing. 




Scientific Sites Portfolio[Text Wrapping Break]Collaborative investigation of how a local lab produces knowledge.   


Understand scientific practice, reasoning, and communication in its diverse social, material, and cultural contexts. Demystify labs and humanize scientists. 


Making observational field notes. Reading scientific papers.  
Peer review. Claim, evidence, reasoning. Writing analytical essays based on observation.   




Part 2 - Science in Culture 




Unpacking a Fact Poster 
Partner project assessing validity of a public scientific claim. 


Understand the mediation of science and how to evaluate scientific claims. Identify popular conceptions of science and contrast these with scientists’ practices. 


Following sources upstream. Comparing sources.  
APA citation style.  
Visual display of info on a poster. 




Perspectives Portfolio[Text Wrapping Break]Collaborative investigation of a debate concerning science in Michigan. 


Identify and analyze how diverse stakeholders are included in and/or excluded from science. Recognize value of diverse perspective. 


Find, use, and correctly cite primary and scholarly secondary sources from different stakeholder perspectives. 
Learn communicating to a broader audience in an online platform. 




Personal Writing 2: Letter + PS Revision[Text Wrapping Break]Sharing a course takeaway with someone. 


Reflect again on evolving identity, role, and responsibilities in scientific culture.   


Final assessment of answering questions, supporting a claim, providing evidence, structure, and clear writing. 




Weekly Formative Assessments 




Discussion Activities Pre-meeting writing about the readings 


Reflect on prompted aspects of science and culture 


Writing as critical inquiry. 
Note-taking. 
Preparation for discussion. 




Curiosity Colloquium responses 
200 words reflecting on weekly speaker series 


Exposure to college, campus, and academic guests—including diverse science professionals— who share their curiosity and career story.  


Writing as reflection on presentations and their personal value. 
Some presenters share research and writing skills. 




Column 3 - Results  
Results from Personal Writing 
Fall 19: There were largely six themes the op-ed assignments discussed. Majority of students chose to talk about the value of science in terms of its ubiquity, problem-solving skills and critical thinking skills, and the way it prompts technological innovation. 
Fall 21: Students largely focused on 1. the nature of science as a product of human labor research embedded with many cultural issues, and 2. science as a communication and how scientists can gain public trust (e.g., transparency, collaboration, sharing failure.)  
F19 & S20 Selected Survey Results 
 108 students responding.The full report here.  


92.5% reported their overall college writing skills improved somewhat or a lot. 


76% reported their writing skills improved somewhat or a lot more than they expected. 


89% reported planning to say in LBC. 


Selected Course Reflection Comments 
The most impactful things students report learning at end of semester. 
Science and Culture: Quotes: “how scientific knowledge is produced” “science is inherently social” “how different perspectives . . . impact science” “writing is integral to the scientific community as a method of sharing and documenting scientific research and discoveries” 
Writing: Quotes: “a thesis must be specific and debatable” “claim, evidence, and reasoning” “it takes a long time to perfect.” Frequently mentioned skills: Thesis, research skill (citation, finding articles and proper sources), argument (evidence), structure and organization skills, writing as a (often long and arduous) process, using a mentor text, confidence. 
What do you want to learn more about after this course? 
“How culture(s) and science coexist, and . . . how different cultures view science” 
“Gender and minority disparities in STEM” “minority groups in science and how their cultures impact how they conduct science” “different cultures in science instead of just the United States” “how to write scientific essays”  
 

General Talking Points and Conversation Guide After A Campus Incident
Beginning the Conversation.

Start by welcoming students and introducing yourself. If you have not met the student before, ask for name, pronouns, year at MSU, etc. If more than one student is present, make sure students introduce themselves to others in the space.
Thank students for attending and acknowledging the difficulty of the incident. 

Identify Goals of the conversation.

A introduction suggestion: “The goal of this conversation is to provide students an opportunity to share their immediate thoughts and feelings the incident has raised. As educators and Spartans, we would like to know how we can best support you and your peers as well as we can continue our commitment to foster community at inclusion at MSU”
It also may be helpful to mention that the goal of the space is dialogue, “Dialogue is about shared inquiry, a way of thinking and reflecting together.”
Note that students will approach this conversation from varied emotional places and that all expressions of emotions are welcomed.
Lastly some students might have clear visions of what the University should be doing as action steps. It is suggested to allow space for some of those ideas but also remind students of the intended goal.

If time is available and needed, establish Community Intentions.

This is suggested if having conversations with several students, especially if they are not an intact group. A quick and accessible way to do this is through the acronym ROPES:

R=Respect
O=Open Mindedness
P=Participation/pass (Step Up/Step Back)
E=Experiment with new ideas
S=Sensitivity/Safety (Confidentiality)



Provide a “What We Know” of the Incident.

Offer known of publicized facts of the incident. It’s often helpful to do this as a timeline, chronological order. A few suggestions from MSU Interim Deputy Police Chief Chris Rozman's statements (the late hours of 2/13/23):

The first report of shots fired came at 8:18 p.m. ET from Berkey Hall, an academic building on the northern end of campus. Officers responded to the building within minutes and found several shooting victims, including two who died.
Immediately after that, another shooting was reported at the nearby student union building. That’s where the third slain victim was found.
It’s not known how long the suspect was on campus before opening fire
Hours after the first gunshots rang out, the suspect “was contacted by law enforcement off campus,” Rozman said.
Afterward, it appeared the “suspect has died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.”
The university has moved into emergency operations for the next two days (Feb. 14-15). Students will see a continued police presence as investigators probe multiple scenes. Classes will resume on Monday, 2/20/23




It’s important to relay to students that some information they request may not be given due to campus policy and privacy laws. Acknowledge how that might be limiting and frusterating.
Lastly, it may be helpful to provide an overview of MSU Alert processes:The Michigan State University Police Department is responsible for developing and distributing Timely Warning and Emergency Notification messages. These messages are intended to warn the community about certain crimes and notify it of potentially dangerous situations on or near campus. These messages inform community members about incidents that may pose an ongoing threat and provide information to promote safety and prevent similar crimes.
MSU Faculty, Staff, and Students: Login to the Everbridge self-help portal to manage your contact data. You will be redirected to an MSU login page to use your NetID credentials for authentication. After a successful login, you will be on the everbridge.net site to manage your information.
All information provided is kept strictly confidential and private in accordance with the Everbridge privacy policy.

The primary goal of this process is to support impacted students/de-escalation/safety, and intervention.



How Are You Feeling?/ What Do You Need?

Allow students space to share immediate feelings, reactions and thoughts. Ask what immediate needs come to mind.

Now What?/Moving Forward (Time Permitted).

Ask students what they think is needed to move the campus forward. Frame this conversation segment not only on what the campus can collectively do but also on what they can offer individually to move us forward as a community.

Closing the Space.
A few options based on of the conversation dynamic:

One word check in to capture how they are
One thing they are willing to continue to support inclusivity and fostering community at MSU


Adapted from a draft by Dre Domingue, Assistant Dean of Students for Diversity & Inclusion at Davidson College, November 2018

Register HereEvent Description




In response to the tragic events that occurred at MSU, the WorkLife Office has prepared a training geared towards all MSU Faculty and Staff to assist with your own personal response as well as how to apply this information to assist in your colleagues’ response to the trauma we have faced. In this presentation, we will discuss the different ways in which we respond to trauma, what the natural recovery process looks like, as well as resources available to all of our MSU community.




Learning Objectives





Understand different responses people may have to trauma or to a traumatic event
Understand what a natural recovery process timeline could look like
Understand the importance of maintaining routine and other ways of managing stress





About the Speaker: Jaimie Hutchison, MA, LPC















Jaimie Hutchison is the Director of the WorkLife Office at Michigan State University, supporting MSU’s recruitment and retention of a high performing workforce and the wellbeing of a diverse community of staff and scholars. Jaimie and her team contribute to the development of MSU’s policies and special initiatives, and the office oversees MSU’s University-wide work-life strategies. The office administers a range of programs for faculty, staff, academic staff, and postdocs, including those focused on mental health, workplace flexibility, dependent care, family support, workplace culture, career development, leadership, and workplace-based well-being. Jaimie has worked for 24 years as a leader, therapist, consultant, director, supervisor, trainer, mentor, and administrator. In addition to her work-life role, she is also a therapist at Insight Counseling working primarily with tweens, teens, and families. Jaimie is highly engaged with the local community and has volunteered over 10,000 hours.

The following is a list of the educators receiving the #iteachmsu Educator Award from Units that house educators beyond one college. For more information on these awards, check out the article entitled "#iteachmsu Educator Awards".
The Writing Center
Grace Pregent: Despite being new to MSU, Grace has already made a big difference at MSU. One of my advisees, a first-semester graduate student, worked under her supervision. Not only did he enjoy his work, but he got so much more than just a job and a pay check: he was welcomed into a positive, supportive, and encouraging community led by Grace and was mentored on much more than just how to do his job. Grace nudged him to present his work at a conference and gave him the confidence that he could actually do it. The student was experiencing a challenging phase of his life this semester, which could have easily sent him down into negativity land. But as he explained to me, it was Grace's ubiquitous and endless positivity, that became a bright light in his daily life at MSU, contributing to him successfully and confidently completing a difficult first semester. 
 
Colton Wasitler: Colton has worked for The Writing Center @ MSU for many years with increasing levels of responsibility and commitment over time. He is the coordinator of our home base in Bessey Hall as well as our online satellite. Because of his work training consultants to conduct online sessions, we were well prepared to move our whole center online in this time of crisis. In addition, he worked tirelessly those first few days to get us going online and to make sure every consultant had the guidelines and resources they would need to function in this new environment. I truly appreciate his leadership, his mentorship of other consultants, and his good will and humor during all of it.
 
Center for Language teaching Advancement (CeLTA)
Elizabeth Ablan: Elizabeth joined our team in Fall 2019. Her primary duty was to assist with the Community Language School's (CLS) programming. She was very quick to understand what her responsibilities entailed and dived right into them. She's a very detailed-oriented person and makes sure that she does every task thoroughly and to the best of her ability. Her passion for language teaching and infectious collaborative spirit is very evident in her interactions with our teachers and volunteers. She often goes out of her way and beyond her duties to inculcate a sense of community in our unit by helping our student workers or anyone else in our unit that might need help. For instance, she initiated a discussion on how to keep our office fridge clean and organized. She took it upon herself to type up a chart explaining what needs to be stored on every shelf in the fridge. When we were planning a book sale of used books, she meticulously sorted all the book donations by language and organized them in our storage space. She has assisted multiple times with re-organizing our office space. She also streamlined the process for our professional development series and was very adept at understanding what protocols to follow with our invited speakers each week. Personally for me, she has been an enormous beam of support in running the Language School and managing all the administrative tasks so efficiently. Elizabeth's contribution to my team is tremendous! I appreciate her positivity, her work ethic and her attitude as a graduate student all while maintaining a full course load. A big 'thank you' for everything that you do!
 
Center for Statistical Training and Consulting (CSTAT)
Andrew Dennhardt: Andrew is a phenomenal research assistant for the Center for Statistical Training and Consulting (CSTAT). He provides excellent statistical collaboration and consultation services to our clients. Multiple clients have sent me unsolicited emails to tell me how valuable his help was to them in completing their research. They have praised his knowledge, communication skills, responsiveness, commitment, and professionalism. My own observations validate their comments. Andrew has excellent oral and written communication and collaboration skills. He listens carefully to people and thinks about what they say and how to respond. He respects the knowledge, expertise, perspective, and contributions that others bring to the table. Andrew sees the value in having stakeholders with diverse backgrounds coming together to jointly plan how to solve problems. I regularly give him clients who need help with rather complex research design and statistical analysis problems. He proposes feasible methods for rigorously addressing those problems, then helps the clients learn how to implement his suggestions and address other issues that come up along the way (e.g., identifying important constraints or aspects to situations that the client had not yet recognized were relevant). When Andrew hits the boundaries of his own knowledge, he starts searching for new resources and trying to expand those boundaries.
 
Bailey Scholars Program
Lorelei Blackburn: Lorelei is a BSP faculty fellow this year. She has had a very difficult section of ANR 210, but has done an excellent job stretching herself as the course convener to push the students to take ownership of their learning. You have helped to design a learning environment where students are able to build community and challenge ways of knowing. Bravo to you Lorelei!
 
The Graduate School
Melissa McDaniels: Melissa McDaniels is the best kind of Spartan educator, one who leaves MSU with a remarkable legacy of impact, touching not only those who were fortunate to work with her or be taught by her, but also those who benefit from her efforts behind the scenes to improve how teaching, learning, and mentoring are done at MSU. MSU Is grateful for her decade of service to teaching and learning! Anyone who has worked with Melissa has felt her impact, whether it has been in one of the workshops she's taught, in the orientations she has led, or in meetings where she advocates always for excellent teaching, learning, and mentoring. She is a skilled teacher and an effective policy maker, whose legacy at MSU will help ensure that future Spartans will benefit from teaching that is supported, valued, and celebrated. She is a national leader in supporting mentoring practices that honor people for their unique experiences, contributions, and aspirations and she leads with her beliefs: That everyone on our campus is capable of doing great things and that our individual uniqueness, put together, makes MSU an extraordinary place to learn, work, and grow. Thank you, Melissa, for your passion and dedication to learning. We are so grateful to have had you for as long as we did!
 
IT Services
Kevin Holtz: Kevin has provided in person support for some of most challenging teaching methods. He stepped up and configured and created guides for faculty to use classroom equipment in their offices and has provided critical in person support for lab courses. 
 
Technology at MSU - Client Services 
When MSU moved to remote teaching on March 11, the idea of "classroom support" changed instantly. Client Services staff helped faculty transition from the physical classroom to the virtual one through things like live lecture capture classrooms, providing streaming infrastructure for important information events, answering ever increasing numbers of service desk support calls and helping triage technical support across not only IT departments but campus as a whole. At every new challenge, they asked "how can we help?" By not only connecting faculty and students to the technology they needed to complete their work, but also supporting them as they learned an entirely new way of doing things.
 
Andrew Dennhardt, Aaron Algrim, Michael Sweet, Amin Elrashid, Ronald Southwick, Donald Morgan, Thong Hoang, Ronald Pranica, Dale Wegienka, John Hulbert, Linda Barrows, Kirk Bartling, Cindy Taphouse, Jeremy Jestila, Susan Dunn, Stephan Andre, Darius Bradley, Paul Phipps, Paul Sweitzer, Robin Ellsworth, Leo Sell, Sharron Wells, Angela Knauf, Cynthia Wallace, Joseph Murray, Mark Szymczak, Hao Quoc Lu, Dean Olson III, Blake House, Jeffrey Herrmann, William Balluff, Steven Jowett, Otty Turrentine, Jillene Pohl, Adell Flourry Jr., Victor Doe, Morene Dickman, Linda Beck, Wilson Ndovie, Stephen Asman, Shirl Rowley, Kimberly Davis, Laura Stevens, Terry Gillespie Jr., Lauri Stephens, Michael Walters, Stefan Ozminski, James Willson, Brandt Detmers, Timothy Skutt, Christopher Doerr, Robert Sisson II, Jonathan Schulz, Daniel Layne, Angela Kimmel, Charles Spagnuolo Jr, Chase Guzinski, Dustin Bacon, Renata Thompson, Angela Clum, Navidad Cassaday, Kathleen McGlynn, Melanie Phillips, Daniel Wyrembelski, Justin Baker, Aaron Richmond, Theodore Manko, Michael Snyder, Joseph Fromm, Chad Randall, Casey Jo Brassington, Elizabeth Hood, Bradley Williams, Scott Foreman, Jennifer Phillips, Michael Reed, Sean Will, Gordon Kiewiet, Erica Nedziwe, Jeniffer Robinson, Jeremy Gentges, Mark Seyka, Alexander Goff, Christopher Jones, Tonya Govereh, Kelly Wilcox, Michael Warner, Sean Collins, Matthew Evans, Brian Fraley, Erik Williams, John Sfreddo, Jacqueline Wilson, George Harris, Gabriel Cantu, Suporn Teng, Jane Carl, Sue Clark, Whitney Patterson, Paul Short, Thomas Marra, John Scott, David Sheppard, Karen Bailey, Jordan Stine, Gregory Forman, Ethan Begalka, Mohamed Abou Elseoud, Gregory Koerner, Chad Corkwell, Heather Atkinson, Alison Virag-McCann, Ronald Njau, Vinessa Webster, Kathryn Harger, Foster Whipple, Ryan Laorr, Claire Cowan, Bailee Droste, Jake Crandell, Madeline Smith, Benjamen Nienhouse, Lindsay Knuth, Anne Phillips, Joshua Hakes, John Nguyen-Tran, Amy Bransch, Allen Scheck, Mallory Crowner, Kyle Banks, Carlie Richardson, Dominic Colosimo, Jinny Bernotas, Hanna Foreman, Jeffrey Cunningham, Makenzie McDowell, Nicholas Hartman, Gregory Battley, Haley Rathkamp, Elsa Gallegos, Ryan Freemire, Tyler Michael, Rachel Macauley, Denzel Smith, Danie Gorentz, Jami Baker, Justin Walser, Jacob Tenney, Anslee Norris, Ryan Roberts, Wyatt Oistad, Anthony Rogers, Aaron Mundale, Eric Zhang, Jacob Garner, Daimon Emerick, Nickolas Battley, Jaison Balluff, Rachel Rumsey, Stephen Elmer, Kevin Holtz, Thomas Ruffley, David Littleton, Ian Walker, Robert McDonnell, Christopher Sibley, Elijah Corbin, Craig Smith, Madalyn Allen, David Palme, Joshua May, John Goodwin, Andrew Stine, Daniel Grusczynski, Brandon Mcsawby, Jared Utsunomiya, Devin Wilcox, John Senger, Sandros Rivera-Letcher, Brian Mitchell, Andrew Barnikow, Terrance Singleton, Clabe Hunt, Alaina Scheidel, Jacob Kingsley, Trent Keyton, Allem Mekonen, Eun Kyo Chung, Mary Catherine Canavan, Jolene Alto, Jillian Davis, Gabrielle-louise White Italia, Hillary Hemry, Dante Delorenzo, Randy Carnahan, Zoran Tomic-Bobas, Perry Truscon, Margaret Northcutt, Adithya Rao, Caitlin Parton, Lauren Gudritz, Tyler Coleman, Jeremy Balluff, Tyreece Banks, Sue Hurd, Dylan Mccarroll, Noah Luikart, Seth Swartout, Rostyslav Chen, Mary Magnotta, Jessica Knott, Devyn Boettcher, Dylan Hawthorne, Jonathan Miller, William Park, Braeden Berg, Derek Hamp, Joseph Roy, Quinn Sheppard, Alanna Bortle, Isaiah Orsborn, Brant Salinaz & Tabitha Hudson
 
 
Anyone can recognize a fellow Spartan for their contributions to MSU's teaching and learning mission or for how they made a lasting impression on your experience. All you have to do is click "Thank an Educator" in the left panel of iteach.msu.edu. From there you'll be directed to a form where you can enter the name, netID, and a short story of the educator you'd like to recognize.

Peer-Educator Dialogue Guide[*]
This is a "Checklist" guide, not a scaled rating or evaluation form. This guide is intended to be used as a tool to enable educators… “who teach, supervise and/or support students’ learning to gain feedback from one or more colleagues as part of the process of reflecting on their own practices” (University of Exeter). It asks peer-educators to indicate the presence of teaching activities/behaviors already established as indicative of high-quality teaching.  Individual educators, units, departments, etc. can determine which of the items in the categorized lists below reflect their priorities; a targeted set of items per list will make the guide easier for educators to use.
Date:Time:  Instructor-educator name:Course #:Course Title:Modality:No. Students:Peer-Educator name:                                                       
Peer-educator instructions:  Indicate with a check (√) the presence of the following actions and behaviors that indicate high quality teaching.  Leave blank items you do not observe.  Use N/A if an item is not relevant for this experience or the instructor’s teaching style. 
Variety and Pacing of Instruction
The instructor-educator:

uses more than one form of instruction
pauses after asking questions
accepts students’ responses
draws non-participating students into activities/discussions
prevents specific students from dominating activities/discussions
helps students extend their responses
guides the direction of discussion
mediates conflict or differences of opinion
demonstrates active listening
provides explicit directions for active learning tasks (e.g. rationale, duration, product)
allows sufficient time to complete tasks such as group work
specifies how learning tasks will be evaluated (if at all)
provides opportunities and time for students to practice

Examples of instructor-educator actions or behaviors that support the above indications (√):
 
 
Organization
The instructor-educator :

arrives on time
relates this and previous class(es), or provides students with an opportunity to do so
provides class goals or objectives for the class session
provides an outline or organization for the class session
knows how to use the educational technology needed for the class
locates class materials as needed
makes transitional statements between class segments
follows the stated structure
conveys the purpose of each class activity or assignment
completes the scheduled topics
summarizes periodically and at the end of class (or prompts students to do so)

Examples of instructor-educator actions or behaviors that support the above indications (√):
 
 
Presentation Skills
The instructor-educator:

is audible to all students
articulates words so that they are understandable to students, and/or visually represents words that might he difficult for students to hear
varies the tone and pitch of voice for emphasis and interest
speaks at a pace that permits students to understand and take notes
establishes and maintains eye contact
avoids over-reliance on reading content from notes, slides, or texts
avoids distracting mannerisms
uses visual aids effectively (e.g. when appropriate to reinforce a concept, legible handwriting, readable slides)
effectively uses the classroom space

Examples of instructor-educator actions or behaviors that support the above indications (√):

Clarity
The instructor-educator:

notes new terms or concepts
elaborates or repeats complex information
uses examples to explain content
makes explicit statements drawing student attention to certain ideas
pauses during explanations to ask and answer questions

Examples of instructor-educator actions or behaviors that support the above indications (√):
 
 
Content Knowledge
The instructor-educator:

makes statements that are accurate according to the standards of the field
incorporates current research in the field
identifies sources, perspectives, and authorities in the field
identifies diverse sources, perspectives, and authorities in the field
communicates the reasoning process behind operations and/or concepts

Examples of instructor-educator actions or behaviors that support the above indications (√):
 
 
Instructor-Student Rapport
The instructor-educator:

attends respectfully to student comprehension or puzzlement
invites students’ participation and comments
treats students as individuals (e.g. uses students’ names)
provides periodic feedback
incorporates student ideas into class
uses positive reinforcement (i.e. doesn’t punish or deliberately embarrass students in class)

Examples of instructor-educator actions or behaviors that support the above indications (√):

General Peer-Educator Reflection:
What did you observe that went well?
What suggestions for enhancement do you have?
Additional Comments:
 
[*]  Adapted 1/2006 from Chism, N.V.N. (1999) Chapter 6: Classroom Observation, Peer Review of Teaching: A Sourcebook.  Bolton, MA: Anker Publishing, by Angela R. Linse, Executive Director, Schreyer Institute for Teaching Excellence, Penn State.  If you further adapt this form, please include this source citation.

The following is a list of educator professional development tools, resources, and supports at MSU. This collection is just that, a sampling of offerings aimed at providing anyone who supports student success by contributing to the teaching and learning mission with a place to start when they're looking for ongoing opportunities for growth outside of the #iteachmsu Commons. 
 

SOIREE: The SOIREE (Spartan Online Instructional Readiness Educational Experience) workshop was created to help you better prepare to teach online. You will learn online pedagogical principles and develop proficiency with a variety of technologies. You can check out SOIREE for more information. (Fall programming TBD)
ASPIRE: The ASPIRE (Asynchronous Program for Instructional Readiness) workshop was created to help you better prepare to teach online. ASPIRE is entirely self-paced and will guide you through the processes and issues you'll need to address in order to develop an online version of your course. You can check out ASPIRE for more information, including enrolling in ASPIRE.
The College of Education’s Mini-MOOC on Remote Teaching: The Master of Arts in Educational Technology Program (MAET) at Michigan State University is honored to support the amazing work that educators are doing around the world as they transition to a range of remote teaching contexts. You can check out CED Mini-MOOC for more information, including enrolling in the Mini-MOOC.
#iteachmsu: You teach MSU. A wide educator community (faculty, TAs, ULAs, instructional designers, academic advisors, et al.) makes learning happen across MSU. But, on such a large campus, it can be difficult to fully recognize and leverage this community’s teaching and learning innovations. To address this challenge, the #iteachmsu Commons provides an educator-driven space for sharing teaching resources, connecting across educator networks, and growing teaching practice. #iteachmsu Commons content may be discipline-specific or transdisciplinary, but will always be anchored in teaching competency areas. You will find short posts, blog-like articles, curated playlists, and a campus-wide teaching and learning events calendar. We cultivate this commons across spaces. And through your engagement, we will continue to nurture a culture of teaching and learning across MSU and beyond.
Teaching and Learning Bootcamp: The Teaching and Learning Boot Camp is offered to bring together educators new to MSU from across campus to explore and exchange ideas about quality and inclusive teaching, as well as find community among the large group of people who are engaged in the important work of creating the best learning environments possible for our students. The focus is to assist educators in developing practical materials that are needed for immediate use in their teaching and to best prepare them for their courses and work with students. For more information, check out Teaching & Learning Bootcamp.
Accessible Learning Conference: For the last five years, the Accessible Learning Conference has provided a forum for students, educators, community members and leaders to connect, share knowledge, and foster innovation in accessibility in higher education. You can check out the Accessible Learning Conference for more information.
MSU Dialogues: MSU Dialogues is an intergroup dialogue program for students, faculty and staff at Michigan State. It is a face-to-face learning experience that brings together people from different identity groups over a sustained period of time to: understand our commonalities and differences; examine the nature and impact of societal inequalities; explore ways of working together toward greater equity and justice; prepare individuals to live, work, and lead in a complex, diverse stratified society. Go to MSU Dialogues on Race, Religion, or Gender for more information.
Course Review Process: Quality Matters (QM) is a nationally recognized, faculty-centered, peer review process designed to certify the quality of online courses and online components. MSU purchased a campus subscription to the QM Rubric to assist faculty and instructors in creating quality courses that will improve online education and student learning. For more information on getting started with peer course review and Quality Matters at MSU, please visit MSU SpartanQM Webpage.
Alternative assessment/Online exam workshops: These workshops ran live in 2020 and provided information and examples of designing online exams and assessing students with alternative assessments beyond exams. Recordings of the workshops can be accessed asynchronously via #iteachmsu Commons. 
Learning Communities: Learning Communities provide safe and supportive spaces for complicated conversations about curriculum and pedagogy. Michigan State University has supported these initiatives since 2004 and continues to do so through a funding program administered by the Academic Advancement Network. Learning Communities at MSU are free to select their own topics and determine the structures that best support their inquiries. Accordingly, communities tend to vary greatly in their practices, interests, and agendas. All communities, however, share three things in common: they meet monthly across the academic year, explore important educational themes, and welcome all members of MSU’s instructional staff, regardless of rank or discipline. Please go to Learning Communities (AAN) or Learning Communities (#iteachmsu) for more information.
Cohort programs: Lilly Fellowship - The program is intended to advance the University’s continuing efforts to support excellence in teaching and learning. The program supports a cohort of six faculty or academic specialists at all ranks with at least five years of service to the institution. The Program also provides an opportunity for Fellows to expand relationships and collaborative engagement with peers and colleagues within their own college and across the University. The program is supported by matching grants from AAN and the Fellows’ departments and/or colleges. The goal is to develop academic leaders who will guide the University into the near future with regard to learning, teaching, and educational programming. Participants are expected to focus their work on a project of their choosing that will make a substantial contribution to a unit’s educational efforts. The unit can be a program or a department, but it can also be a college or a University unit or initiative. Using the proposed project as a foundation, participants will also learn leadership concepts and models, build specific skills, learn more about how the University works, and practice what they learn through the activities of their project and small group mentoring and coaching. Adams Academy - The Walter & Pauline Adams Academy of Instructional Excellence and Innovation is named in honor of former MSU President Walter Adams and his wife and MSU faculty member emerita, Pauline Adams, in recognition of their sustained commitments to promote instructional excellence. The program brings together a cross-disciplinary group of faculty and academic staff for a year-long fellowship focused on teaching and learning. Adams Academy Fellows explore the literature on effective university teaching and learning practices and consider how this robust body of research can be used to guide instructional decisions in the courses they teach. Participants learn from and contribute to a community of teacher-scholars committed to excellence in teaching and learning.
Technology and Tools: IT Services offers many different resources to support teaching and learning efforts. For more information, check out Tech and Tools workshops from IT.
MSU Libraries Workshops: MSU Library & Archives provides a series of events, seminars and workshops on a wide variety of topics including but not limited to: Mendeley, data management, 3D models, special collections, distinguished lectures, Zotero, geocoding and more. Go to MSU Library Workshops for more.
The Graduate Teaching Assistant Institute: The New Teaching Assistant Institute is a university-wide orientation for graduate teaching assistants, in partnership with academic and support units on campus. It is up to departments to decide to require or recommend that their students attend this program (*graduate students should ask their graduate program directors if they are unsure about participating). All attendees must register and are expected to attend the entire day. Go to Graduate Teaching Assistant Institute for more information.
Certification in College Teaching: The Michigan State University Certification in College Teaching program is an initiative of The Graduate School, in partnership with departments and colleges. The program is designed to help graduate students organize and develop their teaching experience in a systematic and thoughtful way. Program participants partake in a series of workshops, enroll in a graduate course devoted to teaching in higher education, engage in a mentored teaching experience with a faculty member and develop a teaching portfolio to highlight, organize and reflect upon their teaching experiences. Upon completion of the program, students receive an MSU Certificate in College Teaching and the accomplishment is noted on their transcript. Visit Certification in College Teaching for more information. 

The Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning at Harvard University has shared what to do if a difficult (also referred to as "hot") moment has arisen in your classroom.
While there’s often no single “right” response, as the instructor, how you address difficult moments in the classroom has implications for learning. Your response can communicate indifference or even hostility; alternatively, it can show that you’re aware of your classroom’s dynamics, you aim to promote learning even through struggle, and you care about your students’ well-being. Here are some tips for helping you to respond productively.

Attend to your own reactions. Take a moment to steady yourself. A couple deep breaths can be helpful here. Though it may be challenging, holding steady while navigating a difficult moment can help others feel safe, less reactive, and better able to slow down and explore the dynamics at work in the situation. There are likely many different, complicated responses playing out in the room. What are you feeling? Allow yourself a pause; you can even invite everyone in the room to pause along with you. How are others reacting to what is happening? You can offer everyone some time to think, write, or even leave the room for a bit. Observe your own reactions to what is happening. Try to distinguish between what you are experiencing, what is actually being said or done, and the various possible interpretations of what is happening. There’s a lot going on in this moment! Attending to your reactions is a skill to be practiced.
Understand the situation. It’s possible that, in the heat and complexity of the moment, there has been some misunderstanding. Maybe someone has misspoken or you’ve mistaken their meaning. Others in the room may be in the same situation, wondering whether they've heard and understood a comment correctly, for instance. It's important to make sure that your understanding of the situation is as accurate as possible and sensitive to the different perspectives present in the room. It may be fitting to ask the person or people involved for further explanation or clarification. If the difficult moment was sparked by a comment, you could try repeating back the comment or its logical implications – not as an accusation, but to allow the speaker to clarify their meaning. You might ask: “What makes you say that?” or “Can you say more about what you mean?” Try to discern if there is a learning opportunity here, or perhaps a need for articulating boundaries.
Deepen and nuance your short-term response. You’ve slowed down the situation, attended to your reactions, and asked for further explanation or clarification as needed. As noted above, the dynamics at play in this moment are complex! How can you deepen and nuance your response in the short-term? For one, try and separate the utterance, idea, or action from the person who articulated or performed it. Hold people accountable for what they say and do; also recognize that a single offensive or even harmful act doesn’t reveal the entirety of someone’s character and motives. You can make it clear that a comment or act is unwelcome in the classroom, even while admitting you’re not sure precisely why or how it came about. For another, you might acknowledge the various emotional responses in the room as material that can contribute meaningfully to class discussion. Can these responses reveal something interesting about a concept that is being studied or a method being practiced? This move can both validate the different kinds of responses unfolding for individuals in the room and communicate that lived experience is relevant for classroom learning.
Consider your long-term response. Your short-term response to a difficult moment need not be your only response. Do you think the moment requires follow-up action so that future classes aren’t negatively affected? Would it be helpful to check-in with the class or certain individuals either via email or during the next class meeting? If you perceived harm being done or unease being instigated, you may offer to talk with a student or students after class, over email or in-person. You may also consider how chances for feedback and communication of personal experience might be incorporated in the ongoing class structure. Perhaps invite everyone to write or share exit notes at the end of every class, or maybe you collect feedback at several points throughout the semester. Regular opportunities to articulate one’s experience in a course can do much toward alleviating the pressure placed on any one emotionally intense moment; they also help cultivate a practice of reflection and self-awareness.

Five Strategies to Interrupt Hot Moments from MSU IDI:

CURIOSITY: Ask powerful questions and listen generously to answers. Lead a dialogue balancing all voices in the class. Make sure to surface historically marginalized perspectives.
WRITING EXERCISE: Have students write responses to: 

“What I know about this topic…”
“What I want to learn…” 
“What I want to say….” 

You may ask them to respond anonymously, collect and review to determine how to proceed next time.


SMALL GROUPS: Divide students into groups of 2 or 3 and give them prompts (from above or others); debrief or have them write.
CONTENT/DATA SHARE: Create a graph and ask students what they already know about this topic, what they need to find out. What do we know about this issue historically?
NAMING AND FRAMING: Sometimes it is useful to actually stop the conversation and ask the group to name and explore something that just happened during the conversation. Move away from the specifics of the issue and ask class “what happened here?” Solicit ideas about what, why, how to move forward.

Looking for more resources? Check out the amazing work done by educator development team at the University of Michigan's Center for Research on Teaching and Learning. They provide strategies for anticipating and responding to difficult discussions as well as classroom incivility:

Guidelines for planning and facilitating discussions on difficult or controversial topics
Responding to incidents of hate speech
Teaching and learning in a tense election season
Strategies for making productive use of tense or difficult moments
Facilitating Challenging Conversations in your Classes (blog post)
Sample guidelines for class participation
Guidelines for responding to particular topics and tragedies
Responding to Incivility in the College Classroom

Thank you to colleagues in university educator development at the Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning at Harvard University, the Center for Research on Teaching and Learning at the University of Michigan, Institutional Diversity and Inclusion at Michigan State University, and others for their materials that informed or were adapted into this resource. Photo by Patrick Hendry on Unsplash