We found 173 results that contain "social justice"

This week, we are featuring Dr. Stephen Thomas who wears many hats here at MSU. He is the Digital Curriculum Coordinator in the College of Natural Science, the Assistant Dean for STEM Education, Teaching and Learning, and he is also the Associate Director for the Center for Integrative Studies in General Science. Stephen was recognized via iteach.msu.edu's Thank and Educator Initiative! We encourage MSU community members to nominate high-impact Spartan educators (via our Thank an Educator initiative) regularly!
I’m Dave Goodrich and I help design engaging learning experiences with educators like Stephen here at MSU. I’ve had the privilege of getting to work and learn from Stephen over the years and was glad to get to be able to interview him for this series. This is a longer conversation than typical educator stories, but we could have talked even longer, I’m sure. In fact, from this conversation, I’d love to have follow-up conversations with Stephen on some of the things that came up here, but for now, read more about Stephen's perspectives and experiences below:
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Dave  
I thought we could begin our conversation by having you give a glimpse into how you became an educator and your path to becoming an educator. We also usually start this with a challenging question: In one word, what does being an educator mean to you?
Stephen  
I would say I am really focused on connection. So usually I'm dealing with populations who are studying things that are unfamiliar to them. So usually I'm teaching non-majors or done some work and informal science education, and, you know, some work with majors. But I feel like in general, I'm usually talking to a naive or inexperienced population, and I'm trying to help them to see themselves in the content that they're studying. And then I think over time, I've realized that there's a large piece of having a connection with the individual in order to help them then make a connection with the content. And so you know, and sometimes it's even like, how are you connecting them to each other, in order to help support them, like peers and their fellow students? I think there's a lot of that element in how I go about probably in the educational endeavor. So it's a lot of like, how do we engage people and get them to see themselves in the content that they're working with?
Dave  
Yeah, absolutely. So I love talking to educators, like you, who inspire me. It's educators like you who helped me decide to go into education, because of how they kind of poured themselves into it and really cared for their students like how you're describing. I'm curious, I don't know if I've ever, ever asked you before, was there a moment in your life where you were like, yes, this is what I want to do. How did you enter the world of education?
Stephen  
So I come from a long line of educators and lawyers. I was never going to choose law. I find it fascinating, but it just wasn't for me. And it just seemed like a very natural fit. So I think what's interesting, though, is that the piece that I've really resonated with is not necessarily the teacher part, it's actually the curriculum part. To go to the law piece, you have trial lawyers, and then you have the lawyers who are like, in the background, like, you know, getting everything together. I really like the background piece. I like thinking about what you are trying to do and how does it play out? And what kind of challenges might you face? And what kind of background materials can you prepare someone with? And so I think over time, I've realized, it's not the actual performance piece that I enjoy, although sometimes that can be really nice. I actually just really enjoy the preparation and the thought exercise that's involved in it. Sometimes the production of curriculum, like I sometimes dip my toe into, like the artistic side of the world. I feel like curriculum development is like artwork where you produce something and it's like, here's the tangible evidence of my labor, as opposed to the kind of experiential part that goes on in the classroom.
Dave  
Oh, man, you're speaking my language now. That's interesting to hear, because, I mean, I see you as being one of the most interesting educators in that regard. You really seem to be excellent at the delivery, the performance, and the curriculum design also. If your experience is like mine, it can be a challenge to work both those hats at the same time.
Stephen  
Honestly, I find the performance piece difficult. So for me, it took a long time to resolve being like a gay man in front of a class. That identity piece was really hard, and I didn't want it involved at all in my teaching. There was a lot of mental effort about how I just portray myself as an individual that people would connect with, but also that they wouldn't necessarily have difficulty with me being gay. So, I feel like there was a lot of performance in that it made it an extra cognitive piece of how am I portraying myself. Simultaneously, I'm trying to make sure that they're learning, you know, the intermediate disturbance hypothesis, and it's just like, there's a lot going on in those two things that made it just not as pleasurable as some people find it. After like a decade of that tension is part of why I didn't necessarily go towards the performance piece of teaching as much.
Dave  
That's fascinating. I'd love to talk to you more about that. That's interesting, like how identity I mean, shapes, obviously, who we are as an educator, but how different identities intersect with the role of an educator. 
Stephen  
Right, like, women and minorities. I feel like with mine, it could be like a hidden component, but we hear lots of studies looking at women and minorities in front of a classroom and the extra difficulties they face. I feel like that's just this unfortunate overlap with the fact that they have to deal with his added difficulties. At the same time, they're trying to manage student learning. We also talk about the benefit of having diverse audiences in front of students. I think those are, you know, some things that are kind of woven into the situation of having diverse faculty teaching or instructors teaching.
Dave  
Yeah, you mentioned “connection” as this key keyword for you in your teaching. Could you share what connection looks like for you in your practice?
Stephen  
So one of the things in teaching science to non-scientists, I feel like one of the things I tackled earlier on was this idea of subject anxiety. And so I was getting a lot of feedback from students about when they were coming into the class that they were scared. They wouldn't say scared, they would say that they were anxious. Like, ‘science isn't my forte or that ‘I've never really done well in science courses.’ And so I feel like there's a potential barrier between the instructor and the students because they're anxious about how they're going to perform and whether or not they're capable of succeeding. That has been shown to impact their ability to succeed. I've always been asking how to reduce that kind of subject anxiety. I’ve looked at things like how do you incorporate comics as a way of softening the subject matter so that people are more engaged by it? I did a whole video series of me in weird places where it was all green screen. The idea is if your instructor is willing to do that, then surely it's not difficult to ask them questions, right? There's no barrier to them in that, ‘Oh, he's a scientist, and I'm going to look stupid in front of him.’ Instead, he's looking stupid in front of me. So like, I don't have to worry about it being something that I can't do. Right. So I've always tried to figure out, like, how do you make connections with people. It facilitates the ability to ask for help. And to take risks in trying to convey what you understand, right? 
Because I feel that part of participating in the conversation is how you help grow as an intellectual, I would say, maybe that's one of my tendencies. Personally, when I'm learning something, I like to talk about it, get corrected, and then have a discussion and dialogue. And if you're afraid of showing your ignorance, then it's really difficult because it still remains hidden, right? And so to me, it is about how do you create an environment where they do feel connected, where they can feel connected with each other? When you confront that misconception, that's really where some significant learning can occur.
Dave  
Yeah, absolutely. It almost sounds like you're talking a bit about modeling vulnerability as a posture toward learning itself.
Stephen  
Right. I would say that I definitely did not have that terminology or that thought process at the time. But I feel like some of the conversations that have gone on with authors like Brene Brown, and, you know, thinking about allowing yourself to be vulnerable and connect to students has helped me to think about it maybe in similar terms.
Dave  
Yeah. Vulnerability is probably not generally a scientist’s favorite word?
Stephen  
Well, we have thought about having some workshops on that. But I think we sometimes talk about it with regards to how you have difficult conversations in the classroom, right? But it really does boil down to some of that being about vulnerability. That's also around kind of the intellectual components of being able to be wrong, and how you grow from that. So there are concepts of failing forward or failing fast or growth mindsets, right? And how do you help people to realize that it's not a condition of being either good in math or not good in math or good in science or not good at science? It's how do you grow what you have to be better? 
Dave  
Yeah, oh, that would be an interesting conversation to have around the scientific process itself. Some might argue this is based around an intellectual humility, of understanding that we don't understand and know that we don't know and constantly trying to engage the unknowing with things that we do know, to try, to build on that with solid evidence.
Stephen  
There's an article that is basically on stupidity in science. It's a one-page description of regrets of a professional who was talking about his experience in grad school and realized that the ability to handle your own ignorance allows you to be successful in science. So it was talking about why some people make it and some people don't. And this was one of the aspects of the ability to be okay with realizing that you don't know the answer. Being willing to push that boundary is what allows you to be successful. So it's just, I think, an interesting take for students to realize that successful scientists recognize that they don't know and be okay with it.
Dave  
How have your ideas about these things changed over time?
Stephen  
Well, like what the identity piece, I feel like, there's definitely a component of feeling like it was just information, but they didn't really need to know me and to know aspects about who I am. And I feel like that's, you know, more especially in an online environment. I feel like there was a time when I wondered how you most interestingly convey this content, and you can totally do it divorced from identity and the connection piece is the part that helps to bridge those who are not already passionate about the topic. That's what's going to get them to connect with it. And so just figuring out how we humanize the digital experience is, that's been one progression, I would say.
One of the other ones I would say is my thinking about educator development because a lot of my work is working with faculty about how to improve their practice. I feel like that progression has been one of being rooted in a kind of best practice, or being very prescriptive, to actually having conversations with faculty about what it is that they value, and then figuring out how that ties into the primary literature or into and to various literature's, in general. There are times when you want to know just like, what are some of the things that people have learned that are best that have been shown in the literature with regards to having discussions in class. But it's really different. When thinking about life as an individual, I'm interested in having discussions with students, and identifying that as actually a pedagogical approach that you want to expand because that's what you're actually rooted in. That's what you're going to put the time in. That's what's going to define your actual classroom experience. So instead of someone coming in and being like, actually, you need to use whiteboards more. Yes, whiteboards can be effective, but you actually have to figure out what your identity is as an instructor, and then go from there. I just feel like that's so much more powerful. 
Dave  
That's really quite profound because they do seem to have eager tentativeness to “best practices.” It reminds me of one of my favorite authors, Parker Palmer, he has a book called “The Courage to Teach.” And he talks a lot about how a lot of and how we as educators, essentially, teach from who we are, as you're talking about that very thing, starting with the heart of the individual educator first and what their goals are and then building technological support.
Stephen  
I totally remember having conversations with other educators, then pushing back on the best practices. And, like, I feel like this comes from a place of being in the sciences for, you know, so long of like, what, like, you measure things and we find out what is more effective. That's how we improve. And just disregarding this aspect of what would nurture a faculty member. I mean, like when we think about, like, how much time faculty spend on improving their teaching like they're balancing out research and service and all of these other components. And so like, in order for them to really grow, it has to be the thing that you're super passionate about. This is how I actually connect with people. And so I feel like the discussions or arguments we had about best practices and whether or not that's a valuable framework to go from is actually just moving in a different direction from this conversation of like, why would you just not focus on the thing that people are passionate about? Right? So it's not that it's incorrect, it's just not really looking at it from the same perspective. And so, it is, you know, sometimes a little painful to be like, oh, yeah, I think I said something like that. You know, like, a few years ago, and yeah, so it has been interesting.
Dave  
Yeah, absolutely. And I certainly then, early on, in my work in instructional design, I was a strong proponent of best practices. I’m critical of that, lately, myself also. So, could you tell us a little bit more about your settings? I think when you were at first MSU, you were primarily teaching and an instructor and now you do a lot of educator development. I guess we could say, and you also do a lot of design and curricular work, and also some teaching, I believe, or
Stephen  
…up until this last summer,
Dave  
okay. Okay, gotcha. Okay. So could you tell us a little bit about your, your setting in which you're in, and then these different hats that you're wearing now?
Stephen  
Part of my role is in the Center for Integrative Studies in general science. So that's the Gen Ed Science course for non-scientists. And a lot of my work in the last few years has been focused on curriculum reform. And I have to say, that's probably some of the most rewarding work that I've done. Because it's, I just love it. The idea of so thinking about, if you have a three-class sequence, like how do students progress between those classes? And then like, how do you resolve to have different faculty and their identity and their topic? And so it's just been, I feel fascinating about like, how do you first off physically map the curriculum? How do you get faculty buy-in for various curricular reforms? How do you build a community around curriculum, like, I'm interested in those, those ideas, and so that work has been really, really rewarding? And then I'd say in college, that setting is looking at how technology is a filter or a lever for impacting student learning. And so I get a lot of help from faculty to think about technology tools that they could use in order to facilitate things like discussions online. But a lot of that work has also been focused on accessibility. 
I feel like that has been an incredible lens that also had a lot of unique challenges about how you get people to buy into doing extra labor for, for accessibility, for widening their impact on their curriculum. And so like, we had gone through many different lenses of like, oh, well, accessibility is about compliance, and then looking at how that impacted faculty buy-in. And, you know, how it was limiting their participation, because as a concept, it's not very engaging, and then, you know, shifting over to more of a social justice piece, or going even into an equity viability piece, I feel has really allowed people to, to think about that, and see how that is actually aligned with their beliefs, and how that type of work is important. 
I feel like there's, you know so that accessibility work was like, how do we make sure that all the digital pieces that we're making are accessible to, so there ADA, so Americans with Disabilities Act, so it responds to that? But also, you know, what we've found is that those accommodations helped all students. And so, you know, it kind of broadened to this idea of going from an idea of compliance to really how do we impact a larger number of students. So that's kind of that work. And then my new role, as the assistant dean, it's focused on STEM teaching and learning. It's really focused on the STEM building, and then figuring out how a single location can bring faculty and disciplines from across the STEM disciplines and even outside of STEM, to talk with each other and to learn from each other, and to better use the physical spaces in their pedagogical approach. 
So, you know, when you have small groups of people, how do you foster discussion in that and then build ways of reporting out to a larger community is the, you know, is what we're working on. And so the STEM building has lots of innovative approaches to their classroom design. And so figuring out how do we train faculty to do that is, you know, is, again, you can see a hopefully the parallel between what's going on in the center for, you know, building a community around curriculum, and then in the college about how do we as a community, figure out what are the standards for the curriculum that we're creating? And then the STEM building is how do we have conversations in typically siloed communities that can help us to improve our practice. So there's a lot about communication. And probably a parallel, you know, connection. Right? 
How do we have connections between faculty members from diverse groups? 
How do we connect it to the technologies that we use? 
And how do we make better impacts with the students that we're serving?
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Don't forget to celebrate individuals you see making a difference in teaching, learning, or student success at MSU with #iteachmsu's Thank an Educator initiative. 

Resources for Moving Forward after Tragedy and Trauma 
Adapted from materials curated with love and solidarity by Kaitlin Popielarz, PhD  Dr. Popielarz is an MSU alum and you can contact her at: kaitlin.popielarz@utsa.edu
How to Respond in the Classroom

Teaching on the Day After a Crisis 
Navigating Discussions Following a School Shooting 

When Bad Things are Happening
Showing up strong for yourself—and your students—in the aftermath of violence 
A love letter to teachers after yet another school shooting

On Days Like These, Write. Just Write. 
Resources for Talking and Teaching About the School Shooting in Florida
PERSPECTIVE: Teaching Through Trauma
Support Students Who Experience Trauma 

Online Learning

Trauma Informed Distance Learning: A Conversation with Alex Shevrin Venet 

Self-Care for Educators and Students

College Students: Coping After the Recent Shooting
Slowing Down For Ourselves and Our Students 
Helping Teachers Manage the Weight of Trauma: Understanding and mitigating the effects of secondary traumatic stress for educators
Coping in the Aftermath of a Shooting 
Coping after Mass Violence
Tips for Survivors: Coping With Grief After Community Violence
Tips for Survivors of a Disaster or Other Traumatic Event: Managing Stress

Resources for Parents and/or Focusing on Children

Helping Your Children Manage Distress in the Aftermath of a Shooting 
Resiliency After Violence: After Uvalde 
Responding to Tragedy: Resources for Educators and Parents 
Managing Fear After Mass Violence 
When Bad Things Happen: Help kids navigate our sometimes-violent world 
Childhood Traumatic Grief: Youth Information 

Further Reading: Trauma-Informed Resources

#EnoughisEnough Syllabus: Responding to School Violence in the Classroom 
Teaching on Days After: Educating for Equity in the Wake of Injustice

[book/ebook available at MSU Libraries; preview on Google Books]

Restorative Justice Resources for Schools
Restorative Justice: What it is and What it is Not 
Transformative Justice, Explained 
Transformative Justice: A Brief Description 

[External] Mental Health Resources

American Psychological Association
American School Counselor Association 
African American Therapist Database 
School Crisis Recovery and Renewal 
The National Child Traumatic Stress Network 

The NCTSN has prepared resources in response to the MSU incident here


GLSEN

Links for Taking Action (Particularly Related to Days After Gun Violence) 

March For Our Lives 
Everytown 
Sandy Hook Promise 
Moms Demand Action 
Mothers of the Movement 

This post provides an overview of intersectionality as part of the Inclusive Pedagogy playlist.
Intersectionality acknowledges that folks’ identities are multi-faceted and interconnected, influencing their experiences and interactions. Intersectionality is a framework to consider the ways that groups and individuals have unique combinations of privilege and discrimination. Within this, society has interlocking and overlapping systems of oppression. These systems create our institutions, which include education, banking, criminal justice and law, state welfare, media, housing, etc. (Kendall). Then, each of these systems not only interlock and overlap, but they create obstacles, harm, and oppression for anyone who does not have societally privileged identities (white, straight, cisgender, abled-bodied and able-minded, high socioeconomic status, thin body size, etc.). All identities (e.g., race, nationality, language use, gender, sexuality, religion, class, immigration status, trauma survivorship, etc.) are contextually specific to a place and time. These identities cannot be separated at that individual level. For instance, Crenshaw discusses how intersectionality helps to “account for multiple grounds of identity when considering how the social world is constructed” (1245). In other words, each identity interplays with one another to where they can’t be disentangled, such as a Black woman’s experiences may be an interplay of racism and sexism called misogynoir.
In considering these identity and institutional dimensions, there are many visual iterations of identities (Cabiness-Atkinson). The Northcentral University Diversity Wheel illustrates the various components of identity that are personal to self, such as gender, age, race, etc., to those that are developed by social influences and life as well as how that is affected by positionalities within institutions. 
As educators, we must consider our own intersectional identities and how those interact with the systems of oppression and its institutions. To model this inclusive and intersectional pedagogy, it is recommended to (revised and adapted from Case 9): 

Reflect and unpack on your own identities and biases and how that may “alter lived experiences of prejudice and discrimination, privilege and opportunities, and perspectives from particular social locations.” One way is to attend MSU’s Implicit Bias Certification course. Another avenue to reflect and unpack would be to engage with the University of Illinois' compilation of activities to raise awareness of biases.
Continue to unlearn and learn and continually strive to learn more about identities, privilege, and inclusive pedagogy. Some initial and/or continuing resources include Boston University’s Self-Guided Diversity and Inclusion Learning Toolkits.
Foster learner reflection and agency for their own un/learning. Some strategies for this are included later in this series’ Classroom Activities article.
Incorporate diverse social identities typically neglected in course curriculum, interdisciplinary ways of thinking, multiple pathways for learners, and an asset-based approach for thinking about learners.

In addition to the above, the next articles will continue to offer ways to become more inclusive and intersectional in education. 
Continue to read more about inclusive pedagogy in the next article, “Unpacking Problematic Language” or return to the Inclusive Pedagogy playlist.

Title: Rethinking Access: Fatigue, Hostility and Intimacy in Teaching and LearningPresenter: Emily Abrams (TRIO Student Support Services); Colleen Floyd (RCPD); Hannah Huey-Jones (RCPD); Jessica Lutz (RCPD)Format: WorkshopDate: May 11th, 2023Time: 11:30 am - 12:30 pmClick here to viewDescription:Disabled students have experienced access fatigue (Konrad, 2021) and access hostility (Samuels, 2021) throughout their college experiences long before the onset of the pandemic. Covid-19 has shown higher education professionals the many ways in which accessibility can be implemented, yet it is still denied (Campanile, 2020). In order to resist returning to the ableist practices of pre-pandemic times, we must learn from lessons of the last few years and create access intimacy (Mingus, 2011)–the elusive experience when someone deeply understands and cares about a disabled person’s access needs–and access beyond accommodations. Here, access is the practice of solidarity toward liberation in the disabled community that aims to enact disability justice (Mingus, 2019), not simply the implementation of accommodations. When we describe accessible teaching and learning, we refer to collaborative practices where disabled and non-disabled individuals thrive together, driving resistance against ableism. In this workshop, a panel of disability scholar-practitioners and the audience will offer ideas for reimagining accessibility to foster access intimacy (Mingus, 2011) in teaching and learning contexts. The learning goals of this workshop are (1) to develop an understanding of disabled students’ experiences with inaccessible university environments, (2) to develop the ability to recognize areas for growth in teaching and learning pertaining to accessibility and accommodations beyond legal compliance, and (3) to understand strategies for reimagining teaching and learning practices in ways that take the onus off of disabled students and foster access.

The context of today... Pandemic + Social Justice Crisis 
this means.. Greater Inequity in the Classroom such as:

access to adequate technology
financial impacts
health and safety concerns
emotional impacts

in turn impacting: belonging, ability to focus, balancing responsibilities, etc.



We are all feeling the weight of inconsistency and uncertainty. We must acknowledge what this means for our students, and particularly our students who hold marginalized identities.  What is "diversity, equity, and inclusion"?

Diversity is a characteristic of a group of people where differences exist on one or more relevant dimensions

this means respecting and valuing people’s differences and treating them with the appropriate respect and dignity.




Equity is the quality of being fair and impartial

meaning everyone has the opportunity to be successful




Inclusion is a measure of culture that enables diversity to thrive


making sure people feel comfortable being themselves in the space, their identity is honored, they feel like they belong and do not have to assimilate in order to achieve this




Why should I care about DEI? The impact of belonging is linked to increased persistence, student satisfaction, and well-being. In our context, a student’s sense of belonging is related to improved retention, graduation rates, etc. 

building belonging how?

Positive interactions with diverse peers
Peer mentoring, staff care & support
Attention to campus climate

read "How Colleges Can Cultivate Students’ Sense of Belonging" by Becki Supiano from The Chronicle of Higher Education for more

Take some time to reflect on your educator identity. What groups are you a part of? What identities do you think about most often? How about those you think about the least? Why might you think more about some of your group identities than others? What experiences lead you to think about the identities that are most salient for you? Which of these identities show up most often when you teach? Least often?
Source: Borkoski, C., Prosser, S.K., (2020) Engaging faculty in service-learning: opportunities and barriers to promoting our public mission. Tert Educ Manag 26, 39–55.
Cover Photo by Sam Balye on Unsplash

This week, we are featuring Makena Neal (she/them), PhD, one of the Center for Teaching and Learning Innovation's educational developers! Makena was recognized via iteach.msu.edu's Thank and Educator Initiative! We encourage MSU community members to nominate high-impact Spartan educators (via our Thank an Educator initiative) regularly!
Read more about Makena’s perspectives below. #iteachmsu's questions are bolded below, followed by their responses! 


You were recognized via the Thank an Educator Initiative. In one word, what does being an educator mean to you?  
Praxis 
What does this word/quality looks like in your practice? Have your ideas on this changed over time? If so how?
When I think about being an educator, I also think of being a lifelong learner. I really like the word “praxis” because it can describe so many things when it comes to teaching and learning. As an educator, I see my role as designing and facilitating learning experiences in ways that engage participants in reflection and meaning making. Praxis for me is moving beyond content, to the application of that new content in one's everyday life. Because each learner’s positionality and experiences are unique, the ways they could practically employ new information in their life is also unique. My role as an educator is to intentionally build space and opportunities for learners to engage in this practice. 
Praxis also connects directly to my on-going growth and development as an educator. As I seek out opportunities to learn new skills and information, interact with new individuals in the Educator Network, and collaborate across new spaces… I too must engage in a practice of reflection and meaning making. My own praxis as an educational developer means intentionally connecting new knowledge with what I already know, and using that knowledge collectively to engage in the practice of educator development. 
Here are some definitions of/ideas about praxis from other scholars that resonate with me:

Paulo Freire (1972, p. 52) described praxis as “reflection and action upon the world in order to transform it”.
Ortrun Zuber-Skerritt (2001, p.15) defines praxis as “The interdependence and integration – not separation – of theory and practice, research and development, thought and action.”
Five assumptions about knowledge and knowing that underpins praxis (White, 2007):

Knowledge/knowing is inherently social and collective
Knowledge/knowing is always highly contextual
Singular forms of knowledge/knowing (e.g. empirical or experiential) are insufficient for informing complex, holistic practices like [youth, family work and community work)
Different knowledges/ways of knowing are equally valid in particular contexts
Knowledge is made, not discovered. (p. 226)


My ideas around who “counts” as an educator and a knower, what teaching and learning is and where it can [and does] happen, have all shifted drastically over my years at MSU. I credit my learning and experiences in MSU’s Liberty Hyde Bailey Scholars Program (both as an undergraduate and a graduate fellow) as a catalyst for the changes in my perspectives. Followed by my doctoral research in the Higher, Adult and Lifelong Education program at MSU (specifically the mentorship of my committee- Drs. Marilyn Amey, John Drikx, Steve Weiland, and Diane Doberneck) I am very proud of the work I now do to advocate for and serve a broadly defined and intentionally inclusive community of educators in my role. 
Tell us more about your educational “setting.” This can include, but not limited to departmental affiliations, community connections, co-instructors, and students. (AKA, where do you work?)
I am an educational developer with MSU’s Center for Teaching and Learning Innovation (CTLI). I focus on efforts and initiatives that recenter teaching and learning for Spartans by advancing MSU’s culture toward recognition and support for all educators. I take a hands-on approach to collaboration, and enjoy working across a variety of units on campus. A lot of really wonderful educator work happens at MSU, and I am dedicated to advancing aligned educator development in our decentralized spaces by cultivating and continually engaging in MSU Educator Network.

Director of CTLI’s Graduate Fellowship experience with Dr. Ellie Louson
#iteachmsu Commons Champion and Coach
Founder of the Thank an Educator initiative
Lead on CTLI’s Affiliates program
Author of the Educator Development Competency Framework with Maddie Shellgren

What is a challenge you experience in your educator role?
There are two challenges that I’ve experienced as an educator, regardless of my formal role. 

Ground-level buy-in to the broad definition of educator… we can intentionally build offerings and lead experiences for an inclusive group of folx at MSU, but if people don’t identify with the “educator” nomenclature, they won’t show up.
Capacity… I always want to do more, but need to navigate my own professional development, my life’s other roles and responsibilities, and the scope of CTLI. 

Any particular “solutions” or “best practices” you’ve found that help you support student success at the university despite/in the face of this? What are practices you utilize that help you feel successful as an educator?
Working with individuals to highlight their impacts on the teaching and learning, outreach, and/or student success missions of the university WHILE engaging positional leadership in similar efforts can help. This is one of the reasons I’m very proud of the Thank an Educator Initiative, and connected #iteachmsu Educator Awards. We established the Thank an Educator initiative and are recognizing those individuals with the #iteachmsu Educator Awards to:1. help demonstrate the diversity of educators across roles on campus2. celebrate the amazing individuals we have shaping the learning experiences and success of students on our campus. 3. help individuals associate their name/work with “educator” and embrace their educator identity
What topics or ideas about teaching and learning would you like to see discussed on the iteach.msu.edu platform? Why do you think this conversation is needed at MSU?
I am always looking for ways to integrate core teaching & learning best practices into the ways we design and facilitate offerings and experiences. One example of this would be to not limit ourselves to “one-off” programs on diversity, equity, inclusion, justice and  belonging (DEIJB)- but to integrate DEIJB into all our work and model some ways educators can think, apply, reflect DEIJB in their contexts. 
I would also encourage educators to use the iteach.msu.edu platform as a way to engage in on-going dialogue about your practices. The functionality of the platform exists to support educators in sharing ideas and resources, connecting across roles, and growing in their practice. It is a space built for educators, by educators- theoretically this is awesome, but practically this means the site can only be what people make it; can only serve as a place for resources and ideas if educators share their resources and ideas. What are you looking forward to (or excited to be a part of) next semester?
The 2023-24 academic year will be the first full year with a fully established CTLI. I’m very excited to be moving into a year of fully articulated core offerings and experiences with my colleagues. All of this along with a new CTLI Director and a physical space in the MSU Library!
References:
Freire, P. (1972). Pedagogy of the oppressed. Penguin.
White, J. (2007). Knowing, Doing and Being in Context: A Praxis-oriented Approach to Child and Youth Care. Child & Youth Care Forum, 36(5), 225-244. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10566-007-9043-1  
Zuber-Skerritt, O. (2001). Action learning and action research: paradigm, praxis and programs. In S. Sankara, B. Dick, & R. Passfield (Eds.), Effective change management through action research and action learning: Concepts, perspectives, processes and applications (pp. 1-20). Southern Cross University Press, Lismore, Australia. https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/23a6/89ad465ddfe212d08e4db3becca58bdbf784.pdf  

Don't forget to celebrate individuals you see making a difference in teaching, learning, or student success at MSU with #iteachmsu's Thank an Educator initiative. You might just see them appear in the next feature! 

Topic Area: DEI
Presented by: Emily Abrams
Abstract:
Dolmage (2017) argued that postsecondary education promotes ableism more than most cultural institutions. Noting that “disability has always been constructed as the inverse or opposite of higher education” (p. 3), Dolmage described how ‘academic ableism” erases disabled students and maintains practices that create and maintain the inferiority of disabled people. The purpose of this information session is to apply crip theory (Kafer, 2013; McRuer, 2006) through the use of personal narrative to expose the academic ableism that shaped postsecondary education’s responses to the Covid-19 pandemic and, more so, to offer accessible practices regarding teaching and learning for disabled college students moving forward. Crip theory presents disability as fluid and challenges dominant discourses that define normalcy. Specifically, crip theory challenges the discourse of compulsory able-bodiedness/mindedness that pushes people toward an unobtainable normalcy, determining who is disabled and therefore less worthy. I will use my own personal experiences as a disabled student and educator to ground my discussion of these topics. I will offer suggestions that go beyond accommodations to discuss access as the practice of solidarity toward liberation in the disabled community that aims to enact disability justice (Mingus, 2011)

This article is a component of the Resources for Teaching After Crisis playlist.
Helping Your Children Manage Distress in the Aftermath of a Shootingresource for parents from the American Psychological Association [article]Series of tips for parents to help children through their distress after a community or school shooting.
Resiliency After Violence: After Uvalderesource from the education research outreach site Usable Knowledge, from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Expanded from their 2016 article on the same topic [article]This article shares strategies from psychologist Richard Weissbourd for age-appropriate conversations about difficult events involving trauma and community violence. Also focuses on student activism and protests, positive school culture and student inclusion in decision-making, and reducing bullying / creating welcoming school climates.
Responding to Tragedy: Resources for Educators and Parents Edutopia resource compiled by Matt Davis [list of links]This list of resources focuses on addressing children’s trauma and grief.
Managing Fear After Mass Violence New York Times Parenting article by Jessica Grose [article]Suggestions from psychiatrists and pediatricians about how parents can handle increased anxiety and fear connected to school shootings, and how they can support their children to do the same.
When Bad Things Happen: Help kids navigate our sometimes-violent world article by Sean McCollum in Learning for Justice magazine, by Southern Poverty Law Center [magazine feature]Article about children and teens’ experiences of community violence, the danger of toxic stress, psychological first aid frameworks, recovery, and healing (2013).
Childhood Traumatic Grief: Youth Information from the National Child Traumatic Stress Network [factsheet]This factsheet is designed for a youth audience to explain the normal range of feelings, thoughts, and behaviors that make up grief; the characteristics of traumatic grief; and ways to feel better and cope with grief-related traumatic reactions.
Adapted from materials curated with love and solidarity by Kaitlin Popielarz, PhD  Dr. Popielarz is an MSU alum and you can contact her at: kaitlin.popielarz@utsa.edu