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Posted by Stokes Schwartz over 1 year ago

Pedagogical Design

Recently, I have been working on how we might provide instruction in DEI principles to the students in our courses. Here is what I have come up with:

"Timely Team Tips: Stealthy DEI Instruction through Brief Animated Explainer Videos

Fostering Inclusive Practices within the Student Learning Teams Organized for My IAH Courses"

The recently created explainer videos above are now embedded into my online course modules for Week 3-Week 12 and are presented to students in the context of fostering student learning team “cohesion” (I have made to conscious decision to avoid the terms diversity, equity, and inclusion in most instances) during weekly collaborative assignments and three larger digital projects students are asked to complete as part of my currently asynchronous online courses.

Part of my thinking behind this project has been to help prepare students for professional life after graduation – think 21st century employability skills -- given the attention paid to DEI principles and practices within the business and corporate world. The information presented in these animated explainer videos is a synthesis of other information from many different academic and corporate sources online by the way. I take no credit for it other than in the way I present it to my students, using the Doodly app. The project is developing, so I anticipate adjustments as I continue the work.

When I move to a hybrid modality as we transition back to the physical classroom next fall (???), I plan to keep and retain all of the online materials developed during the last two years of the pandemic to better support, motivate, and engage the students in my (gen. ed.) courses, another ongoing project of long standing.

If ever you would like to talk in more detail about my ongoing work with this, just drop me a line. As difficult as the last couple of years have been for everyone, I have really enjoyed the turbo charged push forward it has provided when t comes to how I think about my courses, teaching, and related points here at MSU.