“Leading with Care: Building Capacity and Connection in Collaborative Spaces” is the title of the CAST UDL recorded session I watched tonight. Melissa Chumakov, Sarah Driessens, Sarah Hunter, & Erin Valenzuela were the presenters. Driessens spoke about the power of storytelling. Recognizing the importance of collaborating with learners was a point Driessens made. Hunter started with a prompted reflection. Hunter and Valenzuela spoke about burnout and how we show up as learners. Driessens spoke about being a mother and sharing motherhood with Hunter and Valenzuela. They spoke about recognizing leading with care and compassion. Hunter spoke about their path to meet their learner’s needs. I love how they said that we can “challenge ourselves to design courses that are rigorous not at the expense of care.” Co-constructing with students to meet their… and I would say our, needs as scholars. Chumakov highlighted connections to UDL: choice assignments, sharing content in a variety of ways, accessibility, pre-course survey/mid-point check-in. Hunter mentioned opportunities for engagement-based grading or contract-based grading. I also thought the concept of moderated grading with student/instructor conversations sounds awesome! Collaborative notes with students rotating the note taking for a course is also a strategy I would like to do. As part of the presentation, students were invited to speak through two recorded sessions. The student and mother spoke about being pregnant during a course. The experience of this student was thought-provoking as they spoke about the idea of leading with care and responsive pedagogy. The student spoke about “humanizing the classroom.” Another student spoke about having a voice and being inspired. Another mother spoke about feeling the need to justify not being in class because of delivering their child… and then connecting with the teacher who was also, at the time, pregnant. Driessens spoke about students as partners and re-envisioning learners and educators as active collaborators. The principles of respect, reciprocity, and shared responsibility and problem posing were highlighted as ways we can partner. Importantly, Driessens said: co-create and co-construct to dismantle systems of oppression. This really resonated with me, as tonight we went to the Friends of the Libraries award ceremony.
