Brian C Smith and Sal Meyers from Simpson College presented a recorded Lilly 2021 session entitled “Creating More Inclusive Classrooms: Applying Stereotype Threat Interventions.” They are both social psychologists and talked about stereotypes and disidentification and stereotype threat. They defined stereotype threat as a situation in which stereotype is relevant and there is a self threat that results in underperforming. Stereotype threat, as mentioned by Smith, is not about the person; it is about the situation. Interventions to reduce stereotype threat were described by Meyers. The first intervention is to promote social belonging. Another intervention is to blur boundaries and encourage class members to see themselves as one big group, working in heterogenous groups to learn the course material. Providing role models from marginalized groups is important. Students or alumni who have succeeded in the course can provide words of advice to students in the course. Another intervention is to activate multiple identities. One example was to have students create concept maps and think about the roles and identities they have. The presenters cited published advice to combine multiple interventions. They also suggested watching an interview with Claude Steele and the Whistling Vivaldi book he authored and I listened to last year. This was an excellent book and introduction to his work and stereotype threat. This session was short (about seven minutes long) and provided advice that is easy to remember and implement.
A second session we watched entitled “Modeling Learner Centered Pedagogy Through Faculty Centered Professional Development” was by Kim Calebs from Kentucky Community and Technical College System. Calebs is the lead for a project called KOOL. The presenters designed faculty-responsive professional development. They incorporated awareness of appropriate levels of professional development. For example, the KOOL webinar structure has target actionable topic, pre-work, a call to action, and a follow-up. The KOOL challenges and short-term weekly targeted tasks seem very useful for training faculty in the use of the LMS. KOOL academy is a year-long experience that includes course design, interaction, and assessment following the QM rubric. They also shared four items as a checklist for professional development:
- You know what you want to accomplish with the professional development.
- You know what you want learners to be able to do.
- You model the behaviors you want participants to do.
- You treat your participants as adult learners.
Even though I don’t create and implement formal professional development courses, this session highlighted important design elements that I can use for presentations, workshops, and courses we offer. Several themes are similar to those I have been hearing from Quality Matters and course design workshops.
