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Link for Diagnostic:

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Copy of POE Diagnostic Rubric for Teaching Faculty

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APA Inclusive Language

15 AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION INCLUSIVE LANGUAGE GUIDE
Disability
ableism
Stereotyping, prejudicial attitudes, discriminatory behavior, and social oppression toward people with disabilities to inhibit
their rights and well-being (APA, 2021c; Bogart & Dunn, 2019). Multiple attitudinal and cultural factors across global
societies lead to various forms of microaggressions and discrimination toward people with disabilities. It is important to
counter the deficit orientation that is often implicit in language used to refer to disability. For example, there is often a
tendency to infantilize people with physical disabilities or to assume a cognitive deficit if someone has a visible disability.
Everyday language and practices implicitly determine the worth of a person depending on whether they are “functional”
by medical standards. They rely on the false assumption that if someone does not have full use of their body; cognitive,
sensory, or neurological functions; or emotional health they are somehow less valuable or less capable than someone who
does. More recently, there has been a shift away from the medical, deficit-based model of disability to the social model of
disability. As described by Dunn and Andrews (2015), the social model presents disability as a neutral characteristic borne
out of external, social barriers preventing accessibility and participation. More recently, disability has been advanced as
an important and valued aspect of diversity (Andrews et al., 2019).
accessibility
“A process shaped by what one needs to do, one’s interactions with the environment, and one’s personal preferences.
Accessibility is achieved when people with disabilities can ‘acquire the same information, engage in the same interactions,
and enjoy the same services’ as people who do not have disabilities” in “an equally effective and equally integrated
manner with substantially equivalent ease of use” (Office of Civil Rights, 2013, para. 3). For further guidance on writing
for accessibility, consult PsycLearn’s Cultivating an Accessibility Mindset resource.
disability
A broad concept that describes the interaction of physical, psychological, intellectual, and socioemotional differences with
the social environment (World Health Organization, 2001). The members of some groups of people with disabilities—
effectively subcultures within the larger culture of disability—have ways of referring to themselves that they would prefer
others to adopt. The overall principle for using disability language is to maintain the integrity (worth and dignity) of all
individuals as human beings (APA, 2020b, 2022a).
universal design
The process of creating products and built environments to be usable by all people, to the greatest extent possible, without
the need for adaptation (APA, 2019).

AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION INCLUSIVE LANGUAGE GUIDE 16
TERM TO AVOID SUGGESTED ALTERNATIVE COMMENT
Use of person-first and identity-first language rather than condescending terms
special needs
differently abled
multiabled
physically challenged
mentally challenged
mentally retarded
handi-capable
handicapped
suffering with... [disability or
condition]
person with a disability
person who has a disability
disabled person
people with intellectual disabilities
child with a congenital disability
child with a birth impairment
physically disabled person
person with a physical disability
Use person-first or identity-first
language as is appropriate for
the community or person being
discussed. The language used
should be selected with the
understanding that disabled
people’s expressed preferences
regarding identification
supersede matters of style.
There are some patterns—
people with physical and
intellectual disabilities often
prefer person-first language,
whereas the autistic community
and people with sensory
disabilities (e.g., blind people)
often prefer identity-first
language. Avoid terms that are
condescending or patronizing.
mentally ill person with a mental disorder
person with a mental illness
person living with a mental health
condition
Description of Deaf or hard-of-hearing people
person with deafness Deaf person
person who is deaf
Most individuals who belong
to the Deaf or Deaf-Blind
cultures prefer to be called
Deaf or Deaf-Blind (capitalized)
rather than “hearing-impaired.”
The word “deaf” with a
lowercase “d” is used to refer
to audiological status, whereas
“Deaf” with an uppercase “D”
“refers to a particular group
of deaf people who share a
language—[for example,]
American Sign Language—
and a culture” (National
Association of the Deaf, n.d.,
“Deaf” and “deaf” section).
hearing-impaired person
person who is hearing impaired
hard-of-hearing person
person who is hard-of-hearing
person with hearing loss

17 AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION INCLUSIVE LANGUAGE GUIDE
TERM TO AVOID SUGGESTED ALTERNATIVE COMMENT
person with deafness and blindness Deaf-Blind person
a Deaf person with low vision
a person who is deaf with low vision
Some individuals prefer to
use Deaf+ (to include other
intersectional identities) when
referring to themselves.
Description of blind people and people who are visually impaired
person with blindness blind person
person who is blind
People who have complete or
almost complete loss of sight
may be referred to as “blind.”
Other terms are acceptable
for those with a vision-based
disability.
visually challenged person
visually impaired person
vision-impaired person
person who is visually impaired
person who is vision impaired
sight-challenged person
person with low vision Some people may object to
the term “visually impaired”
because of the negative
connotation of the word
“impaired.” The use of such
terms is complex, often
culturally bound, and deeply
personal. If you are uncertain
about how someone identifies,
it is recommended that you ask
what identity-first or person-
first terms they prefer (e.g.,
“blind” or “blind person” vs. “a
person with blindness”). (For
further guidance on this topic,
please consult the National
Center on Disability and
Journalism, 2021.)
Use of pictorial metaphors, negativistic terms, and slurs
wheelchair-bound person
confined to a wheelchair
cripple
invalid
gimp
wheelchair user
person who uses a wheelchair
person with a physical disability
Avoid language that
uses pictorial metaphors,
negativistic terms that imply
restriction, and slurs that insult
or disparage a particular group.
As with other diverse groups,
insiders in disability culture
may use these terms with one
another; it is not appropriate for
an outsider (e.g., a nondisabled
person) to use these terms.

AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION INCLUSIVE LANGUAGE GUIDE 18AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION INCLUSIVE LANGUAGE GUIDE 18
TERM TO AVOID SUGGESTED ALTERNATIVE COMMENT
AIDS victim
HIV patient
person with AIDS
person with HIV
person living with HIV
HIV-positive person
For additional guidance on
avoiding stigma when using
language to describe people
living with HIV, visit the Guide
to Talking about HIV (CDC,
2022b).
brain damaged person with a traumatic brain injury
(TBI)
defective
nuts
crazy
person with a mental disorder
person with a mental illness
person living with a mental illness
alcoholic person with alcohol use disorder
addict person with substance use disorder
Ableist terms and phrases in everyday language
stand up for support
champion
turn a blind eye to ignore
refuse to notice
be myopic or shortsighted ignore
miss
have a blind spot for show unconscious bias
blind review
blind coding
anonymous review
masked review
masked coding
color blind deuteranomaly, achromatopsia (or
other type of color-vision deficiency)
color-vision deficiency

19 AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION INCLUSIVE LANGUAGE GUIDE
TERM TO AVOID SUGGESTED ALTERNATIVE COMMENT
fall on deaf ears be willfully ignorant
deliberately ignore
Ableist terms and phrases
are pervasive in everyday
language. Although the use
of these ableist terms may be
unintentional, be thoughtful
about how to avoid language
that denigrates disabilities.
tone deaf insensitive
out of context
midget little person
person of small stature
dwarf
having dwarfism (Little People of
America, 2021)
lame boring
mundane
uncool
lend your voice support
everyone should have a voice [in this
matter]
everyone should have input
make your voice heard express your perspective/opinion
able-bodied nondisabled
For more information on problematic and preferred language use related to disability, please refer to the APA bias-free
language guidelines for writing about disability (APA, 2020b, 2022a). Other resources include the style guide from the

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Syllabus

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Unit 1 Inclusive Teaching Practices University Of Denver

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Universal Guidelines

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Link for LCC UDL:

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Universal Design for Learning – Presented by Lansing Community College Center for Teaching Excellence

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Lansing Community College’s Center for Teaching Excellence Presents Universal Design for Learning

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More on UDL

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Definition Of Culturally Responsive Teaching

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Link To A Ted Talk from Mary Stucko's Padlet

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If you're an educator, and you're not listening to the student's interests - you're failing to make that connection to aid in their personal development and doing them a disservice. After this talk from Jeffrey Dessources, you'll understand the importance of being culturally responsive in the field of student development.

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Link for: LCC D2L Course Design Training:

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Unit 1 Attitudes Matter

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Publications & Resources - National Disability Authority

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View the National Disability Authority's (NDA) publications such as research reports and policy submissions.

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Inclusive Pedagogy

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Padlet Information

Listen

Create a Discipline-specific Padlet Portfolio

Create a discipline-specific Padlet (use this link for your individual Padlet dashboard) a portfolio to keep materials, resources and notes that are pertinent to your course and/or program. The intent is for you to use the Padlet for yourself and to share with your program/course colleagues.  Padlet lets you create up to 3 Padlets for free, but you'll only need one for this class. Please Submit Your Padlet Link Here by 2/8 (use this link to submit/review/engage with other's Padlets).

Rationale for using Padlet:

Padlet is a free and relatively easy ed tech platform. Also it is private or public- you choose

A shareable place to organize course (and other) information for yourself, your facilitators, your colleagues, others in your work area, and your students

Can be used for teaching and/or in a variety of non-teaching ways

A place where your colleagues (and classmates) can look and learn what types of information are important for you...it might provide a spark of inspiration : )

A place to encourage communication - a tool through which  some sense of community is encouraged

It can serve as a portfolio, provide a place to have students post journals, communicate with one another and even as an assessment tool

As an example of a non-classroom way to use Padlet,  Megan plans to use it as a place to organize SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures) for her role in the CTE.

How to create a Padlet

Go to Padlet

Click on Make a Padlet

Choose the "shelf" style/format (for ease of grading and sharing)

On the right side of the screen, follow the prompts for title, description, appearance, etc. These are all your choice about how you want it to look.

In settings

"Engagement" : click to enable comments (when making comments, please sign your name)

Then create 2 sections (they may be called posts or sections) with the following titles/names (we'll add more as the course goes on):

Diagnostic (where you will link your diagnostic later)

Important Notes (ideas: collect colleagues' padlet links)

To share your Padlet with your colleagues

Change visitor permissions to "Reader"

"Links" Copy the link and share in the discussion

Padlet Help

Please Submit Your Padlet Link Here by 2/8

Until we meet, this is all you need to do. We will talk about Padlets when we meet and you will be adding entries to your sections in your Padlet as we move through the course and you will be commenting on colleagues' Padlets as well - a wonderful opportunity to learn from each other.

Evaluation Criteria

A well-developed Padlet Includes a mix of resources from respective POE units as well as external (outside of the course materials) resources. The expectation is that the external source will work well in your discipline or area of work.

* Units 1-3  = a minimum of three resources from POE course and a minimum of
six external resources ( 2 per unit topic)

* Units 4-6= a minimum of three resources from POE course and a minimum of six
external resources

DUE DATES for Padlet Entries and "Padlet Takeaways Discussion"

DUE Thurs. 2/8: Creation of your Padlet ( total possible application points when finished=90 pts.) Please Submit Your Padlet Link Here by 2/8

DUE Thurs. 2/29: Your Padlet entries from Units 1-3 (3x15=45 pts./application)

DUE Thurs. 3/28: Your Padlet entries from Units 4-6 (3x15=45 pts./application)

DUE Mon. 4/1: D2L Discussion post with 3 takeaways from your colleagues' padlets (20 pts. /participation)

Additional Resources for the Padlet Portfolio Assignment NEW

How to add Posts to Your Padlet (Padlet Help Article)

Padlet Portfolio Assignment video 8 minutes
If the embedded video does not play view the recording at this link

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Diversity And Inclusion - University Of Chicago

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Climates And Practices

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Questions to keep in mind

ORT discussions  and your action plan will require contemplation, which the following questions can facilitate:

Do you see aspects of UDL (universal design for learning) and Culturally Responsive teaching in the following materials?

What have you already been doing related to Inclusive Pedagogical Engagement & Delivery?

What aspects could you implement related to Inclusive Pedagogical Engagement & Delivery?

What barriers or challenges might prevent you from implementing aspects of  Inclusive Pedagogical Engagement & Delivery?

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Questions to keep in mind

ORT discussions, Padlet posts/comment sections, and your proposal and presentation will require contemplation, which the following questions can facilitate:

What have you already been doing regarding pedagogy of care and critical community?

What could you implement to encourage pedagogy of care and critical community?

What barriers or challenges might prevent you from implementing pedagogy of care and critical community?

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The Choosen Name & Pronoun Initiative

Also see any edition of Tech Talk or the A&S Weekly Newsletter

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At Lansing Community College individuals interested in learning more about diverse cultures and identities are encouraged to contact the Centre for Engaged Inclusion where you may enroll in various trainings, achieve various credentials, and engage with the campus and community.
Here are suggestions to make your classroom and/or workspace more trans-friendly and inclusive:
To support everyone on LCC's campus we need to:

1. Prioritize Student Autonomy

2. Ask Once

3. Respect Student Privacy

1. Prioritize Student Autonomy
If a student has identified a name for themselves that is different than their legal name, it is important for administrators to allow them the autonomy, as adults, to determine how they should be represented. This means that we should make every effort to ensure only their chosen name appears on both records and technology - especially any information that students or others outside of Lansing Community College will see. Therefore, providing the student's legal name on documents with their chosen name in parentheses behind it is not an effective solution.

Not only is using the chosen name supportive of the student, but according to Lambda Legal, it is also protecting private student records under FERPA. Providing this autonomy to students over their names can lead to inconveniences for administrators, but there are also ways to strategically use technology to minimize those inconveniences. For example, numeric usernames and identifiers are static, unchanging, and just as easy to use to look up a student or compare records across systems as a name or email field might be - if not more. Depending on how the system's search functions are configured, it may also be possible to search for students by their legal names while also keeping them hidden from display, further easing this dilemma.
2. Ask Once
Some campuses have begun streamlining the name change process so that students can visit an easily discoverable webpage, change their name, and not need to update their record anywhere else. Accomplishing this necessitates that the campus streamline all name records to be updated through a student information system on an automated basis
3. Respect Student Privacy
For many students who pursue a name change, privacy is non-negotiable. Hearing a "birth" or legal name is not just distressful to the student, but it can lead to bullying from peers. Additionally, college is when a student begins to develop their professional branding and identity - associating the student's academic and student involvement records with a name they no longer use can prove challenging later in life, especially for those with high profile student activities such as athletics. Access to legal name should be restricted on an absolute need-to-know basis for employees who are trained in respecting student name and gender privacy.

There are many reasons a student may not want to update their campus records, especially if their family is not aware of their name change.

Names hold power. Together, we can support students in owning that power as part of their individual identity development. Respecting student privacy and autonomy can only support students in growing to be their fullest selves.

This policy applies to all students, faculty and staff, and it provides support for any of our LCC community members who may decide to identify by preferred/chosen name. Chosen names are names that an individual wants to be known by or identifies with in the Lansing College community and may be different from the individual's official name of record. The policy allows all members of the LCC Community to identify and use a gender identity instead of, or in addition to, their sex where possible. A person's chosen name and gender identity pronouns should be used whenever possible. Chosen names will appear in all College systems where available and technically feasible (e.g., class rosters, grade rosters, etc.) and also can include the use of chosen names in conversation, email communication or formal settings. The non-binary options found in the policy also are used by entities with which the College interacts. Examples include College Board, Educational Testing Service and other common/national applications, as well as some states that also have non-binary gender values available for selection. Instituting these policies also ensures we align with shifts in the educational ecosystem and stay ahead of advancements in equity.
There are a few notable exceptions to this policy:

Prospective students and employees will be required to provide their full legal name when they apply for admission or employment with the College.

Chosen names should not be used for the purpose of misrepresentation, avoiding legal obligations or in any way that violates LCC policies or federal, state or local laws.

Chosen names that are not possible to implement (names with symbols or images) are prohibited.

There may be instances where the approach, timeline or participants vary for implementation.

With this new initiative, Lansing Community College not only acknowledges all gender identities but also establishes norms of respect between students, staff and faculty. It also shows LCC's commitment to equity and inclusion. We encourage you to share information about the Preferred and Chose
Additional information for Higher Ed leaders who want to support trans* individuals from Nicolazzo Z
For higher ed leaders who want to support transgender students on their campuses, Nicolazzo recommends several strategies to help create a welcoming environment.

1: Recognize the power of a name. Transgender students report discomfort when faculty use their legal name instead of their preferred name. And because it can be difficult for students to change their name within the institution, allowing students to name themselves within the classroom can have a big impact, writes Nicolazzo. Nicolazzo recommends asking students if there are any discrepancies between the names on the roster and the names students use-especially before calling roll.

2: Use student-specified pronouns. Assure students they can use the pronouns they feel most comfortable with in your class, writes Nicolazzo. And let students know if there are ways to make name or pronoun changes administratively.

3: Consider the necessity of transgender-inclusive facilities. Transgender students ranked gender-neutral restrooms as the most important resource on campus in a survey by Clark University and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. So Nicolazzo suggests that professors "demand to [teach] only in buildings with transgender-inclusive restrooms." If that's not possible, Nicolazzo recommends listing the closest gender-neutral restrooms on the syllabus.

4: Pull from transgender resources. When compiling course texts and creating your syllabus, be sure to include transgender voices. "Even if your class is not focused on gender, it's still important to draw on diverse knowledge bases, which includes transgender communities," writes Nicolazzo.

5: Educate yourself. "Don't expect transgender students to teach you about all things transgender," writes Nicolazzo. It can be exhausting for your transgender students. Plus, there is a wealth of information out there about the transgender experience.

6: Protect your students' safety and privacy. Just because a student discloses their gender identity to you doesn't mean you should talk about or share that information with others, Nicolazzo points out. "Being out is not always the safest or best option for them." And if you notice transphobia or hear transphobic comments in or outside the classroom, say something, writes Nicolazzo. "Educators need to create classrooms where those sorts of violent statements are not tolerated." After all, when transgender students experience harassment, they often leave college.

7: Remember that transgender students are more than their gender identity. "Remember not to flatten us to our gender, as this becomes exhausting and limits our possibilities," writes Nicolazzo. Engage with students around their other interests and experiences.

8: Be patient with yourself. Commit to "learning and implementing gender-aware practices," writes Nicolazzo. But recognize that unlearning gender socialization takes time. And if you make a mistake, own up: "Owning those mistakes and then not making them again is essential," notes Nicolazzo.
Sources: Green et al., New York Times, 10/21/18; Nicolazzo, Inside Higher Ed, 10/12/18; Jashik, Inside Higher Ed, 10/22/18

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At Lansing Community College individuals interested in learning more about diverse cultures and identities are encouraged to contact the Centre for Engaged Inclusion where you may enroll in various trainings, achieve various credentials, and engage with the campus and community.

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Pedagogy Of Kindness Video

From our very own Jeff!!

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Inclusive vs. Exclusive Environments

Inclusive Climates

An inclusive course climate welcomes and engages students from all backgrounds and encourages everyone to share their different perspectives. It allows students to fully participate in the classroom experience and assures that the course content itself attends to issues of student diversity. Examples of factors that contribute to inclusive classroom climates include:

Avoiding scheduling exams or project presentations on any religious or cultural holiday.

Encouraging regular participation from all students.

Sharing resources that may be useful for students with different levels of accessibility or who have different financial resources, and integrating various levels of course assessment to account for different learning styles.

Adding a statement to your syllabi.

Incorporating a variety of different course content into your syllabi.

Exclusive Climates

An exclusive course climate is usually created by factors that inadvertently exclude or by making generalizations about certain groups of students, thereby elevating the voices of others. Examples of factors that contribute to exclusive classroom climates include:

Scheduling exams or project presentations on religious or cultural holidays.

Calling on, engaging, and validating specific genders, classes, or races of students while ignoring other students during class.

Using incorrect terms to reference groups of people.

Assigning projects that ignore learning and socioeconomic differences.

Asking people with invisible disabilities to identify themselves in class.

Not considering opportunities to incorporate course materials featuring people from diverse backgrounds into your syllabi.

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Class members Padlets

Numerous resources on all aspects of the course!

https://padlet.com/lcccte/spring-2024-poe-padlets-y8udp9pi9q4q6xe6

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Online Does Not Mean Isolated

Good explanation of challenges of online vs. face to face inclusion

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Inside Higher Ed | Higher Education News, Events and Jobs

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We read, with interest, Nolan Higdon and Allison Butler's recent Inside Higher Ed piece, " Conferencing Critically in a COVID-19 World," in which they discuss various drawbacks to remote and hybrid conferences. While we agree with some of the key points in their article, we feel that others underestimate the potential of virtual and hybrid professional development.

One statement in Higdon and Butler's article stood out for us: "One additional risk of a remote conference-and, by extension, remote education-is that it keeps us isolated from each other." People who have been teaching and connecting online since before the pandemic would disagree with this notion, especially those who centered humanizing approaches to online learning and pedagogies of care; many others learned during the pandemic how to build community and create affective ties with learners and peers globally, without gathering in a shared physical locale. Moreover, being "in person" does not necessarily result in less isolation. In-person events can be isolating for anyone who is not already part of the in crowd.

We recently worked with others to organize Equity Unbound's #MYFest22, a virtual event that sought to center community and support, and rethink the many pitfalls of online, in-person and hybrid events that we've seen in the past two years, and even before the pandemic. We kept MYFest virtual because we agree with Higdon and Butler that virtual conferences can promote better access for those without funds or freedom to travel, and because virtual conferences are certainly better for climate justice.

The inaugural Mid-Year Festival 2022, aka #MYFest22, from Equity Unbound-an equity-focused, connected intercultural learning network that co-creates diverse, open learning experiences-was not a conference per se, nor was it similar to anyone's local professional development. It was not a series of one-off, high-cost, multisession workshops offered by a large contracted organization. MYFest was designed to be a three-month-long "recharge and renewal experience" with a "choose-your-own-learning journey" approach, exploring a variety of themes, including critical pedagogy and open education and digital literacies. In addition, two themes intentionally addressed isolation: " well-being and joy" and " community building and community reflection." More than 300 participants from five continents joined us.

We offer here ideas for what organizers of online events can learn from MYFest. Inspired by a " call for promoting ownership, equity, and agency in faculty development via connected learning," we aimed to deepen adult learning by leveraging human connection, respecting agency and self-determination (heutagogy), designing for equity, and recognizing the need to make time for critical self-reflection-both individually and in community-in order to support cumulative transformative learning.

1. Have a diverse community of organizers.

To capture a diverse audience, design with diverse organizers. Many academic events are organized by people who are mostly from one institution, one country or one professional organization, yet claim to offer professional development for diverse participants from all over the world. Instead, #MYFest22 built on relationships among 14 organizers from four different countries (Canada, Egypt, South Africa and the United States), many of whom have built trust and collegial friendship online as part of a thriving, intersecting long-term personal learning network with community values of mutual support. We have supported each other through illness and wellness, grief and joy, frustrations and solutions. Our ongoing conversations have helped us realize just how significant a gap there is in traditional professional development worldwide.

2. Aspire toward participant agency and reflection.

Educator and author Sherri Spelic has observed that badly designed professional development for educators tends to be "undifferentiated." In contrast, MYFest was a " build-your-own-learning journey " experience over three months, a "buffet approach" (participants chose sessions of interest, could change selections at any time and could attend as much or as little as suited them). In addition, MYFest was declared a No FOMO (fear of missing out) experience. If a participant's life and schedule did not permit attendance for certain gatherings and activities, this did not result in being left behind.

Three months (not two to three days!) gave participants time to build community and relationships synchronously and asynchronously, and opened up room for reflection and cumulative transformative learning. The significance of both individual and collective reflection was the glue of the MYFest experience, including some sessions focused on group reflection, exercises with individual written reflections and a call for curation of participant-created multimodal artifacts and writings.

3. Foster global connections and community with intentionally equitable hospitality.

We sought to foster global online conversations through skillful facilitation and by embracing " intentionally equitable hospitality," designing sessions in ways that strive toward ensuring everyone participates as fully as possible in the ways they feel most comfortable, and inviting the most marginalized voices. We sought to host with the "generous authority" Priya Parker promotes (in Parker's words, a gathering run with generous authority is one "run with a strong confident hand, but ... run selflessly, for the sake of others"). Participants had various modes of participation, synchronous or asynchronous, and there were options to go to a "quiet room" during breakout room activities if someone did not want to chat that day. There was never an expectation of cameras on, or of oral participation if someone preferred typing in the chat. Slides were provided ahead of time where possible, with alternative text for images. Automated live transcription was enabled in live sessions. Chats were lively in most sessions, and opportunities to participate anonymously via Google docs, Google Jamboard or polling tools came up throughout. Sessions were recorded, unless the conversations were very personal and the more equitable choice was not to record them in order to provide a safe space. Participants were often invited to write privately and share only what they felt comfortable sharing.

4. Co-create and experience community and joy throughout.

The MYFest participants did not meet to talk about community and well-being. Rather, we met to experience and co-create community and well-being. MYFest facilitators have expertise in participatory approaches to online facilitation, including the use of community-building approaches and " liberating structures " (these are "easy-to-learn microstructures that enhance relational coordination and trust" meant to "quickly foster lively participation in groups of any size").

Community (and the trust that is the foundation of healthy community) cannot be established with one or two speed networking sessions at an event. We laid the foundation for MYFest with at least one weekly community building engagement, making time for people to get to know one another in small groups with creative prompts like the Fast Friends protocol, and to reflect together creatively, through prompts like ice cream/broccoli and spiral journal. We welcomed and engaged with participants as they wove in and out of each other's lives, building and strengthening connections over time.

5. Schedule wisely. Resist Zoom fatigue and decision fatigue.

MYFest exemplified what Spelic suggests: "professional development that is wisely scheduled." We spread our offerings out over three months, avoided overlapping sessions and had no more than three events per day. We therefore avoided the familiar Zoom fatigue as well as decision fatigue. Some MYFest events were threaded as "tracks," where one may attend multiple sessions and do some asynchronous work around the same topic, an approach that opens up the potential of "cohort" congeniality. In our Slack channel, MYFest participants could discover, connect and share with new colleagues at any time across multiple themes and tracks.

6. Embrace emergence: welcome and leverage participant expertise.

MYFest sought to be " emergent" by actively building on participant expertise. Every session in MYFest encouraged participants to bring and share their expertise. Additionally, there were special sessions within MYFest inviting participants to contribute their own expertise in building community-contributing those ideas to the OneHE/Equity Unbound community-building resource site-so these sessions built on participant expertise while also contributing to an open resource that is available to all on the open web.

7. Make it family-friendly.

Another unique aspect of the MYFest experience was the intuitive involvement of family and friends. By focusing on well-being and joy, as well as critical discussions, we intentionally designed programming for the entire family. MYFest participants brought both (grand)parents and children to certain threads, embracing the power of intergenerational learning and connection. The Reader's Theater invited children and adults to co-read plays together online, and MineFest invited children from all over the world to play Minecraft together safely. MYFest therefore addressed Spelic's call for professional development that "acknowledges [educators'] full humanity in the learning process."

8. Go beyond access and focus on accessibility.

Compared to in-person events, there's more flexibility to make online conferences affordable, as adding participants in a virtual event does not have an incremental cost. It is therefore easier to create a system for scholarships or waivers for folks who are marginalized or do not have institutional funding. In the case of MYFest, we were awarded a Hewlett Foundation grant that allowed for the foundational overhead cost, and it covered the labor of the main facilitators and some of the invited guest facilitators, as well as the technology needed to run the event. And while MYFest was not advertised as a free event, there were multiple discounts available, and also the possibility to attend for free via a waiver.

By keeping the conference virtual, we avoided the costs of accommodation and travel associated with in-person events, as well as the logistical and social barriers to travel for parents of young children, people with disabilities and people who lack visa privilege. And, in the case of COVID-19 (and now monkeypox), people with compromised immunity.

Despite these efforts, we recognize, as Higdon and Butler do, that while "digital may be more accessible, it is not entirely accessible" all the time and for everyone. Differences in time zones meant that some sessions would often fall at an inconvenient time for people (particularly those located in East Asia and Oceania). We intentionally offered some sessions in "time zone sweet spots" that might work on all continents. But these attempts can never be perfect. And of course, some people may have no internet access, expensive internet access, intermittent electricity or low bandwidth.

However, accessibility goes beyond internet access. An accessible event should mean that when people join, they feel included, they feel they can access learning and belong to groups and learn in ways that reach them where they are. It means that people with different abilities can learn comfortably without constantly needing to ask for special accommodations, people from across the globe can find relevance in the work and organizers are always open to feedback and suggestions.

As our colleague Kate Bowles said to us, "The pandemic has also taught us that all sorts of fixed fittings turned out to be moveable: scheduling, assessment modes, grades, logistics of scale. We're now somewhat free not to put them back as they were." (Twitter DM shared with permission.)

Let's not put exclusionary professional development practices back to what they were before March 2020. A more worthy goal is to aspire toward equitable, accessible professional learning environments that can bring us joy in community and promote the transformative learning we hunger for.

Acknowledgment

The authors would like to acknowledge the entire MYFest organizing team ( all bios here). We would also like to acknowledge our guest facilitators and participants, who have all enriched the MYFest experience.

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Building community in online conferences, events (opinion)

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And in person may not mean connected: Maha Bali, George Station and Mia Zamora discuss building community in an online conference or professional development series.

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Building Online Virtual Communities

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Padlet of All Padlets For POE

https://padlet.com/lcccte/spring-2024-poe-padlets-y8udp9pi9q4q6xe6

Super helpful for all POE resources!!

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Pedagogy of Care with Social and Emotional Presence

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Pedagogy of Care with Social and Emotional Presence

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Good video on explaining "Bandwidth Recovery"

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How to Build an Online Learning Community

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How to Build an Online Learning Community

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This presentation was offered as a virtual keynote at the University Innovation Alliance Spring 2020 Convening. All text from the slides is included below.
Educational institutions are spaces for learning, but more specifically, they are spaces for social learning. And so our role as educators and administrators of educational institutions has to be focused on building community in addition to offering courses, designing curriculum, and credentialing.

"There is consensus in the literature about the benefits of a student's sense of belonging. Researchers suggest that higher levels of belonging lead to increases in GPA, academic achievement, and motivation." - Carey Borkoski, "Cultivating Belonging"

There is no one-size-fits-all set of best practices for building a learning community, whether on-ground or online. We have to start by looking to our own existing communities for expertise. Who at our institutions is already doing this work and doing it well? And who has figured out how to do it effectively online? How can we better support those efforts? And we have to start by finding out who are students are, what they need to be successful, and how our institutional mission does (and sometimes doesn't) align with our practices.

"Today's college students are the most overburdened and undersupported in American history. More than one in four have a child, almost three in four are employed, and more than half receive Pell Grants but are left far short of the funds required to pay for college." - Sara Goldrick-Rab and Jesse Stommel, "Teaching the Students We Have Not the Students We Wish We Had"

"The reason we are talking about basic needs today is because the students brought it to our attention. A student spoke up, 'the reason I am not succeeding in college is because I haven't eaten in two days.' In fact, 1 in 2 of your students are experiencing food insecurity. In the last 30 days." - Sara Goldrick-Rab, Dream 2019

Some Data About Bias in education from Soraya Chemaly's " All Teachers Should Be Trained to Overcome Their Hidden Biases ":

Black girls are twelve times more likely than their white counterparts to be suspended.

While Black children make up less than 20% of preschoolers, they make up more than half of out-of-school suspensions.

Teachers spend up to two thirds of their time talking to male students; they also are more likely to interrupt girls. When teachers ask questions they direct their gaze towards boys more often, especially when the questions are open-ended (In STEM fields).

62% of higher education faculty/staff stated they'd been bullied or witnessed bullying vs. 37% in the general population. People from minority communities are disproportionately bullied. (Hollis 2012)

51% of college students claimed to have seen another student being bullied by a teacher at least once and 18% claimed to have been bullied themselves by a teacher. (Marraccini 2013)

"We need to design our pedagogical approaches for the students we have, not the students we wish we had. This requires approaches that are responsive, inclusive, adaptive, challenging, and compassionate. And it requires institutions find more creative ways to support teachers and prepare them for the work of teaching. This is not a theoretical exercise - it is a practical one." - Sara Goldrick-Rab and Jesse Stommel, "Teaching the Students We Have Not the Students We Wish We Had"

"You cannot counter structural inequality with good will. You have to structure equality." - Cathy N. Davidson

We should begin our efforts toward building community by designing for the students who need that community most, the ones most likely to have been feeling isolated even before the pandemic: disabled students, chronically ill students, students of color, queer students, and students facing housing and food-insecurity.

Inclusivity on a college campus starts with small, human acts:

Walk campus to assess the accessibility of common spaces and classrooms. An accessible desk in every classroom doesn't do much good if students can't get to that desk because the rooms are overcrowded.

Invite students to share their pronouns, model this behavior, but don't expect it of everyone. Not all students will feel equally safe sharing pronouns.

Make sure there is an easy and advertised process for students, faculty, and staff to change their names within institutional systems. Make sure chosen names are what appear on course rosters and ID cards.

Regularly invite the campus community into hard conversations about inclusivity. For example, a frank discussion of race and gender bias in grading and course evaluations.

What does it look like to do this kind of work online? How do we walk our virtual campuses to address accessibility concerns? Where do we hold the necessary town hall meetings to address hard questions about inclusivity?

The first mistake of many online programs is that they try to replicate something we do face-to-face, mapping the traditions of on-ground institutions onto digital space. Imagine the most lively on-ground classroom in full resolution with all its various sights and sounds, then compare that to the restrictive interface of a learning management system.

Over the last several months, I've heard lots of talk about how teachers can build community within online courses, but not nearly enough talk about how we build and maintain the larger idiosyncratic culture that is core to an educational institution.

The crucial part of this work is not keeping administrators and faculty connected to students, but about building space for students to stay connected with each other. In his "Student Guide" to the online "pivot," Sean Michael Morris writes, "If possible, reach out to other students in your classes and create a support network. Use whatever digital means necessary to stay in touch."

Educational campuses have libraries, coffee shops, cafeterias, quads, lawns, amphitheaters, stadiums, hallways, student lounges, trees, park benches, and fountains. Ample space for rallies, study-groups, conversation, debate, student clubs, and special events. Few institutions pay much attention to re-creating these spaces online. The work done outside and between classes (which is the glue that holds education together) is attended to nominally if at all. Some learning happens best in rooms with walls, but some learning happens best in fields or in libraries or in town squares.

What we have is a series of online classes with no real infrastructure to support the work students do on college campuses outside and between those classes. Many online programs have the bureaucratic trappings of formal education without the rich ecosystems.

How to Build a Virtual Learning Community: 6 Theses
1. Stop conflating on-ground and online learning models, which require different pedagogies, administration, economies, curricula, and communities.
The key failure of online learning has been its attempt to duplicate, replicate, or simply dump into an LMS the content and strategies of on-ground learning. We need to recognize that online learning uses a different platform, builds community in different ways, demands different pedagogies, has a different economy, functions at different scales, and requires different curricular choices than does on-ground education. Even where the same goal is desired, very different methods must be used to reach that goal.

Supporting innovative digital pedagogies means investing in robust inter- and intra-institutional collaborations, and it means hiring and creating a culture for the development of digital pedagogues.

The rhetoric of a physical classroom - its pedagogical topography - can certainly dictate how we teach within it: where the seats are, which direction they face, whether they're bolted down, what kind of writing surfaces are on the walls, how many walls have writing surfaces, whether there are windows, doors that lock, etc. The same is true of the virtual classroom: is it password protected, what kind of landing page do we arrive on when we enter the course, how many pages allow interaction, can students easily upload and share content. Each of these predetermined variables allows (and sometimes demands) a certain pedagogy. The physical classroom, though, can usually be rearranged (to some extent) on the fly. Most online learning platforms make customization slow or difficult enough to deter responsiveness or impulsivity.
2. Online learning communities need to be hybrid communities.
Many students face very specific challenges at home: housing insecurity, domestic violence, lack of access to internet or other technology, physical disability, chronic and acute illness. We can't assume all students (or staff) can simply join our communities from home. We have to build with an understanding of these challenges and, even where learning remains fully (or mostly online), we have to continue to make space on college campuses for students who have no other homes from which to "shelter in place."

According to the Hope Center's National #RealCollege Survey, out of 86,000 students surveyed, 56% were housing insecure in the previous year, and 17% were homeless.

LGBTQ young adults had a 120 percent higher risk of reporting homelessness compared to youth who identified as heterosexual and cisgender. ( voicesofyouthcount.org)

"Residents living in a university residence hall (this does not include university apartments) must be out of the building by Saturday, December 15, 2018, at 10 a.m., or a charge of $100 per hour will be assessed along with potential conduct sanctions. Unfortunately, no exceptions can be made for you to remain beyond that date and you will not be able to enter the residence halls over the break for any reason. The halls reopen and students may move back in on Thursday, January 17, 2019, at 9 a.m." - From the University of California Berkeley Housing Policy
3. Online learning communities don't require video, synchronous meetings, formal expectations, or extrinsic motivators. In fact, these can frustrate efforts at creating presence and a sense of belonging.
Not all students, faculty, and staff will be able to meet synchronously, and different students learn in different ways at different times.

Staring directly into the faces of 20 other people, compelled to engage via video from within their own homes (and sometimes their bedrooms), doesn't reproduce (or even simulate) the kinds of academic and informal gatherings that happen on a college campus.

In far too much online learning, we over-architecture engagement, reducing it to a series of tasks with point values, rather than leaving enough breathing room for organic and intrinsically-motivated community to develop.
4. The borders of a college campus are permeable. Online learning communities should also be permeable, engaging local communities, disciplinary communities, and broader publics.
"Critical formative cultures are crucial in producing the knowledge, values, social relations and visions that help nurture and sustain the possibility to think critically, engage in political dissent, organize collectively and inhabit public spaces in which alternative and critical theories can be developed." - Henry Giroux, "Thinking Dangerously: the Role of Higher Education in Authoritarian Times"
5. Our ability to develop community will depend on our willingness to acknowledge trauma that members of our community have and will experience.
"There is robust evidence that social isolation and loneliness significantly increase risk for premature mortality, and the magnitude of the risk exceeds that of many leading health indicators." - Julianne Holt-Lunstad, et. al. "Loneliness and Social Isolation as Risk Factors for Mortality: A Meta-Analytic Review"

The effects of trauma are even greater for students who are sick or caring for loved ones who are sick. And the symptoms of isolation, loneliness, or acute illness can't be adequately anticipated by many of our more traditional pedagogies and institutional bureaucracies.

"A Trauma-Informed Approach to Teaching Through Coronavirus" from Teaching Tolerance:

Establish a routine and maintain clear communication.

Relationships and wellbeing should take priority over assignments and compliance.

Actively encourage and support a sense of safety, connectedness, and hope.

Acknowledge that trauma is not distributed equally. Those struggling before the pandemic will have an even more difficult time now.

"From everything we know about learning, if the trauma is not addressed, accounted for, and built into the course design, we fail. Our students fail." - Cathy Davidson, "The Single Most Essential Requirement in Designing a Fall Online Course"

Ultimately, we have to care for the well-being of every member of our community. How administrators treat faculty influences how faculty treat staff and students. And all of this is effected by the care (or lack of care) from state government, boards of regents, or regional accrediting bodies.
6. Our ability to develop community will depend on our willingness to continue feeling joy, having epiphanies, asking hard questions, and sharing our curiosity with one another.
"As a classroom community, our capacity to generate excitement is deeply affected by our interest in one another, in hearing one another's voices, in recognizing one another's presence." - bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress

In brief, to create a sense of belonging, we must:

* build a community of care
* ask genuine, open-ended questions
* wait for answers
* let conversation wander
* model what it looks like to be wrong and to acknowledge when we're wrong
* recognize that the right to speak isn't distributed equally
* make listening visible

Listening looks different online, especially when we engage asynchronously. In a discussion forum, much of our listening becomes invisible. But, even in a videoconferencing tool like Zoom, listening looks different. In an on-ground discussion, we might viscerally feel the hum of a room, listening for intake of breath and watching for people leaning forward at the edge of speech. How do we create adequate space for contribution online? How do we reckon with the fact that silence online can often feel a whole lot more ... silent?

"We need more, not fewer, ways to listen for the voices of students reflecting on education. We need more, not fewer, ways to include students in conversations about the future of teaching and learning in college. These conversations cannot begin by sending a signal to students that their voices don't matter." - Sara Goldrick-Rab and Jesse Stommel, "Teaching the Students We Have Not the Students We Wish We Had"

Start by trusting students.

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How to Build an Online Learning Community: 6 Theses

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Educational institutions are spaces for learning, but more specifically, they are spaces for social learning. And so our role as educators and administrators of educational institutions has to be focused on building community in addition to offering courses, designing curriculum, and credentialing.

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ORT discussions and action plan will require contemplation, which the following questions can facilitate:

What have you already been doing for DEI in assessment and evaluation?

What could you implement for DEI in assessment and evaluation?

What barriers or challenges might prevent you from implementing for DEI in assessment and evaluation?

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LCC CTE Assessment Module 1=What is student learning assessment(1)

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Good external Youtube video on online teaching.

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Short video on engaged course delivery.

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4 Ways to Make Classroom Participation More Inclusive

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Good list of terms.

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Education Buzzwords Defined: What Is Culturally Responsive Teaching?

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Tips for creating a Critical Community.

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Paulo Freire and the Development of Critical Pedagogy

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Assessment and equity.

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DEI Assessment techniques.