Cirillo, R. & Silverman, S. (2022). Ethical Dilemmas in the College Classroom: A Casebook for Inclusive Teaching. Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching, and Learning. The casebook is a resource for faculty to discuss and think about their inclusive teaching practices. Created with support from the National Science Foundation, it includes dilemmas instructors face in today’s classrooms and offers strategies for facilitating difficult conversations around each case.
Dweck, C. S. (2006). Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. New York, NY: Ballantine Books. Stanford University psychologist Carol Dweck shows how success can be dramatically influenced by how we think about our talents and abilities. People with a fixed mindset—those who believe that abilities are fixed—are less likely to flourish than those with a growth mindset—those who believe that abilities can be developed. Dweck offers new insights into her famous concept, explaining false growth mindset and expanding mindset beyond the individual, applying it to the cultures of groups and organizations.
Headlee, C. (2021). Speaking of Race: Why Everybody Needs to Talk About Racism – And How to Do It. Harper Wave. While many people say they want to talk about race, the reality is, they want to talk about race with people who agree with them. To avoid painful discussions, we stay in our bubbles, reinforcing our own sense of righteousness as well as our division. Headlee draws from her experiences and the latest research on bias, communication, and neuroscience to provide practical advice and insight for talking about race. This is the book for people who have tried to debate and educate and argue and got nowhere.
Kite, M. E., Case, K. A., & Williams, W. (2021). Navigating Difficult Moments in Teaching Diversity and Social Justice. APA Publications This resource helps educators tackle common and challenging dilemmas that arise in today’s classroom—such as diversity, privilege, and intersectionality and offers best practices for addressing them. Contributors discuss the many roles instructors play inside and outside of college and university classrooms, for example, in handling personal threats, responsibly incorporating current events into classroom discussion, navigating their own stigmatized or privileged identities, dealing with bias in teaching evaluations, and engaging in self-care.
Nordell, J. (2021). The End of Bias: A Beginning. Metropolitan Books. In this exploration into how we can eradicate unintentional bias and discrimination Nordell weaves stories with scientific research to reveal how minds, hearts, and behaviors change. She scrutinizes diversity training. She explores what works and why: a diagnostic checklist used by doctors that eliminated disparate treatment of men and women; a preschool in Sweden where teachers found ways to uproot gender stereotyping; a police unit in Oregon where the practice of mindfulness and specialized training coincided with a startling drop in the use of force. The End of Bias: A Beginning brings good news. Biased behavior can change; the approaches outlined here show how we can begin to remake ourselves and our world.
Rothman, A. & Mendoza, E. B. (Eds) (2021). Facing Georgetown’s History: A Reader on Slavery, Memory, and Reconciliation. Georgetown University Press. This collection introduces readers to the history of Georgetown’s involvement in slavery and recent efforts to confront this troubling past. This reader traces Georgetown’s “Slavery, Memory, and Reconciliation Initiative” and the role of universities, which are uniquely situated to conduct that reckoning in a constructive way through research, teaching, and modeling thoughtful, informed discussion.
Steele. (2011). Whistling Vivaldi : How Stereotypes Affect Us and What We Can Do. W.W. Norton & Company. Through dramatic personal stories, Steele shares his experience of peering beneath the surface of our ordinary social lives to reveal what it’s like to be stereotyped based on our gender, age, race, class, or any of the ways by which we culturally classify one another. He discovers that the experience of “stereotype threat” can profoundly affect our functioning: undermining our performance, causing emotional and physiological reactions, and affecting our career and relationship choices. But because these threats, though little recognized, are near-daily and life-shaping for all of us, the shared experience of them can help bring Americans closer together.
Tobin, T. J., & Behling, K. T. (2018). Reach Everyone, Teach Everyone: Universal Design for Learning in Higher Education. West Virginia University Press. Reach Everyone, Teach Everyone is aimed at faculty members, faculty-service staff, disability support providers, student-service staff, campus leaders, and graduate students who want to strengthen the engagement, interaction, and performance of all college students. It includes resources for readers who want to become UDL experts and advocates: real-world case studies, active-learning techniques, UDL coaching skills, micro- and macro-level UDL-adoption guidance, and use-them-now resources.
Williams, T. (2018). Power in Numbers: The Rebel Women of Mathematics. Race Point Publishing. Power in Numbers: The Rebel Women of Mathematics is a full-color volume that takes aim at the forgotten influence of women on the development of mathematics over the last two millennia. You’ll see each eminent mathematician come to life on each page, women like the astronomer-philosopher Hypatia, theoretical physicist Emmy Noether, and rocket scientist Annie Easley. This book is an affirmation of female genius and a celebration of the boundless applications of mathematics. See their stories!
Arashpour, M., Lamborn, J., & Farzanehfar, P. (2020). Group dynamics in higher education: Impacts of gender inclusiveness and selection interventions on collaborative learning. In S. Mostafa, & P. Rahnamayiezekavat (Eds.), Claiming Identity through Redefined Teaching in Construction Programs. IGI Global. We found different performance of female and male students in group activities. Instructor interventions to form gender-inclusive groups improve group performance and output. Educators can utilize the findings to better design and implement team activities.
Behling, K. (2020). Finding a silver lining in the rapid movement to online learning: Considerations of access for all learners. Pedagogy and the Human Sciences, 7 (1), 1-11. An expert in Universal Design for Learning (UDL), the author offers a positive way of approaching the transition to online learning through the UDL Plus One approach. This paper will offer a relatable journey and concrete strategies that educators may apply to the challenges of teaching online at a moment’s notice.
Canning, E. A., Muenks, K., Green, D. J., & Murphy, M. C. (2019). STEM faculty who believe ability is fixed have larger racial achievement gaps and inspire less student motivation in their classes. Science Advances Vol. 5. Results revealed that racial achievement gaps in courses taught by more fixed mindset faculty were twice as large as achievement gaps in courses taught by more growth mindset faculty. Course evaluations revealed that students were demotivated and had more negative experiences in classes taught by fixed mindset faculty. Faculty mindset beliefs predicted student achievement and motivation above and beyond any other faculty characteristic, including their gender, race/ethnicity, age, teaching experience, or tenure status.
Canning, E. A., Harackiewicz, J. M., Priniski, S. J., Hecht, C. A., Tibbetts, Y., & Hyde, J. S. (2018). Improving performance and retention in Introductory Biology with a utility-value intervention. Journal of Educational Psychology, 110(6), 834–849. One way to encourage performance and persistence is to have students write about the utility value (UV) or personal relevance of course topics to their life. For three units, introductory biology students were randomly assigned to receive either a UV writing assignment, in which they explained why course material was useful to them personally, or a control assignment, in which they summarized course material. Students exposed to any dosage of UV earned higher grades, were more likely to enroll in the second course of the biology sequence, and were less likely to abandon their STEM major than students who did not receive any UV assignments. Students with a history of poor performance benefitted from a UV essay in the beginning of the semester, whereas higher-performing students benefitted from a UV essay at the end of the semester.
Chao, I. T., & Pardy, M. C. (2017). Your way or my way? Integrating cultural diversity into team-based learning at Royal Roads University. In S. L. Grundy, et al. (Eds.), Engaging Students in Life-Changing Learning. PressBooks. Students from different cultures differ in orientation to communication, time, power distance, collectivism, and task vs. relationship focus. These differences can result in conflict. The authors provide suggestions for modifying team-based learning by adopting responsive team composition, intercultural training, teamwork-appropriate assignment design, and multi-dimensional assessment.
Chatelain, M. (2020). How colleges co-opt Black student protests. The Chronicle of Higher Education. What’s changed since the spring 1969 student rebellion at Harvard, in protest of the university’s calling the police on students who had seized an administration building? More students of color are enrolled in the Ivy League, more women are on the faculty, and university leadership is slightly more cautious in its approach to student conflicts. Yet student demands remain eerily similar, and the concessions they win are uncomfortably predictable: Black students’ appeals are often met with poorly funded or structurally unsound initiatives, committees, and programs that ignore the structural problems that lead to the conflicts in the first place.
Chatelain, M. (2019). We were the undeserving throngs. The Chronicle of Higher Education. In the wake of the Operation Varsity Blues” bribery scandal, The Chronicle Review asked graduate students, junior professors, and senior scholars what it’s like to be an African-American academic today. We asked respondents to speak to themes raised by the admissions-bribery scandal. Here’s what Dr. Chatelain told us.
Cohen, G. L., Garcia, J., Purdie-Vaughns, V., Apfel, N., & Brzustoski, P. (2009). Recursive processes in self-affirmation: Intervening to close the minority achievement gap. Science, 324, 400-403. An intervention to lessen minority students’ psychological threat related to being negatively stereotyped in school was tested. The intervention, a series of brief writing assignments focusing students on a self-affirming value, reduced the racial achievement gap. Low-achieving African Americans particularly benefited. Findings suggest that because initial psychological states and performance determine later outcomes, small but early alterations in trajectory can have long-term effects.
Devine, P. G., Forscher, P. S., Cox, W. T. L., Kaatz, A., Sheridan, J., & Carnes, M. (2017). A gender bias habit-breaking intervention led to increased hiring of female faculty in STEMM departments. Journal ofExperimental Social Psychology. The gender bias habit-breaking intervention was previously found to increase gender bias awareness and self-efficacy to promote gender equity in academic science departments. Following this initial success, the present study compares, in a preregistered analysis, hiring rates of new female faculty pre- and post-manipulation. Whereas the proportion of women hired by control departments remained stable over time, the proportion of women hired by intervention departments increased by an estimated 18 percentage points.
Dewsbury, B.M. (2019). Deep teaching in a college STEM classroom. Cultural Studies of Science Education. I describe a conceptual model of how pedagogical transformation incorporating inclusive practices can occur. Using specific examples, I discuss how a sequential approach to understanding ourselves and empathizing with students puts instructors in a better position to create positive classroom climates.
DiBartolo, P.M. et al., (2016). Principles and practices fostering inclusive excellence: Lessons from the Howard Hughes Medical Institutes Capstone Institutions. CBE Life Sci. Vol. 15 We describe principles of inclusivity (mentoring programs to build community; research experiences to strengthen scientific skill/identity; attention to quantitative skills; and outreach/bridge programs to broaden the student pool) across 11 primarily undergraduate institutions designated as Capstone Awardees in Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s 2012 competition. We ground the program elements in learning theory, emphasizing their essential principles with examples of how they were implemented within institutional contexts. We also describe common assessment approaches that in many cases informed programming and created traction for stakeholder buy-in.
Eddy, & Hogan, K. A. (2014). Getting under the hood: How and for whom does increasing course structure work? CBE Life Sciences Education, 13(3), 453–468. We disaggregate student data to identify whether increased course structure works better for particular populations of students. We found that a “moderate-structure” intervention increased course performance for all student populations, but worked disproportionately well for black students-halving the black-white achievement gap-and first-generation students-closing the achievement gap with continuing-generation students. We also found that students consistently reported completing assigned readings more frequently, spending more time studying for class, and feeling an increased sense of community in the moderate-structure course. These changes imply that increased course structure improves student achievement at least partially through increasing student use of distributed learning and creating a more interdependent classroom community.
Estrada. M., Young, G. R., Nagy, J., Goldstein, E. G., Ben-Zeev, A., Márquez-Magaña, L., & Eroy-Reveles, A. (2019). The influence of microaffirmations on undergraduate persistence in science career pathways. CBE Life Sci Educ 18(3):ar40. We provide a measure of microaffirmation kindness cues and assess how they relate to historically underrepresented (HU) and historically overrepresented (HO) undergraduate student persistence in science-related career pathways. We found that microaffirmations can be measured in an academic context and that these experiences have predictive value when they increase students’ integration into their science communities, ultimately resulting in greater intentions to persist 9 months later.
Forscher, Mitamura, C., Dix, E. L., Cox, W. T. ., & Devine, P. G. (2017). Breaking the prejudice habit: Mechanisms, time course, and longevity. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 72, 133–146. The prejudice habit-breaking intervention and its offshoots have shown promise in effecting long-term change in intergroup bias, including increases in awareness, concern about discrimination, and long-term decreases in implicit bias. This intervention is based on the premise that unintentional bias is like a habit that can be broken with sufficient motivation, awareness, and effort. We conducted replication of the original habit-breaking intervention experiment. Consistent with previous results, the habit-breaking intervention produced a change in concern that endured two weeks post-intervention. Our results suggest that the habit-breaking intervention produces enduring changes in peoples’ knowledge of and beliefs about race-related issues, and we argue that these changes are even more important for promoting long-term behavioral change than are changes in implicit bias.
Freeman, S., Eddy, S. L., McDonough, M., Smith, M. K., Okoroafor, N., Jordt, H., & Wenderoth, M. P. (2014). Active learning increases student performance in science, engineering, and mathematics. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, 111(23), 8410–8415. We document that active learning leads to increases in exam performance that would raise average grades by a half a letter, and that failure rates under traditional lecturing increase by 55% over the rates observed under active learning.
Jackson, M. C., Galvez, G., Landa, I., Puonora, P., & Thoman, D. B. (2016). Science that matters: The importance of a cultural connection in underrepresented students’ science pursuit. CBE Life Sci Ed. Vol. 15. We found that freshman URM first-generation college students who enter with a greater belief that science can be used to help their communities identified as scientists more strongly over time. First-generation URM students held the strongest prosocial values for pursuing a science major (e.g., giving back to the community). URM students broadly reported additional motivation to increase the status of their family (e.g., fulfilling aspirations for a better life). These findings demonstrate the importance of culturally connected career motives and examining intersectional identities to inform efforts to broaden participation.
Killpack, T. L. & Melón, L. C. (2016). Toward inclusive STEM classrooms: What personal role do faculty play?CBE – Life Sci. Ed Vol. 15:es3, 1-9. Unexamined biases in institutional culture can prevent diverse students from thriving and persisting in STEM. In this essay, we present a set of social science concepts that we can extend to STEM courses to inform our efforts at inclusive excellence. We have recommended strategies for meaningful reflection and professional development with respect to diversity and inclusion, and aim to empower faculty to be change agents in their classrooms as a means to broadening participation in STEM fields.
Moore, M. E., Vega D. M., Wiens, K. M., Caporale, N. (2020). Connecting theory to practice: Using self-determination theory to better understand inclusion in STEM. Journal of Microbiology Biology Education. 21(1):21.1.32. Self-determination theory (SDT) is a theoretical framework that states that ones’ internal motivation is strongly correlated with the satisfaction of three psychological needs: autonomy, competency, and relatedness. In this paper, we introduce SDT and discuss how it relates to inclusion and efforts to increase retention of STEM URM students in higher education. We describe how SDT has been adapted to define and assess inclusion in the workplace as an example of how STEM education researchers can use SDT to promote and assess inclusion.
Paunesku, D., Walton, G. M., Romero, C., Smith, E. N., Yeager, D. S., & Dweck C. S. (2015). Mind-set interventions are a scalable treatment for academic underachievement. Psychological Science, 26, 784-793. We delivered growth-mind-set and sense-of-purpose interventions through online modules. Among students at risk of dropping out of high school, each intervention raised students’ semester grade point averages in core academic courses and increased the rate at which students performed satisfactorily in core courses.
Pennebaker, J. W., Gosling, S. D., & Ferrell, J. D. (2013). Daily online testing in large classes: Boosting college performance while reducing achievement gaps. PLoS ONE, 8(11):e79774. We examined improvements in academic performance between lower- and upper-middle class students. Students took daily quizzes that provided immediate and personalized feedback. Students in experimental classes performed better in the target class and other classes, both in the semester they took the course and in subsequent semesters, resulting in a 50% reduction in the social class achievement gap.
Powers, J. T., Cook, J. E., Purdie-Vaughns, V., Garcia, J., Apfel, N., & Cohen, G. L. (2015). Changing environments by changing individuals: The emergent effects of psychological intervention. Psychological Science, 1-11. We tested whether a classroom-based intervention that benefited a few African American 7th graders could trigger emergent ecological effects that benefited the entire class. Within a class, the greater the density of African American students who participated in the intervention, the higher the grades of all classmates. Benefits of treatment density were most pronounced among students with a history of poor performance. Results suggest that the benefits of psychological intervention do not end with the individual.
Rothman, A. (2018). Slavery and institutional morality at Georgetown University: Reply to Nelson. British Journal of Sociology, 69(3). What is institutional morality? Why and how are universities and other institutions reckoning with their own histories of slavery and racism? What role can genealogical research, and especially genetic testing, play in the pursuit of racial reconciliation and justice? These are questions that I have been wrestling with since the fall of 2015, when I was appointed to Georgetown University’s Working Group on Slavery, Memory, and Reconciliation, and I appreciate the opportunity to reflect on them as an interloping historian among sociologists.
Singer-Freeman, K. E., & Bastone, L. (2019). Developmental science concepts guide effective support of underrepresented STEM students. Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Education. We introduce three guiding concepts from developmental psychology: developmental trajectories, developmentally appropriate practices, and holism. After explaining how these concepts relate to effective support of students from underrepresented groups, we provide examples of successful applications of the principles in classes, degree programs, and research experiences.
Singer-Freeman, K. E., Hobbs, H., & Robinson, C. (2019). Theoretical matrix of culturally relevant assessment. Assessment Update, 31(4) Providing students with differentiated ways to demonstrate competence is one route to increase equity. However, it is not always practical to provide differentiated assessment. We examine ways in which specific features of assignments might produce false evidence of achievement gaps (differences in grades reflecting differences in performance and not competence). We analyze features of assignments and present a theoretical matrix of culturally relevant assessment.
Singer-Freeman, K. E., & Bastone, L. (2016). Pedagogical Choices Make Large Classes Feel Small (NILOA Occasional Paper No. 27). Urbana, IL: University of Illinois and Indiana University, National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment. We summarize literature that describes evidenced-based methods of supporting at-risk students and explain how we used this literature to inform our alignment of pedagogical practices and goals in a General Education class. We consider principles that might guide redesign of other classes.
Theobald et al., (2020). Active learning narrows achievement gaps for underrepresented students in undergraduate science, technology, engineering, and math. PNAS We collected data on exam scores and failure rates in an array of STEM courses that had been taught by the same instructor via both traditional lecturing and active learning, and analyzed how the change in teaching approach impacted underrepresented minority and low-income students. We found that active learning reduced achievement gaps in exam scores and passing rates. Active learning benefits all students but offers disproportionate benefits for individuals from underrepresented groups.
Walton, G. M. (2014). The new science of wise psychological interventions. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 23(1), 73-82. Specific psychological processes act as levers in complex systems that give rise to social problems. Precise interventions that alter them—what I call “wise interventions”—can produce significant benefits and do so over time. What are wise interventions? How do they work? And how can they help solve social problems?
