Diversity matters no matter what you teach

By Gayle Golden

Diversity matters. Whatever you are teaching, whether it’s account planning or media design or advanced reporting, you need to incorporate voices and perspectives from underrepresented groups that include race, gender, disability or ethnicity.

For one thing, research shows that exposure to diversity makes us and our students smarter and more productive. A 2014 article in Scientific American, republished in January of this year, reports that being around a diversity of people stimulates more creativity and hard work; it also encourages us to consider more alternatives before we make decisions. That article is just one of several useful links shared by the University of Minnesota’s Center for Educational Innovation in a resource page called Beyond Tolerance, which offers advice on handling sensitive discussions, promoting tolerance in the classroom and embedding diverse material in courses. 

Doing all this requires concerted effort, says Sid Bedingfield, HSJMC assistant professor and chair of the school’s Diversity Committee whose scholarship has focused on the civil rights struggle in South Carolina. Bedingfield’s best advice for instructors eager to incorporate diversity into courses? Focus on what he calls the “three Cs” of diversity": content, climate and common sense.

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It’s important not to call out diversity as a token gesture with one or two assignments designed solely about difference. Students will sniff out the tactic and tune out pretty quickly, he says. Instead, throughout the semester, purposefully select a range of diverse authors or subjects and include those in regular course material.

Put it everywhere -- in photographs, articles, in the nature of what companies are trying to market or in case studies about communication breakdowns or historical examples about press coverage. 

“Everyone uses examples in their classes, of ad campaigns or journalism stories or series. The question is: Are you mixing it up?” Bedingfield says. ““The more you can show diverse examples that are about the work – not about the difference – the more students are going to get it.”

Create the climate

Quite often in our classes, students in underrepresented groups are just that – underrepresented. Students of color, including international students, account for less than 20 percent of HSJMC enrollment. That’s why you’ll find maybe only one or two students of color in most of the major courses.  Students who face gender non-conformity and disability are also outnumbered.

Instructors need to be sensitive to this, and again, overtly pointing out the issue is not the way to go, Bedingfield says. Time and patience is often the best strategy as you watch students adjust to the stresses of being "the other" in a sea of the majority. Staying sensitive to that will often reveal what those minority students need. Bedingfield offers these suggestions for creating a welcoming classroom climate:

• Notice student behaviors that might suggest a cultural tie-in, such as quietness, and find gentle ways to check in with the student to monitor progress. In other words, don’t assume behavior equals non-engagement.
• Stay sensitive to current events – especially in our curriculum – and to the impact discussions about those events have on various groups, such as those involving Muslim or transgender students. When discussion develops, set ground rules for respect and encourage students to express views calmly.
• Educate yourself about implicit bias, which is the notion all of us have biases we don’t always realize but that govern our views. Some people have disputed the notion of implicit bias, but Bedingfield contends that even thinking about your own implicit biases is the best way to mitigate them. If you want to explore that idea, you can check your own potential biases with Project Implicit's tests, or merely read about the non-profit's efforts to spread awareness about implicit bias. The Beyond Tolerance resource page also has an excellent link to an article on avoiding psychological or cognitive bias. 
• Other suggestions for the classroom from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, included in the Beyond Tolerance page, are:
• find low-risk ways to create leadership roles for minority students in small groups, which empowers those students and brings their voice into the class;
• meet one-on-one with minority students about learning goals to talk through any unstated anxieties they might have;
• connect course material whenever possible to students' experiences through discussion and lecture, which shows you are making an effort to reach beyond what appears normative for the class. 

Trust common sense

Bedingfield contends people often get anxious about accommodating diversity without realizing the solution begins with the effort itself. In other words, by taking the first steps of thinking it through, incorporating content and considering the climate, the rest is often a matter of common sense interactions with the students. 

“If you really care about every person feeling welcome and thinking they can do their best work in your class, then just make sure you think about how they can do that," he says. "It’s likely to happen.”

For more opportunities to incorporate diversity thinking into the classroom, the university’s Office of Equity and Diversity offers an equity and diversity certificate for those who want to delve more deeply into training about this issue. The program is free. 

What are you doing to create diversity in your course? If you have a good idea, post it below. And as usual, if you have a question or a comment for ProActive Teaching, please post one below or email me at ggolden@umn.edu.

Disability Accommodation Letters: Compassionate and Clear Responses

By Gayle Golden
                                                   

Now is a good time to review practices for responding to – and understanding the nature of – disability accommodation letters, which students have probably given you already.

These letters are becoming more common for several reasons, chiefly the increase in students with so-called hidden disabilities, such as mental health conditions. In those cases, students may qualify for reasonable accommodations in classrooms on matters such as time allowed for tests, deadlines or even attendance.

Why these letters?

A request for accommodation when no disability is apparent does not mean a student is lazy or lacks resilience. Students have often faced a long and difficult road before they receive a disability accommodation letter for mental health reasons. To receive one, a student must present documentation to the Disability Resource Center counselors, and it usually means the student has been treated for any number of diagnoses, including anxiety disorders such as panic attacks, clinical depression, eating disorders, bipolar disorder or other serious mental illnesses. Some disabilities may involve high-functioning students who are on the autistic spectrum or who have learning disabilities. In short, reasonable accommodations in the classroom are tools that help students with such disabilities succeed in college when they could not do so otherwise.

Why so many now? 

Mental health disorders account for most of the recent increase in disability accommodation letters. An estimated 30 percent of undergraduate students on the Twin Cities campus have been diagnosed with a mental health condition at some point in their lives, and another 25 percent probably have undiagnosed conditions, mostly anxiety and depression. If this seems higher than you remember from your college days, it is. Mental health conditions are more prevalent among our students today because treatments have improved and stigma has abated. During the past 15 years, more students with mental health illnesses have headed to college to seek a better future. In the past, many of these intelligent students simply didn't go to college. If they tried, they often flunked classes or eventually disappeared altogether if their illnesses flared up. 

How can we adjust?

As instructors, then, we are on the front lines of a significant change. This requires some adjustment on our part, admittedly not all of it easy. It’s important to note we are not mental health providers. Our role is not to provide therapy or to help these students with their disorders. Yet we can respond to them in a thoughtful and compassionate way, setting appropriate boundaries and encouraging their successes. Dealing with accommodation letters is one part of that response. Although taking time with those letters may feel a little inconvenient, a thoughtful approach can make a big difference for a student who needs these tools to move forward with purposeful life.

Here is some guidance on how to respond to these letters taken from the recently released report from the Joint Task Force on Student Mental Health:

• Acknowledge the letter. Students often feel worried about how instructors will perceive them when they send a letter. Dispel those worries. Email the student to say you’ve gotten the letter and that you’d like to discuss accommodations. If you have a large class with teaching assistants, be sure you convey that one of those TAs will be contacting the student. Be encouraging and straightforward. That’s all the student needs.

• Arrange a meeting. An accommodation letter will never spell out what you should do for the student. It will merely describe general accommodations a student might request. It’s up to the instructor and the student to discuss specifics for every class and situation. It’s critical to have that conversation. Generalizing about accommodations rarely produces any insight.

• Agree on reasonable accommodations for that class. This is the most important step – and the most misunderstood. Bottom line: Accommodation requests do not require total capitulation to the student’s needs. Quite the opposite. The accommodations are tools for students to use to help their success, but they exist in a world where not everything is possible. Other tips for this discussion:
• It’s important instructors be clear, as well as kind, about what they can and cannot provide for reasonable accommodations. As you begin that conversation, then, the accent should be on reasonable. The conversation should focus on mutual respect and a drive toward solutions. 
• Understand that not all students are experts at accommodation letters. They may not always know what they need, so they may ask for the moon and the stars. Others know exactly what to ask for. In the end, it’s important for you as the instructor help them settle on what’s reasonable. (It's important, too, that instructors work with the student's DRC Access Consultant listed on the letter if there are concerns or questions about any accommodation. The university is committed to an interactive process that includes the student, the instructor and the consultant.) 
• Encourage students to take responsibility for the accommodation. If a letter asks for deadline flexibility, for example, you can say that you will permit extended deadlines -- but only if the student contacts you in advance and sets a new deadline. Otherwise, you can say, it’s hard for you to offer blanket deadline-busting. If the letter notes attendance accommodations, you can say it’s very difficult to do well in the class if the student cannot attend most classes. Then you can discuss ways the student can make up material if he or she must miss a class. You can also discuss ways the student can alert you if attendance is a problem. These encourage student responsibility for the accommodations sought, which incidentally help students prepare for the world beyond college.
• Finally, explain why some disciplines -- journalism, for example -- need to impose deadlines for students. This will help them understand the importance of deadlines in skills classes, and it will help them assess their plans for their career. Most of these students have spent a lot of time considering how they will fare in jobs. Believe it or not, your course is not the first time they've encountered concerns about whether they can succeed in the professional world. Be kind and caring as you help them gain insight about their growth as they use these accommodations.

• Convey support and confidence in the student. It’s important you start off believing the student can succeed in the class. The student will be more motivated to do well and more forthcoming with concerns, which will feed success.

• Communicate any concerns through the semester. You’ll likely notice if a student begins to drop off as the stresses of the semester build. Communicate with the student in a timely fashion. It might take just a short email or a query after class. It’s not always guaranteed to help, but it can’t hurt. And it will help build the record you need to ultimately cast a wider net of support.

• Follow up with university support. If the student disappears altogether, which happens, be sure you reach out via emails copied to the student’s Disability Resource Center counselor, who will also reach out to the student. 

The reality is that students sometimes need several attempts to succeed. The lessons they learn from setbacks are often the ones they carry to ultimate success. What they’ll remember, though, is how you made them feel through those lessons. So do your best to offer compassion and support even as you set the boundaries they need. 

If you have a question or a comment for ProActive Teaching, please post one below or email me at ggolden@umn.edu.

Technology Distractions

By Gayle Golden

Technology has become essential in the classroom, of course -- except when it distracts. And too often, as any instructor knows, those smartphones and laptops aren’t always complementing your lectures.


Yet instructors can feel pretty powerless to combat the lure of technology in the hands of students who sometimes find it more alluring than the course material. Should you intervene? Should you shrug and figure the student is in charge of wasting those tuition dollars? “When I first started teaching I didn’t think I could control technology in the classroom, but I realize I can,” says HSJMC assistant professor Amy O’Connor, who has taught some of the school’s largest classes, which are most prone to the technology abusers. Not only can you set the ground rules for technology use in your class, O’Connor says, it’s your obligation to do so. She has established a few simple strategies for saying no to devices, setting rules for engagement that not only keep her classes focused but also teach valuable professional standards in the process.

Raise awareness

The first step, she says, is some old-fashioned consciousness raising. Sometimes students don’t realize the impact of what they’re doing when they text or web surf in class. So O’Connor asks them a few pointed questions: As our students, might they one day need a reference from their professor? Looked at that way, isn’t their behavior in the classroom a quasi-interview situation with a prospective reference? So would they whip out a cell phone and distractedly text in the middle of an interview? If not, then perhaps they ought not to do so in while the professor is lecturing. O’Connor also points out that students are paying thousands of dollars per class for their education. Does it make sense, then, that they’re using that time to text a friend or post on Facebook? Merely considering these points provides some poignant perspective for students.

Establish the rules

O’Connor also sets up clear and respectful rules of engagement around technology use. If students require a laptop for note-taking because of a disability, she will ask them to sit in the back or the front – their choice – but not the middle, where they are likely to be more distracting for students. She also understands students might have circumstances that require cell phone use, such as emergencies or interview calls. If that’s the case, she tells students to alert her at the start of class and sit close to the exit. When the call comes through, she asks them to answer it quickly and leave immediately so as not to disturb the class. Such rules apply beyond classroom situations into the adult world they’re entering. “Ultimately,” she says, “it’s a matter of mutual respect,” she says, which is important for students to carry into the workplace.

Debunk multitasking

O’Connor agrees students are ill-served by the idea that they can multitask and still learn. “They think they can multitask, and they can’t,” she says. Indeed, multitasking is a myth. One recent study has shown that smartphones reduce a person’s focus by merely being in the room without even being used.  Other studies have shown that taking notes by hand versus a laptop correlates with better retention. The stakes may be even greater for technology distraction. O’Connor also points out the work of psychologist Jean Twenge’s, including one piece featured in this month’s Atlantic Magazine, in which she argues that the millennial generation’s dependence on smartphones has created a mental health crisis.

Create spaces

Although we may not be able to address that big a problem in our class policies around technology use, we can at least do our best to create spaces as well as policies to offer alternatives to dizzy distraction. Sometimes that can include willfully imposing non-technology time in classes where technology is central. For example, in my Community Journalism class last spring, students became so distracted by creating a news website for the university's disabled community they could barely make progress on the broader goal of thinking about how to create meaningful coverage. Entire class periods were spent on screens. Ideas stalled.

We solved the problem by banning all technology for a 30-minute kick-off meeting, At the start of each class we formed a circle to discuss ideas. No cell phones or computers allowed. We called it our “womb time.” Once we started those meetings, the project took off. Ideas flowed. Connections flourished. Bottom line: Don’t be afraid to impose some non-tech time into the tech-heavy classes as well. Students might actually begin to breathe more easily.

If you have a question or a comment for ProActive Teaching, please post one below or email me at ggolden@umn.edu.

Teaching from Day One

By Gayle Golden
  
The first week of classes brings an onslaught of details for instructors. Teaching can sometimes get lost in the procedures, especially that first day as we are sorting through rosters, reviewing syllabi and checking off wait lists. But even on Day One, you can begin to lay the groundwork for a successful teaching relationship with your students.  HSJMC Professor Kathy Hansen, who has been teaching large and small classes in the school for more than 35 years, offers some strategies for meaningfully instructing students from the start.

 A syllabus test? 

Your students are eager to connect with you the first day of classes. They’ll be watching for your style, including how organized you are and how clearly you present the overall course flow. In turn, the first week is a chance for you to see how attentive they are. Hansen knows busy students don’t always read in depth the syllabi we carefully create. So when she hands it out, she also passes out an “open-book” syllabus quiz with basic question such as "How many points can I get in this class" and "If I come in 15 minutes late can I get class participation points?"and gives students a few minutes to answer the questions. She collects the quiz but doesn’t apply a grade (although she doesn’t tell them that up front unless they ask). The test is a tool for students to engage with the important class contract. Hansen also takes time to point out the course learning goals in the syllabus and asks students think of something they can do outside class to practice those skills, whether it’s working for the Minnesota Daily or helping with a newsletter for a club or activity.

Connect the curriculum 

Hansen says it’s also important connect your HSJMC course to others in the curriculum. Our courses are strongly interrelated, especially the skills courses – many of which our adjunct instructors teach. Your students certainly learned skills in previous courses that they’ll need in your class. For example, students who took News Reporting and Writing (Jour 3101) need to carry skills lessons of AP style and news writing into Intermediate Reporting (Jour 3121) and beyond. Students in Digital Strategy in Strategic Communication (Jour 3275) will not only need the research skills taught in Information for Mass Communication (Jour 3004) but should also be deft at video and audio editing they learned in Multimedia Production and Storytelling (Jour 3102). To make sure our students carry skills forward into your courses, here are a few simple steps you can take your first week:

• Review your course profile for prerequisites to your course
• Check the course profiles of those prerequisites for the skills those courses taught
• Ask students during the first class to identify skills they learned in those courses
• Remind students those will continue to apply in your course

Bond meaningfully, not randomly

We know all instructors are eager to get to know individual students. By all means, please do all you can to help students feel comfortable and connected. The student services staff has already sent instructions for finding your class photos, which will help you put name to face – something your students will definitely appreciate. Realize, though, it will take some time for names to sink in. And remember not to force a personal connection. A semester is enough time to establish good rapport without a lot of fuss at the start.

Hansen, for instance, doesn’t use touchy feely approaches to student engagement, such as asking random questions about favorite foods or summer vacations. “They’re adults,” she says. “They’re in class to learn.” Instead, she will ask them substantive questions designed to reveal their academic motivations, such as: What led them to study this field? Or what will help them succeed in this course? The answers to the latter question, she says, can vary from the profound to the mundane. Some students say it will help them to get to know other students. Others say they want grades posted to Moodle or a chance to ask questions before tests. In the end, the answers are often less important than the fact that Hansen is asking for input.  “It signals to them that I care about why they’re here and that I care about helping them to do better,” she says.

If you have any thoughts or questions about the first week of classes, please share in the comments below. If you have questions or topics you’d like addressed for future blog entries, please post those. Most of all we want a conversation and continued engagement around excellent teaching. Welcome again. We love having you part of the HSJMC team.

Gayle Golden (G.G.)