Professor Laura Snyder, Professor John Palella, and Education Studies concentrators Alec Lacerte '25 and Lakia Munnerlyn '24 are participating in the Sheridan Center's Seminar for Transformation Around Anti-Racist Teaching (START) during the spring 2023 term. Their project, titled, "Anti-Racism in Practice: Navigating pedagogy, content and curriculum development in undergraduate Education courses," aims to bring anti-racist teaching practices to a small group of practice-based (focused on teaching, learning, and curriculum development) undergraduate courses in the Education Department.
In the seminar, participants are asked to reflect on how to become more equitable, inclusive instructors, how to build equitable, anti-racist teaching and learning spaces, and ways in which they can support peers and colleagues in advancing departmental change. Laura, John, Alec, and Lakia have chosen to focus on enhancing the syllabus and learning activities for for the following AY23-24 courses, to enhance equity and students’ sense of belonging:
- Education 520: Adolescent Literature (Professor Snyder)
- Education 1665: Reimagining Humanities Education (Professor Snyder)
- Education 515: Teaching LGBTQIA Histories (Professor Palella)
- Education 1680: Histories of Race and Education in the United States (Professor Palella)
John and Laura teach undergraduate courses that focus on literary and historical content, pedagogy, and curriculum development. In their proposal, they outlined three areas of focus in their courses to extend the work already being done in the department on inclusive syllabus design.
- creating syllabus statements that frame course policies and practices with inclusive, humanizing, anti-racist language and ideas;
- equitable and anti-racist facilitation of discussion and/or protocols for participation in seminar classes;
- and integrating the concepts of anti-racism, power, and privilege, and justice and equity as frames into the curriculum products that students create in their courses.
"Because our courses focus on different content but have similar outcomes for course projects," the proposal states, "the time to look deeply at our work–our courses and ourselves as instructors–together will not only benefit our courses and our students but provide us with a collaborative foundation to lead the Education Department faculty professional development over the next few years."
Visit the Sheridan Center website to learn more about the START program.