Diversity Statement
To begin, I want to start by recognizing both the multitude of ways in which privilege exists in the United States and within that that I have privilege in many ways, and thus do not have personal experience with many of the difficulties my students will face, both within the classroom and in their ability to access courses. My goals within the classroom are thus to continuously educate myself on the ways I can best support my students and create a welcoming classroom, without expecting students to take on that burden, to keep open communication with my students so they can be comfortable sharing their own experiences and what would help them in the classroom if they choose, and to pre-emptively introduce flexibility into my course design to make a course that is welcoming and useful for all students, without them having to ask.
Here I want to bring up UDL—Universal Design for Learning. From UDL principles, I focus on allowing, and more importantly aiding my students to engage with the material in ways that are conducive to their learning, acknowledging that those ways may not be the same for every student nor will they be the same ways in which I personally learn best. Very closely related, I seek to analyze my classes and find ways to remove abstract barriers to success that are unrelated to understanding the course material. In this vein, I bring up what is hopefully a familiar graphic, [1]:
On the left, we see an example of equality—everyone gets the same treatment, but some people don't have their needs met. In the middle, there is equity—everyone gets the help they need, with different help available to each person. Finally, on the right we see the removal of the fence as a barrier entirely, allowing the same access for all three people, without any of them having to ask for accommodations, or feel singled out by using a visibly different method of access. While of course this removal of barriers is not always possible in all situations, this is something I strive for when designing my courses. With this, I want to shift focus to some concrete strategies that I employ.
I do not list any required class materials such as textbooks (especially not digital textbooks that cannot be borrowed or bought used from students in prior years), to not burden students with the cost. I believe that the material I present in courses should be more than enough for understanding the subject. However, I do list optional textbooks so that students who find their learning is aided by reading textbooks have something to follow along with. After my undergraduate studies, I was actually considering no textbooks at all, but after consideration and taking graduate courses without any textbook, I found that while I don't want to require a textbook, having one suggested is valuable for students who want to follow along. A textbook can offer different explanations than I give in class, and can allow students who find reading more conducive to than lectures another option for understanding the material.
While I believe attending class is valuable, I make sure students who have to miss classes are able to keep up with the material by posting detailed slides and other notes after each class, and by making myself available for further support. There are many reasons why students may have to miss class, including (but not limited to) struggles with mental health, physical health, and economic insecurity. For a quick example, a student working full time to afford school may not be able to attend class regularly due to their work schedule. Alternatively, though, I want to make sure attending class is a valuable (and interactive) learning experience since I know personally I find that a classroom setting is the easiest way to focus on new material, and thus I expect at least some of my students will feel similar.
I keep this flexibility in mind for homework extensions as well—students are not guaranteed to have reasonable time free for homework every week, especially if they are dealing with many things outside of the classroom. I keep deadlines however, rather than having everything due at the end for every student, to make sure that students who struggle with self-imposed deadlines are not falling behind. Additionally, regular feedback can help students learn from mistakes for greater cumulative understanding, and helps me find if students are struggling with the material and reach out early to help them.
Shifting focus to making sure my courses provide a welcoming environment for all students, one of the parts of my "get to know you" survey at the beginning of each course is to ask students for their preferred name and pronouns—I want to make sure I address every student how they wish to be addressed, and students (especially LGBTQ+ students) may not be comfortable going by the name listed on their official records. Additionally, asking for pronouns helps the students know that I care about them, and helps me make sure not to alienate students by using incorrect pronouns during the course. Within the vein of this pre-class survey, in the past I have looked up pronunciations of student names when I am unsure, but I plan to add this instead to the pre-class survey so that students know I am dedicated to pronouncing their names correctly. Within a larger lecture class, it is likely I won't have a chance to interact face-to-face with every single student, so asking the students specifically makes sure they know I am dedicated to getting their names right, and clears up any confusion if a name has multiple common pronunciations.
It is likely that students will come into introductory computer science classes with vastly different prior knowledge, especially since getting exposure to computer science before college is dependent on factors such as being able to afford a computer, go to a school that has some sort of computer science curriculum (For one example, in California, schools in low-income communities are 3x less likely to have computer science curriculum [2]) or be in a demographic that is encouraged to pursue computing (from the same report [2], only 561 black students and 44 indigenous students across the entirety of California took AP computer science courses in 2019). I remind students early on of these differences in prior experience, and specifically make sure they know that no experience is required. I hope to create a supportive classroom environment by reminding the students who do have prior experience that other students may not, and to remind the students who don't have that experience that they aren't starting out behind, and that the course is tailored to their learning. During class, I try to highlight which student questions are within the scope of the class and direct more complex questions to after the lecture, to not let the more experienced students dominate my time in lecture and remind students with less experience that these questions aren't something they need to understand yet.
Finally, when I was an undergraduate working as a tutor/grader in my school's computer science department, the yearly tutor orientation included a portion of discussion where we worked in groups to discuss good responses to things students might say to us when tutoring. This was guided by a set of situation cards (created by Colleen Lewis and Phillip Conrad, from the CS Teaching Tips project [3]). One set of these cards focused on responding to biased comments within the school/classroom/tutoring setting. An example situation from the cards:
In this activity, tutors/TAs discuss amongst themselves possible responses to these comments to prepare them in case they encounter these forms of bias during their teaching. Each of the cards also has a couple suggested comments (like in the example above) in case people are unsure where to start with addressing the bias. For my future courses, I want to bring these cards to my TAs at the start of the quarter to hopefully get them thinking both about the ways they can respond to bias amongst their students, since they will likely be taking on sections (with more peer interaction than lectures), and also to, if necessary, analyze their personal biases and prepare them to create an inclusive environment.
Sources:
[1] Draft, still looking for this citation (please let me know if you know who to cite here)
[2] https://www.kaporcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/KC21007_CSCA_Access_Report.pdf
[3] https://www.csteachingtips.org/
Here I want to bring up UDL—Universal Design for Learning. From UDL principles, I focus on allowing, and more importantly aiding my students to engage with the material in ways that are conducive to their learning, acknowledging that those ways may not be the same for every student nor will they be the same ways in which I personally learn best. Very closely related, I seek to analyze my classes and find ways to remove abstract barriers to success that are unrelated to understanding the course material. In this vein, I bring up what is hopefully a familiar graphic, [1]:
On the left, we see an example of equality—everyone gets the same treatment, but some people don't have their needs met. In the middle, there is equity—everyone gets the help they need, with different help available to each person. Finally, on the right we see the removal of the fence as a barrier entirely, allowing the same access for all three people, without any of them having to ask for accommodations, or feel singled out by using a visibly different method of access. While of course this removal of barriers is not always possible in all situations, this is something I strive for when designing my courses. With this, I want to shift focus to some concrete strategies that I employ.
I do not list any required class materials such as textbooks (especially not digital textbooks that cannot be borrowed or bought used from students in prior years), to not burden students with the cost. I believe that the material I present in courses should be more than enough for understanding the subject. However, I do list optional textbooks so that students who find their learning is aided by reading textbooks have something to follow along with. After my undergraduate studies, I was actually considering no textbooks at all, but after consideration and taking graduate courses without any textbook, I found that while I don't want to require a textbook, having one suggested is valuable for students who want to follow along. A textbook can offer different explanations than I give in class, and can allow students who find reading more conducive to than lectures another option for understanding the material.
While I believe attending class is valuable, I make sure students who have to miss classes are able to keep up with the material by posting detailed slides and other notes after each class, and by making myself available for further support. There are many reasons why students may have to miss class, including (but not limited to) struggles with mental health, physical health, and economic insecurity. For a quick example, a student working full time to afford school may not be able to attend class regularly due to their work schedule. Alternatively, though, I want to make sure attending class is a valuable (and interactive) learning experience since I know personally I find that a classroom setting is the easiest way to focus on new material, and thus I expect at least some of my students will feel similar.
I keep this flexibility in mind for homework extensions as well—students are not guaranteed to have reasonable time free for homework every week, especially if they are dealing with many things outside of the classroom. I keep deadlines however, rather than having everything due at the end for every student, to make sure that students who struggle with self-imposed deadlines are not falling behind. Additionally, regular feedback can help students learn from mistakes for greater cumulative understanding, and helps me find if students are struggling with the material and reach out early to help them.
Shifting focus to making sure my courses provide a welcoming environment for all students, one of the parts of my "get to know you" survey at the beginning of each course is to ask students for their preferred name and pronouns—I want to make sure I address every student how they wish to be addressed, and students (especially LGBTQ+ students) may not be comfortable going by the name listed on their official records. Additionally, asking for pronouns helps the students know that I care about them, and helps me make sure not to alienate students by using incorrect pronouns during the course. Within the vein of this pre-class survey, in the past I have looked up pronunciations of student names when I am unsure, but I plan to add this instead to the pre-class survey so that students know I am dedicated to pronouncing their names correctly. Within a larger lecture class, it is likely I won't have a chance to interact face-to-face with every single student, so asking the students specifically makes sure they know I am dedicated to getting their names right, and clears up any confusion if a name has multiple common pronunciations.
It is likely that students will come into introductory computer science classes with vastly different prior knowledge, especially since getting exposure to computer science before college is dependent on factors such as being able to afford a computer, go to a school that has some sort of computer science curriculum (For one example, in California, schools in low-income communities are 3x less likely to have computer science curriculum [2]) or be in a demographic that is encouraged to pursue computing (from the same report [2], only 561 black students and 44 indigenous students across the entirety of California took AP computer science courses in 2019). I remind students early on of these differences in prior experience, and specifically make sure they know that no experience is required. I hope to create a supportive classroom environment by reminding the students who do have prior experience that other students may not, and to remind the students who don't have that experience that they aren't starting out behind, and that the course is tailored to their learning. During class, I try to highlight which student questions are within the scope of the class and direct more complex questions to after the lecture, to not let the more experienced students dominate my time in lecture and remind students with less experience that these questions aren't something they need to understand yet.
Finally, when I was an undergraduate working as a tutor/grader in my school's computer science department, the yearly tutor orientation included a portion of discussion where we worked in groups to discuss good responses to things students might say to us when tutoring. This was guided by a set of situation cards (created by Colleen Lewis and Phillip Conrad, from the CS Teaching Tips project [3]). One set of these cards focused on responding to biased comments within the school/classroom/tutoring setting. An example situation from the cards:
Someone says "women just aren't interested in CS".
The card response is "I would ask if there might be other reasons we see relatively few women in CS, and if any of these reasons might lead to women expressing less interest in CS. I'd probably try to talk to them about who gets access to CS and who gets encouraged to pursue CS."
The card response is "I would ask if there might be other reasons we see relatively few women in CS, and if any of these reasons might lead to women expressing less interest in CS. I'd probably try to talk to them about who gets access to CS and who gets encouraged to pursue CS."
In this activity, tutors/TAs discuss amongst themselves possible responses to these comments to prepare them in case they encounter these forms of bias during their teaching. Each of the cards also has a couple suggested comments (like in the example above) in case people are unsure where to start with addressing the bias. For my future courses, I want to bring these cards to my TAs at the start of the quarter to hopefully get them thinking both about the ways they can respond to bias amongst their students, since they will likely be taking on sections (with more peer interaction than lectures), and also to, if necessary, analyze their personal biases and prepare them to create an inclusive environment.
Sources:
[1] Draft, still looking for this citation (please let me know if you know who to cite here)
[2] https://www.kaporcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/KC21007_CSCA_Access_Report.pdf
[3] https://www.csteachingtips.org/