top of page

Operational Agreement

  • Be willing to grapple with challenging ideas.

  • Hold your opinions lightly and with humility.

  • When possible frame personal anecdotal evidence with respect to broader group-level patterns. 

  • Notice your own defensive reactions and attempt to use these reactions as entry points for gaining deeper self-knowledge, rather than as a rationale for closing off.

  • Recognize how your own social positionality (e.g., race, class, gender, sexuality, ability) informs your perspectives and reactions to others.

  • Differentiate between safety and comfort. Accept discomfort as necessary for growth.

Identify where your learning edge is and push it. 

Practicing Introductions

Ways to introduce yourself:

  • Personal biography

  • Educational biography

  • Teaching biography

  • Normalizing challenges

 

Working in small groups. Decide who will speak first. Then practice what you would say in your introduction:

  • 2 min: person 1 practices

  • 2 min: person 2 practices

  • 3-5 min. Discussion - what was effective in what you and your partners said?

Step 1: Identify the Problem(s) Posed by the Case

Step 2: Consider the perspectives of the various people involved

Step 3: Consider possible challenges & opportunities

Step 4: Imagine equitable outcomes

Step 5: Brainstorm immediate responses

Step 6: Brainstorm longer-term policy and practice adjustments

(Adapted from Gorski, 2014)

Framework For Cases

The Cases

Case 1:

During small group work time in your course you circulate around the room and listen in on discussions as students work. In one group, you observe a male student repeatedly dismissing comments from a female student in the group.

 

PROMPT: How do you intervene? What do you say?

​

Case 2: 

As students are finding partners for an upcoming project in your course about the molecular basis of disease, a student tells you that they are having difficulty finding a partner.  The student believes they are having difficulty finding someone to work with because they are international.

 

PROMPT: How do you intervene? What do you say?

​

bottom of page