Institutionalizing Professional Development on Cultural Responsiveness for Faculty and Staff: Thoughts on Process

Allison GreenEnglish DepartmentHighline College

Natasha BurrowesDirector of Multicultural AffairsHighline College

Allison LauAssociate Dean, Counseling & Student ConductHighline College

June 16, 2016

From 2014-16, we co-coordinated a Faculty and Staff Learning Community on cultural responsiveness at Highline College. Our goal was to create a Canvas-based resource for professional development that could be used by individuals or facilitated groups. Thirty-six faculty and staff participated in the project over the two years.

We have come to the conclusion that, while it might be tempting to try to export the Canvas site wholesale to other campuses, such an approach would not be as effective as a program developed organically at each institution, responding to the specific needs of that institutions student body, faculty, and staff. Therefore, assembled here are thoughts on how the process we used at Highline might be adapted to other institutions and some documents that might be useful as starting points for discussion.

Allison Green is available to discuss the project with faculty and staff at other institutions: agreen@highline.edu.

Gather the Experts on Your Campus

Every institution has people who have knowledge to share about specific aspects of cultural responsiveness. At Highline, core team members of the FSLC included faculty from Education, Sociology, ABE/ESL, Communication Studies, and other departments; staff included the Director of Access Services, the Program Coordinator for Veterans Services, and the Intercultural Center Leadership Coordinator.

Several years before the FSLC began, Allison Green, then chair of the Arts and Humanities Division, assembled people she perceived as experts in various areas and asked them what cultural responsiveness meant from their perspective. This group developed a Framework for Cultural Responsiveness (included below). In fall 2014, when the FSLC began, we kicked off the year with an all-day retreat to imagine what we wanted from the Canvas-based site. Again, we involved all the people who had helped develop the Framework, plus key faculty and staff from other areas on campus that we thought could contribute to the project. In short, at every stage of the project, we gathered the experts on campus and asked them for help in discussing the vision and implementation of the project. Ultimately, thirty-six employees, about evenly split between faculty and staff, were involved in the project.

Create a Framework for Cultural Responsiveness

The Framework, first developed in 2011-12, was entirely focused on faculty and teaching, and most of the members of the taskforce were faculty. It has proven useful over time to have a relatively simple document like this that articulates key concepts and provides structure to conversations about cultural responsiveness.

As the project developed, we expanded it to include staff and all kinds of work at Highline, from greeting students at a front desk to managing programs, and to include cultural responsiveness between colleagues and not just between faculty/staff and students. If we could go back to the beginning of the Framework project, we would take this broader approach. Sometimes staff concerns have taken a back seat to faculty concerns, because of how the project began and because faculty tend to forget to examine their privilege in the hierarchy.

We have since created a Framework rubric for self-assessment. While we have added some elements that address issues relevant to staff, both the Framework and the rubric need to be revised to more fully incorporate what we have learned since that first year.

Get Feedback from Key Stakeholders

Throughout the process, from developing the Framework through the two years of our FSLC, we gathered feedback from stakeholders. When we completed the first draft of the Framework, we asked specific people on campus to read and review it, and we had face-to-face, individual conversations with these people. These discussions led to significant revisions. We were still focusing on people with a strong commitment to cultural responsiveness because we wanted the Framework to reflect our best thinking on the topic.

The first year of the FSLC, we ran focus groups, which we called "listening sessions," with staff and students, who until that time had not been invited to participate much in the process. We asked staff what they felt they needed to be more culturally responsive. We asked students for examples of times faculty or staff had or had not been culturally responsive. Our grant provided food for these sessions. At each table, a member of the core team took notes on butcher paper and asked clarifying questions. Afterwards, a staff member typed up the comments.

Once we had a significant body of material in the Canvas site, we began asking people to user test the materials. For our first session, we asked people who were not involved in the project to come to a computer lab and review the site for an hour, then we moved to another room for lunch and discussion. We repeated this process in the second year, but with FSLC participants reviewing each other's modules.

Delegate Cultural Responsiveness Modules

In 2014-15, while we were conducting listening sessions, we were also developing outcomes and an outline for the Canvas site. We used the Framework and the notes from our fall retreat to develop the outline, and then we delegated the work to thirteen task groups. Each group could invite whomever they wished to join them, so by the end of the first year we had about thirty people involved. In winter 2015, we had a late-quarter show-and-tell with lunch, which proved helpful. Those who had finished some work could get some feedback and those who hadnt gotten very far could see what others were doing. We repeated this show-and-tell format twice during spring quarter. The last one was also our end-of-year celebration.

In 2015-16, we continued to develop the modules that weren't yet finished. Allison Green reviewed each module to determine how completed it was, contacted team leaders, and met with individuals and groups as necessary. One group invited her to attend all of their work meetings, about two per quarter. Other groups checked in and then worked on their own. As the project continued, new modules were suggested, and Allison recruited faculty and staff to work on them. Mid-year, we held another peer review session, and we celebrated the project at the end of the year.

Institutionalize the Project

In the second year, Allison Lau replaced Natasha Burrowes, who had left the institution, as co-facilitator, and the two Allisons worked to institutionalize the project (note: Allison Green took a sabbatical fall quarter, and Communication Studies instructor Laura Manning substituted for her). Institutionalizing professional development was easier on the faculty side than the staff side because cultural responsiveness had recently been incorporated into the tenure review criteria, which apply both to tenure-track faculty and faculty in post-tenure evaluation. Also, faculty have one, consistent performance evaluation system. Several approaches have been considered for rolling out the modules to faculty: 1) course release to several faculty to act as consultants and workshop facilitators for individual faculty or for groups or departments, 2) a hybrid online/face-to-face class for faculty on culturally responsive teaching for which faculty would earn a stipend, and 3) course release for one instructor, through the Learning and Teaching Center, to direct professional development activities. While we haven't yet finalized the approach we are taking, our hopes for 2016-17 are to conduct the following activities:

Quarterly Cultural Responsiveness 101 workshops: participants learn what cultural responsiveness means, self-assess on the rubric, and make a plan for their own professional development.

Yearly training for tenure working committee members and post-tenure committee members: participants learn ways to support and measure their faculty members professional development.

Yearly training for the Tenure Review Committee: participants learn ways to support professional development in probationers.

Yearly training for faculty hiring committees: participants learn how to evaluate diversity statements and candidates level of cultural responsiveness.

A set of themed workshops/seminars on specific topics, braided into existing professional development days: Opening Week, Professional Development Day, and Unity Week.

One-on-one consulting and group (e.g., department) discussion facilitation as requested.

Maintenance of Canvas modules.

Institutionalizing professional development for staff was more challenging for a number of reasons: staff positions are more varied, so what cultural responsiveness looks like is somewhat different for each position; performance reviews and other forms of accountability also vary by type of employee; Highlines Human Resources Department has not historically provided significant amounts of training for all employees, so there is no centralized process.

During the 2015-16 year, Allison Lau and Allison Green conducted a series of interviews with managers and administrators at various levels about the training needs of their staff. Two of the interviewees, a dean and a director, had already begun to organize cultural responsiveness training for their staff (and both Allison Lau and Allison Green facilitated workshops with those groups during the year).

These were the interview questions:

1. What currently do your staff or direct reports do to build their cultural responsiveness as employees?

2. How do you think it is working? What could be improved?

3. What role does Human Resources play in this type of training?

4. What resources do we provide as an institution for cultural responsiveness training?

5. What resources do you provide as a leader for cultural responsiveness training?

6. Are trainings mandatory or required for employees?

At the end of the year, we wrote a report on the project to executive staff and included the following recommendations for staff professional development:

Establish clear expectations of what cultural responsiveness means for people in key roles across the institution. This includes people in all types of positions, not just leadership/administrative roles.

Increase institutional structure for cultural responsiveness training and education to decrease silos and facilitate access to relevant training, expertise, institutional knowledge, and resources. Examples include:

Build a Community of Practice for interested managers or administrators to empower their teams with cultural responsiveness training, and adapt the material to their areas of expertise/service.

Make funding available for trainings equitably across the institution

Create an incentive program or rewards for administrators or supervisors who provide cultural responsiveness training and professional development opportunities to their employees.

We have already seen "ripple effects" from the FSLC; in addition to the staff training mentioned above, instructional department coordinators have organized trainings among their faculty. Interest among faculty and staff seems high; eight faculty and staff attended the White Privilege conference this year and reported on their experiences at a Whites on White meeting (WoW is our anti-racism white allies group). The president of the college attended this meeting. The groups directly involved in creating the cultural responsiveness modules have learned a great deal from each other. We are confident that we will be able to continue to institutionalize the project.

Below are some key documents that may be useful to other institutions. Again, for further information, Allison Green, agreen@highline.edu, is available for consultation.

Note: This Framework, largely developed in 2011-12, formed the foundation for the work of our FSLC. It is largely focused on faculty and teaching.

Framework for Becoming Culturally Responsive Educators

Preamble

Highline's Core Theme #2 is to integrate and institutionalize diversity and globalism throughout the college. This framework is an assessment tool for individuals and the college that can help us institutionalize our organizational learning about diversity. Developed by a committee of faculty and staff, with broad input, the framework articulates our understanding of what makes a culturally responsive educator. By educator, we mean everyone who works at the college; we all participate in educating our students.

We have intentionally used the word becoming because we are always in the process of learning to be more culturally responsive. We can never fully understand another culture; its challenging even to articulate what we know about our own. But we can become more responsive, more effective at navigating significant differences such as those of race and ethnicity, class, sexual identity, gender, gender expression, language, nationality, ability, religion, and age.

Indeed, there is much to be learned from the bodies of scholarship on this topic generated by academics and social justice activists. These scholars and practitioners have produced theories and practices that can increase student success. We argue that any educator who wishes to successfully engage with a broad range of students must be familiar with this work and able to incorporate it into everyday work with students.

We have drawn from a number of sources for this framework, most significantly Gary R. Howard, whose definition of culturally responsive teaching is our capacity as teachers to know and connect with the actual lived experience, personhood, and learning modalities of the students who are in our classroom (We Cant Teach What We Dont Know, 131). His three-part conception know yourself, know your students, know your practice is the basis for our framework.

Note that not all items in the framework will apply to all employees. The examples and resources are samples only and not meant to be comprehensive. A number of items overlap. Committee members include Darryl Brice, Allison Green, Yoshiko Harden, Alice Madsen, Amelia Phillips, Joy Smucker, Bevin Taylor, and Jodi White.

Know Yourself

Examples of Knowledge, Skills, Applications

Sample Resources

-The Courage To Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teachers Life, Palmer -We Cant Teach What We Dont Know: White Teachers in Multiracial Schools, Howard

1. Articulate your social identities (e.g., race, gender, and socio-economic position; described by Nieto as "target" and "agent" memberships) and how they have privileged and/or marginalized you.

--If you have been privileged in terms of socio-economic class, consider how your privilege has impacted your ability to get an education.--If you have been marginalized in terms of socio-economic class, consider how the knowledge you have gained about class can be of value to our students.

-Beyond Inclusion, Beyond Empowerment, Nieto-Faculty of Color in Academe: Bittersweet Success, Turner and Myers-White Privilege: Essential Readings on the Other Side of Racism, Rothenberg-Uprooting Racism: How White People Can Work for Racial Justice, Kivel-The Price of Silence, Raising Issues that Arent Discussed Enough, Lesser, Thompson and Nieto, http://www.fpg.unc.edu/news/handouts/CrosswalksInst_ThePriceofSilence_Handout.pdf

2. Describe your learning preferences or modalities and how your own educational background impacts your work at Highline.

--Recognize when you are teaching or working in a particular way because it helped you as a student, whether or not it works well for your students now.--Recognize that learning preferences or modalities may be cultural.

-Harvards Center for Teaching and Learning in the Diverse Classroom http://isites.harvard.edu/fs/html/icb.topic58474/TFTrace.html

3. Articulate Highlines mission, history, and culture.

--Know Highlines role in South King County and how the college and community have become increasingly diverse.

Highlines web site: http://www.highline.edu/allabout.php

4. Analyze your attitudes and assumptions about students, education, and the college and how they impact your work.

--Take time to get to know students as individuals.--Know how the model minority myth may affect your teaching.--Learn about issues for transgender college students.

Harvard Implicit Association Test project, https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/demo/-The Creation and Consequences of the Model Minority Myth, http://colorlines.com/archives/2011/07/model_minority_myth_interview.htm-"Transgender Issues on College Campuses," Beemyn, Curtis, Davis and Tubbs, http://tinyurl.com/6wav8ed

Know your Students

Examples of Knowledge, Skills, Applications

Sample Resources

-Carnegie Mellon Learning Principles, http://www.cmu.edu/teaching/principles/learning.html

5. Investigate Highlines demographics and as much as possible about where our students live and are from.

--Become familiar with our service areas demographics.--Know which high schools and school districts feed into Highline.--Know the difference between international, immigrant, and refugee students.--Know what languages our students speak.--Know what is happening in students home countries and current communities.--Be familiar with the full range of student populations, including groups such as veterans and worker retraining students.

-Highlines Fast Facts about Students: http://communications.highline.edu/facts.php#students-United Way King County Community Assessment: http://www2.uwkc.org/kcca/data/ -Culture Grams: http://online.culturegrams.com/ -Understanding Your Refugee and Immigrant Students, Flaitz-Understanding Your International Students, Flaitz

6. Theorize how our students social identities have impacted and continue to impact their education.

--Know how to sensitively solicit this information from students when relevant.

--Consider how you can reduce stereotype threat in the classroom.

-Facing Race Disparities in Washington State, http://washingtoncan.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/RacialReportCard-FINAL-VERSION.pdf-Claude Steeles scholarship on stereotype threat-"The Invisible People: Disability, Diversity, and Issues of Power in Adult Education," Rocco, https://scholarworks.iupui.edu/bitstream/handle/1805/414/Rocco%20T%20.pdf?sequence=1-"Analysis of LGBT Identity Development Models and Implications for Practice," Bilodeau and Renn, http://lbgtrc.msu.edu/docs/bilodeaurenn.pdf

7. Describe what our students interests are and what skills they bring to our college.

--Relate your course/program content to students interests.--Ask students for examples from their own experiences.--Assess prior knowledge and build on what students know.

8. Implement educational methodology based on adult learning theory.

--Help students develop their own learning paths--Use inquiry-based learning

-Women's Ways Of Knowing: The Development Of Self, Voice and Mind-Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger, and Tarule-Towards the Essence of Adult Experiential Learning, Malinen-Adult Learning Principles, Goodlad

Know your Practice

Examples of Knowledge, Skills, Applications

Sample Resources

-Culturally Responsive Teaching: Theory, Research and Practice, Gay-Rethinking Multicultural Education, Au-Multiethnic Education, Banks-Teaching for Diversity and Social Justice, Adams, Bell & Griffin, et al-Blooms Taxonomy, http://www.fctl.ucf.edu/TeachingAndLearningResources/CourseDesign/BloomsTaxonomy/

9. Build community with students and demonstrate your care for their well-being.

--Learn students names, model correct pronunciation, and help students learn each others names.--Incorporate collaborative learning strategies into your curriculum and assessment.

-Washington Center for Improving Quality Undergraduate Education, http://www.evergreen.edu/washcenter/home.asp

10. Design curriculum and instruction that is relevant to our students, that values what they already know, and that allows them to have a voice in their education (asset vs. deficit model).

Give students opportunities to apply course concepts to their own lives.

-Alternatives to the Cultural Deficit Model, http://www.education.com/reference/article/cultural-deficit-model/

11. Design curriculum, assessment, and other materials using Universal Design for Learning principles.

--Allow students to demonstrate knowledge in multiple ways.--Provide materials in multiple formats (visual, written, auditory, multiple languages, etc.).

--CAST (Center for Applied Special Technology) UDL website http://www.cast.org/udl/-National Center on UDL http://www.udlcenter.org/aboutudl/udlguidelines

12. Investigate how multicultural scholarship has impacted pedagogy and curriculum in your discipline/area.

--Know what impact feminist pedagogy has had in your discipline.--Be familiar with key concepts in Disability Studies.

-Affirming Diversity: The Social political Context of Multicultural Education, Nieto and Bode-http://www.ghequityinstitute.com/writings /writings.html-Guidelines for Providers of Psychological Services to Ethnic, Linguistic, and Culturally Diverse Populations, American Psychological Association, http://www.apa.org/pi/oema/resources/policy/provider-guidelines.aspx-Practice Guidelines for LGB Clients, American Psychological Association, http://apa.org/pi/lgbt/resources/guideline.aspx-Guidelines for Assessment of and Intervention with Persons with Disabilities, American Psychological Association, http://www.apa.org/pi/disability/resources/assessment-disabilities.aspx

13. Reflect on and take action to improve cross-cultural communication.

--Explore students native cultures--Be able to restate what you have said in different words.--Practice active listening.

-Addressing Cultural Complexities in Practice, Pamela Hays, 2009-Culture Grams: http://online.culturegrams.com/

14. Explain to students how to navigate college operations, advocate for themselves, and critically analyze the higher education system.

--Remind students about registration and financial aid deadlines.--Connect students with a faculty advisor or other support services.--Incorporate advising into your curriculum.--Be available for advising.

-David Conleys College Readiness Framework - https://www.epiconline.org/files/pdf/RedefiningCollegeReadiness.pdf

15. Integrate knowledge of language acquisition and literacy development (and the politics thereof) into your work.

--Consider the relationship between your outcomes assessments and language fluency. --Make discourse expectations in your discipline explicit.--Scaffold assignments that require writing and speaking.--Provide multiple ways of accessing information and demonstrating knowledge.

-Teaching Non-Native English Speaking Students: http://jjc.jjay.cuny.edu/erc/faculty/understanding.php-Teaching Non-Native Speakers: http://www.baruch.cuny.edu/facultyhandbook/teaching_nonnative_speakers.htm-Learner English, Swan & Smith-Vygotskys concept of scaffolding, http://www.educ.utas.edu.au/users/ilwebb/Research/scaffolding.htm

Glossary

Asset vs. Deficit Model: Traditionally, students of color, working class students, those with disabilities, English language learners, and others have been viewed as unable to achieve in school due to individual, family, and community problems. This has been described as a deficit model, which is problematic because it blames the target of oppression and casts whole communities as inadequate. As Jerry Irizarry notes, Under the cultural deficit model, schools are, at least in part, absolved from their responsibilities to educate all students appropriately, and this charge is shifted almost entirely to students and their families. An alternative approach, the asset model, recognizes the assets and capacities of students and their communities. It sees students cultures, ethnicities, linguistic backgrounds, and abilities as opportunities for scaffolding skills and knowledge that are necessary to be successful in the world rather than as drags on their accomplishments. It recognizes the talents, skills, aptitudes, ethics, natures, and performance of all students.

Agent and Target Memberships: Our social group memberships (e.g., our race, gender, sexual identity, nationality, religion) can be divided into those that are dominant and give us privilege, agent memberships, and those that are marginalized, target memberships. For example, a white woman is an agent in terms of race but a target in terms of gender. The purpose of naming these aspects of our social identity is to acknowledge the reality of power and privilege and work to dismantle it. This language is associated with activist and scholar Leticia Nieto.

Cultural Responsiveness: Geneva Gay defines culturally responsive teaching as using the cultural knowledge, prior experiences, frames of reference, and performance styles of ethnically diverse students to make learning encounters more relevant to and effective for them (Culturally Responsive Teaching, 31). We are expanding culture to include such aspects of identity as first language, gender, disability, and sexuality. Cultural responsiveness is closely related to the term cultural competence but incorporates the assumption that we can never be truly competent in another culture, only responsive to that culture. Both individuals and organizations can be culturally responsive. The National Center for Cultural Competence at Georgetown University says that culturally competent organizations have the capacity to (1) value diversity, (2) conduct self-assessment, (3) manage the dynamics of difference, (4) acquire and institutionalize cultural knowledge and (5) adapt to diversity and the cultural contexts of the communities they serve. These capacities are incorporated into all aspects of policy making, administration, practice, [and] service delivery.

Discourse Expectations: All disciplines have expectations for how students should speak (e.g., using specialized vocabulary or following particular scripts, such as oral arguments in court) and how they should write (e.g., specific types of papers in college; specific texts in the workplace). Traditionally, instructors assumed students would pick these up, but this approach privileges those students with a particular skill set and background. Instructors can improve student success by explaining what is expected of students in terms of speaking and writing.

Inquiry-based Learning: This form of learning gives students opportunities to pose significant questions and develop answers to them. It involves active engagement and critical thinking. Malcolm Knowles theorized that adults who take an active role in their own learning are able to learn more and apply it better. Inquiry-based learning is deemed more authentic, more like problem solving in the real world, than traditional rote learning.

Language Acquisition and Literacy Development: Instructors have traditionally assumed an idealized student: U.S. born, English speaking, and exposed to a variety of U.S. literatures and genres while growing up. The increasing presence in college of students with different literacy backgrounds has challenged these assumptions. In order to honor language diversity in the classroom, instructors need to reconsider how they assess learning, to scaffold assignments involving speaking and writing, and to make discourse expectations explicit.

Learning Community: A learning community is a group of people engaged in an intensive study of a particular subject. Originally referring to groups of students whether in one class or as a cohort in a program -- the idea counters the traditional conception of the classroom as an unrelated collection of individuals focused on their own learning. Recently there has been an emphasis in higher education on faculty learning communities (FLC), which come together to work on professional development.

Model Minority Myth: Asians and Asian Americans are often stereotyped as smart, nerdy, and successful. This stereotype masks the great diversity within the group, in particular class differences, and is detrimental to both Asian Americans, who may not get the educational support they need, and to Blacks and Latinos, who are seen as failures in comparison. Model minority refers to the idea that Asian Americans are the perfect minority group.

Multicultural Scholarship: All academic disciplines have a body of scholarship influenced by the civil rights movements of the mid-twentieth century and the increasing globalization of knowledge. These changes have led to revisions both large and small from challenges to the grand narratives of disciplines to new reading lists to new arrangements of chairs in the classroom. In addition, new bodies of scholarship have influenced pedagogy in general, such as womens studies, ethnic studies, and disability studies.

Scaffolding: Based on the work of Lev Vygotsky, scaffolding is a metaphor for the ways that teachers help students move from what they know to what they need to learn next. In the same way a scaffold allows a building to be built, teachers can give students tools to achieve the next level of learning. An example of scaffolding is providing students with a graphic organizer to help them understand the information in a book chapter as opposed to assuming they will be able to understand it on their own.

Universal Design for Learning Principles: UDL is a framework developed by The Center for Applied Special Technology, CAST, to help educators design curricula. Originally focused on students with disabilities, the principles have been found to be successful with many kinds of students, just as universal design in architecture (e.g., curb cuts for wheelchairs) has been found to be helpful for many people (e.g., people with strollers, walkers, and crutches).

Note: The Framework rubric has been revised to include staff/student interactions, colleague interactions, and culturally responsive management/administration.

Framework for Becoming Culturally Responsive Educators: Rubric

Answer the following questions, skipping any that do not seem to apply to your situation.

Know Yourself

How confident are you that you can do each item?

Not confident Very confident Not sure

1. Articulate your social identities (e.g., race, gender, and socio-economic position) and how they have privileged and/or marginalized you.

1 2 3 4 5 NS

2. Analyze your attitudes and assumptions about students, education, and your college and how they impact your work.

1 2 3 4 5 NS

3. Articulate your institutions mission, history, and culture, and describe how your job supports your institutions goals for diversity, equity, and inclusion.

1 2 3 4 5 NS

Know your Students

How confident are you that you can do each item?

Not confident Very confident Not sure

4. Investigate your institutions demographics and learn as much as possible about where your students live and are from.

1 2 3 4 5 NS

5. Theorize how your students social identities have impacted and continue to impact their education.

1 2 3 4 5 NS

6. Describe what your students interests are and what skills they bring to your college.

1 2 3 4 5 NS

Know your Practice

How confident are you that you can do each item?

Not confident Very confident Not sure

7. Build community with students and demonstrate your care for their well-being.

1 2 3 4 5 NS

8. Design curriculum and instruction that is relevant to your students, that values what they already know (asset vs. deficit model), that allows them to have a voice in their education (adult learning theory), that takes into account what we know about language acquisition and literacy development, and that uses Universal Design for Learning principles.

1 2 3 4 5 NS

9. Investigate how multicultural scholarship has impacted your discipline/area.

1 2 3 4 5 NS

10. Reflect on and take action to improve cross-cultural communication.

1 2 3 4 5 NS

11. Explain to students how to navigate college operations, advocate for themselves, and critically analyze the higher education system.

1 2 3 4 5 NS

12. Provide direct services (e.g., advising) to students in a culturally responsive way.

1 2 3 4 5 NS

13. Manage and administer in a culturally responsive way.

1 2 3 4 5 NS

14. Collaborate with colleagues in a culturally responsive way.

1 2 3 4 5 NS

Note: This was the agenda for the fall 2014 retreat for the Faculty/Staff Learning Community

Retreat Agenda: October 10, 2014

Goals for retreat:

Brainstorm major themes/foundational concepts/big ideas of the project.

Develop list of principles for how the project will model our pedagogy.

Develop outcomes.

Create plan for implementation.

Tentative Schedule

Morning: What is our vision?

--Natasha and Allison explain the project

--Small group discussion 1

When you imagine this project, what do you see as its possibilities and limitations? What do you hope the project will achieve? What do you think it probably cant achieve?

The heart of this project is a series of Canvas modules. What other complementary programs/services do you see necessary for achieving the goals of the project, beyond modules?

--Large group reporting out/discussion

--Small group discussion 2

Brainstorm the major themes/foundational concepts/big ideas of the project. What major concepts do you want people to take away from their professional development experience?

Brainstorm principles we should use to guide this project and model our pedagogy. Examples: Our process modules should be accessible and offer multiple pathways for learning.

--Large group reporting out/discussion

--Small group discussion 3

Given our discussion so far, what might be the outcomes for this project?

After completing the professional development modules, participants will be able to.....

explain, describe, apply, etc...

--Large group reporting out/discussion

LUNCH

Afternoon: How do we implement it?

--Explanation of Canvas training modules process, Deb Moore

--Development of timeline and work groups

Note: These were the questions for the staff and student focus groups.

Why are you here?

Highline has received a State Board grant to develop Canvas modules for professional development in cultural responsiveness for both faculty and staff. Today, we want to hear from you what you think those modules might include for our work outside the classroom: interacting with students, interacting with colleagues, developing policies and procedures, making decisions, and so forth.

What do we mean by cultural responsiveness?

The National Center for Cultural Competence at Georgetown University says that culturally competent organizations have the capacity to

(1) value diversity,

(2) conduct self-assessment,

(3) manage the dynamics of difference,

(4) acquire and institutionalize cultural knowledge and

(5) adapt to diversity and the cultural contexts of the communities they serve.

These capacities are incorporated into all aspects of policy making, administration, practice, [and] service delivery.

We prefer the term cultural responsiveness because it suggests we can never truly be competent in another culture but we can be responsive. When it comes to the dynamics of difference, we mean all the significant differences, such as:

race, ethnicity, culture, gender, gender expression, sexual identity, disability/ability, first-generation college student, religion, class, national origin, language, age, veteran status

Small Group Discussion (Staff)

Please discuss your answers to these questions and record them on the large sheets of paper. Answers will be typed up and distributed to the Culturally Responsive Education group.

What have you overheard or observed in interactions between students and college employees (either faculty or staff) that made you think the employee needed to be more culturally responsive?

When you think of the major duties and everyday activities of your job, how might cultural responsiveness be relevant? (Consider, for example, your interactions with colleagues and students, decisions that you make, policies/procedures you develop or use, hiring and supervising, visual representations in brochures or posters, meetings that you attend or run, etc.)

What have you overhead or observed in interactions between Highline colleagues that made you think one or both participants needed to be more culturally responsive?

Additional written questions for staff:

Before you leave today, please answer these questions in writing.

1. Describe a time when you felt that you didnt adequately serve a student because you werent sure how to bridge a difference. What do you wish you had known?

1. If you could change the way Highline faculty/staff interact with you, what would you change?

(You are welcome to do this anonymously or to attach your name)

Small Group Discussion (Students)

Please discuss your answers to these questions and record them on the large sheets of paper. Answers will be typed up and distributed to the Culturally Responsive Educators group.

1. What have you overheard or experienced in interactions with your instructors

that made you think the instructor needed to be more culturally responsive?

2. What have you overheard, or experienced in interactions with your staff members

that made you think the staff members needed to be more culturally responsive?

3. Describe a time when you felt like you werent adequately served or taught

because of a cultural difference. What do you wish that instructor or staff

members would have known to serve you better?

4. In what ways do you see or dont see your identity (race, culture, sexual

orientation, etc.) represented or reflected in what you are learning in your

classes?

Note: This set of outcomes and outline guided our development of the Canvas site.

CRE Project: Outcomes & Outline

Project Outcomes

The goals of this project are to assist us, the staff and faculty of Highline, to...

1. Develop a shared understanding of vocabulary and key concepts relevant to cultural responsiveness and a set of practical tools for implementing it.

2. Articulate our individual and departmental roles in addressing the elements of Highlines mission and core themes related to diversity and equity.

3. Explore present and historical influences on ourselves, our students, our colleagues and our community.

Outline

Getting Started

1. Read Highlines definition of cultural responsiveness

2. Review the outcomes of the project

3. Self-assess with the Cultural Responsiveness Framework

4. Read ways to use this site

Know Yourself: I Want to Learn about Myself and Highline

How can I understand my own social identities better?

How can I understand Highline's culture and processes?

Know Your Students/Community: I Want to Learn More about Our Students and Our Surrounding Community

How can I understand specific student populations better?

Multilingual students

Students of color

International students

LGBTQIAA students

Veterans

Students with disabilities

First-generation college students

Students who have grown up in poverty

Students with varied approaches to spirituality, religion, and faith

Students of different ages

What should I know about our surrounding community to be more culturally responsive?

Know Your Practice: I Want to Learn about How Cultural Responsiveness Relates to my Specific Job Duties

How does my job support Highline's goals for equity and inclusion?

How can I teach in a culturally responsive way?

How can I provide services to students in a culturally responsive way?

How can I manage and administer in a culturally responsive way?

How can I be more culturally responsive with my colleagues?

I Want to Learn Key Terms and Concepts

List of key terms and concepts with definitions and examples.