Faculty Retreat 2023 Recap: Toward Community Responsiveness and a Shared Vision

During the programming, participants shared their questions and comments through a backchannel called YoTeach. Evening programming included a “Moth Story hour” hosted by Maham Khan (Journalism) and trivia related to the day’s program hosted by Karega Cooper (Math) and Jim Edstrom (Library). The following day, DuBoi McCarty (Student Development), LaVonya Williams (Student Development), and Stephanie Whalen (Academy Chair) hosted Part II of the Equity and Pedagogy Discussion: Developing a Shared Vision using Ladson-Billings’ work to structure the topics with Stephanie Horton (English), Jim Gramlich (Sociology), and Andrew Levin (Political Science) sharing examples of culturally relevant approaches from their teaching.

View photos from the retreat and continue reading to learn more about the programming.

Equality or Equity? – Keynote, Dr. Jeff Duncan-Andrade

The keynote speaker, Dr. Jeff Duncan-Andrade drew on research from across a range of disciplines, including neuroscience, social epidemiology, public health, and social work. These examples of community-responsive pedagogy demonstrated how equitable classroom practices can enrich student engagement, enhance trauma responsiveness, and improve educational outcomes. Faculty attendees have had much to discuss about the research and artistic elements of the presentation. To see a pre-recorded version of Dr. Duncan-Andrade’s keynote from a previous event, check out this version from Talks at Google, Equity or Equality? – Dr. Jeff Duncan-Andrade Keynote.

That Thing You Do: Faculty Share Learning Moves

After Duncan-Andrade’s keynote and discussion on the themes of building relationships, making instruction relevant, and taking responsibility for student needs, faculty shared their approaches to addressing these themes in their classes. Dr. Monica Edwards (Sociology) shared her work on Building Relationships Through Pedagogies of Quiet. View the Participation Journal Template she referenced during her presentation.

Jim Edstrom (Library) shared his work on exploring how to make Illinois history relevant to students’ interests in The Student is the Parent to the Professor: Making Learning Relevant.

Heidi Onion (Law Enforcement) shared stories of the way she and Frank Trost (Law Enforcement) are making custom resources for students in Responsibility for Student Support: With Great Need Comes Great Responsibility, which provided the Academy with an opportunity to provide some background on holistic student supports and ask faculty to consider the degree to which they go beyond making students aware of campus resources or even connecting them to resources to creating and infusing custom support for students into the course experience.

Moth Story Hour

Faculty shared their stories in the first ever, “Moth Storytelling hour,” lead by Maham Khan (Journalism). The theme was “Breaking,” and the event gave faculty a chance to laugh, cry, listen, and bond with each other by sharing the stories that make life so interesting and help shape us into who we are. Each and every story had strong impact on the audience, and they were truly all winners; Karega Cooper (Math), Bhasker Moorthy (Astronomy), and E-B Martinez (Art) went home with Moth publications and inspirational mugs as a small thank you for sharing their stories.

Team Trivia: Outside the Text

Faculty competed in Team Trivia: Outside the Text, emceed by Karega Cooper (Math) and Jim Edstrom (Library) with a round of questions provided by Jim Edstrom, a round based on the work of Dr. Jeff Duncan-Andrade, and an additional round from Myth America by Princeton faculty Kruse & Zelizer. The winning team, X, including Dave Richmond (History), Steven Titus (English), Stephanie Horton (English), Maggie McKinley (English), Dawn McKinley (Accounting), and Ginger McHugh-Kurtz (Biology) battled it out with a close contender, Crystal Balls, but maintained their narrow lead and prevailed. Our trivia prize sponsor was MK Culinary, run by Harper faculty Jeanine Liska’s brother, Chef Mike Kubalewski. MK Culinary will provide a dinner party for the winning trivia team. If you would like to view the questions and answers from the trivia contest, you can check out the Team Trivia: Outside the Text Kahoot!

YoTeach Retreat Backchannel Tool – Try It Out in Your Classroom

Retreat participants used a backchannel called YoTeach to share reactions, comments, connections, questions, etc. on a mobile device as they experienced the presentations. If you are interested in trying out this free tool with your students, you can check out the How to Use YoTeach Backchannel guide created by Janet Woods, Instructional Technology Coordinator.