The newspaper of Mercer County Community College is known for a diverse staff that mirrors the diversity of the campus population.

Belonging Practices: Representation

The Belonging group of evidence-based teaching practices asks educators to recognize the diversity in their classrooms and engage learners in content where their varying identities are represented. Some of this diversity can be seen, but most cannot. Students experience social inequalities related to race, ethnicity, religion, gender, physical abilities, and neurodiversity. College also presents particular challenges to students who struggle economically, students who are primary caregivers, working students, and those who are the first in their family to attend college. Social inequalities are compounded for students falling into more than one of these groups. It is important for teachers to reflect on ways their teaching practices impact these students. When teachers reflect on how their teaching practices impact these students, both students and teachers benefit from the added compassion that arises in the learning environment.

By engaging learners in content where their identities are represented, teachers can help students feel they belong in the learning environment. Statistics materials, with included datasets on social trends, can reflect the worlds students inhabit. The materials in this course have been designed to include diverse voices, images, and studies. Video narrators provide different perspectives on the same statistical concepts, all accurate within the discipline, but all informed by different experiences. Some of the studies and datasets included may provide opportunities for discussion of power structures and privileges to emerge naturally in the classroom. The teaching practice of representation includes acknowledging the diversity purposefully present in the materials and reflecting on ways it can be leveraged to help all students feel a sense of belonging in your course.

How to use representation

Students will arrive to the class meeting having completed a What to Know preview assignment that has prepared them to work together on the Forming Connections activity under your guidance. The preview assignment can be considered a textual reading; the examples and studies included in What to Know are often designed thematically to emerge later in class. The studies in Displaying Categorical Data and Applications of Histograms intersect with recent areas of social controversy in the U.S. You can help marginalized students feel belonging by neutrally acknowledging the associated controversies briefly in class during your whole class introductions and summaries. This will also reinforce for students who inhabit structures of social privilege the benefit of having conversations about issues concerning people different from themselves. Importantly, you may briefly share your own stories as a way of encouraging students to feel comfortable sharing theirs.

Instructor guides for in-class delivery [link to these in pdf form]

• 3C Corequisite Activity Instructional Guide
• 3D Corequisite Activity Instructional Guide
• 3E Corequisite Activity Instructional Guide
• 3C Forming Connections Instructional Guide
• 3D Forming Connections Instructional Guide
• 3E Forming Connections Instructional Guide

Asynchronous Delivery  

Both of the examples listed in the synchronous teaching box above may be used course enrichment by including them in an introduction of the Forming Connections discussion board questions. They shouldn’t be graded questions within the assigned discussion unless they are used as ways to discuss bias that naturally emerges in data.

Micro-Reflection: Representation

The pages in this part of the course material include two datasets that have been associated with recent controversies surrounding issues of personal identity. Statistical study naturally intersects with sensitive topics. The mathematics of statistical exploration provides the language and tools used to analyze data within fields of human experience like sociology, psychology, and medicine.  The different ways that educators approach studies that question identity characteristics like race, gender, or body image, for example, can result in very different experiences for both learners and teachers. Selecting materials in which varying identities are represented is part of the solution to creating learning spaces of belonging for everyone. You can help complete the solution by acknowledging, to students and colleagues, opportunities in statistical education, ways to incorporate the evidence-based teaching practices of the Belonging group:

• Representation: engaging learners in content where their varying identities are represented.
• Engaging Intersectionality: reflecting on ways teaching practices impact students who belong to more than one marginalized group.
• Mitigating Bias: co-creating a learning environment with students where respectful dialogue is promoted and counter-stereotypical stories, illustrations, and models are highlighted.
• Pedagogical Partnerships: viewing learners as partners and collaborators in the teaching and learning process.

Representation was introduced in the Teaching Tips page prior to Visualizing Quantitative Data with specific examples for performing the practice to facilitate student learning during the Forming Connections activity. Hopefully, you had a chance to practice them in your class. If so, please use the questions below for a brief, honest, and compassionate reflection on your teaching practice.