Inclusive and equitable classrooms are essential to the success and well-being of all Berkeley students.
Dialogue Series Overview
Berkeley's faculty dialogue series engages colleagues in conversation on inclusive teaching and learning strategies. The dialogues focus on both analysis and action, helping create classroom environments which are more fully welcoming and responsive to students with diverse backgrounds and identities.
By and For Faculty
Dialogue modules were designed by a faculty leadership group – twelve professors from a range of fields who are knowledgeable and committed to issues of equity, inclusion and diversity. They may take place in individual departments, or in small clusters of departments. Clusters typically include two or three units that share an intellectual or other type of affinity – e.g. STEM departments, departments in the same College or Division, a group of professional schools, language and literature programs, etc.
Session Content
Inclusive Classroom Practices – Building Success and Community for our Diverse Students
The first session each department participates in maps a range of key issues related to inclusive teaching and learning, including: classroom climate, addressing bias, inclusive group dynamics, inclusive curriculum, responsive teaching strategies, and the importance of student and faculty identity and belonging. It also includes time for strategy sharing, exploration of common classroom scenarios and challenges, and initial action planning.
Session length: 2 hours.
Customized Thematic Dialogues
As a follow up to the first session, departments and department clusters may also participate in one or more targeted thematic sessions. The goal of these sessions is to support deeper conversation on specific issues and challenges that may be particularly relevant or timely for a particular unit or field.
Session length: 1.5 – 2 hours. Sample topics include:
- Teaching sensitive/controversial topics
- Inclusive projects and study groups
- Understanding and alleviating stereotype threat
- Addressing microaggressions and unconscious bias
- Incorporating equity and inclusion issues more deeply into the curriculum
- Working effectively with different learning styles
- Faculty identity and positionality
Selected Readings on Key Concepts
Creating Inclusive Classrooms - General
- Inclusive Teaching Guide - UC Berkeley Center for Teaching and Learning
Stereotype Threat
- A threat in the air: How stereotypes shape the intellectual identities and performance of women and African Americans.
Claude M. Steele. American Psychologist, 52, 613-629, 1997. - Whistling Vivaldi:How Stereotypes Affect Us And What We Can Do.
Claude M. Steele. New York : W.W. Norton & Company, 2011. See especially Chapters 1, 8 and 9. - Framed: Understanding achievement gaps.
Rodolfo Mendoza-Denton. In J.H. Marsh, Mendoza-Denton, R., & J. Adam Smith (Eds.), Are We Born Racist? New Insights from Neuroscience and Positive Psychology (pp. 24-33). Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 2010.
Fixed Ability Mindset
- Expectations of brilliance underlie gender distributions across academic disciplines.
Sarah-Jane Leslie, Andrei Cimpian, Meredith Meyer, and Edward Freeland. Science, Vol. 347, Issue 6219, pp. 262-265, 16 Jan 2015. - Mindset: The New Psychology of Success.
Carol S. Dweck. New York: Random House, 2006.
Implicit Bias
- State of the Science: Implicit Bias Review, published annually beginning in 2013.
Cheryl Staats and Charles Patton, Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity. Columbus, OH: Kirwan Institute, The Ohio State University. 2013 Note: The Kirwan Institute updates this review annually. The 2013 (innaugural) version is recommended for its substantial background information. Subsequent versions include current research findings and analyses.
Identity, Power and Privilege in the Classroom
- Critical Self-Knowledge for Social Justice Educators. Lee Anne Bell, Diane J. Goodman, and Rani Varghese. In Teaching for Diversity and Social Justice, Third Edition. Edited by Maurianne Adams and Lee Anne Bell, with Diane J. Goodman and Khyati Y. Joshi. New York, NY: Routledge, 2016.
Communicating Across Difference
- Helping People Talk About Race: Facilitation Skills for Educators and Trainers
Derald Wing Sue. In Race Talk and the Conspiracy of Silence (Chapter 13). Hoboken, New Jersey: Wiley, 2015. - Failure to warn: How student race affects warnings of potential academic difficulty.
Jennifer Randall Crosby and Benoît Monin. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 43 (2007) 663–670, 2007.
Belonging
- The Problem of Othering: Towards Inclusiveness and Belonging
john a. powell and Steven Menendian. Othering and Belonging Institute, 2016.
Contact Us
For more information, please contact vcei@berkeley.edu.