Voice, Choice, and Community: Placing Equity at the Core of Faculty Learning

As with every other place-based educational institution, CSU Channel Islands’ Innovation & Faculty Development Unit faced the challenge of preparing all faculty for a fully virtual fall 2020. We knew a cultural shift from surviving to thriving in the midst of a trauma-saturated and politically volatile global arena would require a preparation program. T.H.R.I.V.E. became the namesake and represents the tenets essential to empathetic, equitable, and inclusive virtual learning communities: T (Teaching & Technology), H (High-Touch & Human Centered), R (Revised & Reenergized), I (Interaction & Impact), V (Vulnerability & Variability), and E (Equity, Empathy, & Engagement). To build empathy and awareness of nonacademic barriers confronting virtual students, we focused on a "human-first, technology-second" training philosophy. Technology provided the landscape and empathy drove the design. Therefore, T.H.R.I.V.E. provided an immersive experience in which faculty were situated as virtual students creating personalized learning pathways by enrolling in a variety of asynchronous micro-courses and alternative learning opportunities. With 225 faculty finishing the program, 52% of fall courses were taught by faculty completers, which meant that 91% of students had at least one course taught by a prepared faculty member. During this presentation we will share our human-first preparation program that empowered faculty through agency to provide a model for future faculty learning engagement.

This session takes place on the Engageli platform.