Spark Talk: Rethinking Our Content Coverage Goals

September 24, 2024 - 10:00-10:30 AM

Location: This is an online event. Register to receive the Zoom link and calendar invitation

Intended Audience: Academic Support Staff, Faculty, Graduate Student Instructors, Instructors

Ever feel like your course has to “do too much”? Want to explore course redesign, but feeling constrained by the sheer amount of material you need to get through? Let’s explore content coverage and how it relates to (and perhaps thwarts) our goals of fostering diversity, equity, and inclusion in our disciplines. In a recent paper focused on the health sciences education pipeline, the authors found that requirements for content coverage did not serve the development of professionals in the field and actually presented an unnecessary barrier to students from historically marginalized backgrounds. We will dig into their research findings and consider how these might apply to courses in our own departments.

Reference:

Tripp, B., Cozzens, S., Hrycyk, C., Tanner, K. D. & Schinske, J. N. Content Coverage as a Persistent Exclusionary Practice: Investigating Perspectives of Health Professionals on the Influence of Undergraduate Coursework. CBE Life Sci. Educ.23, ar5 (2024) 

What are Spark Talks? Spark Talks are short 20-minute sessions that aim to spark interest in new or different approaches to teaching and learning, as well as foster connections and conversations around instruction at UC Berkeley. Spark Talks are interactive presentations that digest recent research articles into practical terms for instructors. Instructors are also invited to stay after the session to connect with colleagues and CTL staff.

Spark Talks are an opportunity to welcome IN our instructor colleagues and start cross-campus dialogue on teaching. As part of the Spark Talk series, this session aims to:

  • INtroduce one specific evidence-based teaching practice from the recent literature on teaching and learning

  • INform instructors about the considerations for applying this particular practice (what, why, and how)

  • INvestigate a few examples of how this technique could be implemented in a course

  • INspire instructors to explore using this new technique in their course

Instructors are encouraged to follow up with CTL in a 1-on-1 consultation to continue to explore what this particular teaching practice might look like in their own course contexts.

This session will run for 20 minutes, with an additional 10 minutes reserved for questions and networking. 

➡️Register for this event here!⬅️

Registrants will be sent a Zoom link and bCal invite as the workshop date draws near.

***Registration for this session will close one hour before the session***

This event is part of the "Accessibility and Inclusion in Teaching" learning path. Be sure to check out this learning path and explore its other components!

Facilitator:

Picture of the facilitator, Melissa Ko Dr. Melissa E. Ko is the Assessment & Curriculum Design Specialist at the Center for Teaching & Learning . Dr. Ko was trained as a computational cancer biologist having received her SB from MIT and her PhD from Stanford University. She pivoted into an education-focused career through several teaching roles at Stanford and other local institutions, before focusing on partnering with instructors to provide effective and inclusive learning experiences informed by data.

Topics

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