Resources: External JEDI Ideas & Information

As our JEDI Institute progresses, we will continue developing a series of external resources for our participants. Below is our current list, and we strongly encourage our pilot participants to submit more ideas & information for this webpage to Cynthia Eaton.

Why JEDI? Research Shows JEDI Work Makes a Difference

  1. "Using Diverse, Equitable, and Inclusive Course Content to Improve Outcomes in a Chemistry Course for Nonmajors" (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 99.1, 15 Oct 2021) — A chemistry course redesign effort that included student-centered learning approaches, centered DEI-based content that reflects students’ lived experiences, and introduced students to the relevance and impact of science on their everyday lives resulted in student perceptions that aligned more closely with course outcomes in three areas: the relevance of science to everyday life, the understandability of science, and specific course-related outcomes.
  2. "Syllabus Tone, More Than Mental Health Statements, Influence Intentions to Seek Help" (Teaching of Psychology, 49.3, 11 Feb 2021) — Various perceived barriers to seeking mental health care, including embarrassment, denial, stigma, and being unsure of where to go for help, can result in increased risk for lower GPA, school dropout, and unemployment. Gurung and Galardi find that a warm-toned syllabus with a Reach Out statement (normalizing the need to reach out for mental health support) showed a significant effect on student likelihood to reach out in three areas: on a class assignment, when feeling low, and to ask about more campus resources for mental health. 
  3. "Rethinking the Course Syllabus: Considerations for Promoting Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion" (Teaching of Psychology, 48.1, 30 Sep 2020) — Since the APA has charged educators with facilitating the development of cultural competence in students, Fuentes, Zelaya, and Madsen share a number of considerations and suggestions for more DEI-focused syllabi.
  4. "Achievement Is Not Class-Neutral: Working Together Benefits People From Working-Class Contexts" (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 119.3, May 2020) — Dittmann, Stephens, & Townsend note how social class inequality research finds that people from working-class contexts have fewer skills linked to academic success than their middle-class counterparts, but this research tends to assess people as they work individually, which does not match the interdependent models of self that are prevalent in U.S. working-class contexts. Their findings of four studies suggest that assessing achievement as people work together may be one effective way to more fully realize the potential of people from working-class contexts.
  5. "A Surprising Path to Improving Working-Class Students’ Academic Achievement" (Society for Personality and Social Psychology, 17 Sep 2019) — Knowing that even among students who have had equivalent academic preparation in high school, students from working-class backgrounds often achieve lower grades in college than those from middle-class backgrounds. Cultural psychologists Townsend and Stephens developed an intervention to empower students from working-class backgrounds and improve their sense of fitting in by acknowledging, rather than downplaying, the differences that mark students’ experiences in college. Despite some "conventional wisdom" that suggests focusing on differences between social groups is dangerous or divisive, the intervention dramatically improved the academic achievement of working-class students and closed this gap. Nearly two years after the study, students from working-class backgrounds who were in our intervention earned GPAs that were just as high as students from middle-class backgrounds and students from working-class backgrounds who were in our intervention outperformed students from working-class backgrounds who were not in our intervention. 
  6. "Getting Under the Hood: How and for Whom Does Increasing Course Structure Work?" (Life Sciences Education, 13.3, 13 Oct 2017) — Research in biology classes finds that a moderate-structure intervention consisting of more active learning interventions increased course performance for all student populations but worked disproportionately well for black students—halving the black–white achievement gap—and first-generation students—closing the achievement gap with continuing-generation students. Students consistently reported completing the assigned readings more frequently, spending more time studying for class, and feeling an increased sense of community in the moderate-structure course.
  7. "A Teaching Intervention that Increases Underserved College Students’ Success" (AAC&U Peer Review, Winter/Spring 2016) — Research at the University of Nevada Las Vegas establishes that two transparently designed, problem-based take-home assignments had a statistically significant impact on student learning outcomes, especially for first-generation, low-income, and underrepresented students. 
  8. "Engaging Diverse Students in Statistical Inquiry: A Comparison of Learning Experiences and Outcomes of Under-Represented and Non-Underrepresented Students Enrolled in a Multidisciplinary Project-Based Statistics Course" (International Journal Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 10.1, 2016) — Comparing experiences of under-represented (URM) and non-underrepresented students in four years of a stastitics course, researchers at Wesleyan find that underrepresented minority students were found to be two times more likely to report that their interest in conducting research increased and that while URM students scored somewhat lower on multiple choice exams evaluating content knowledge outcomes, this was no longer significant after controlling for other background characteristics and course experiences.
  9. "Syllabus length and use of images: An empirical investigation of student perceptions" (Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Psychology, 1.3, 2015) — Questionnaires to students on syllabus length and inclusion of images reveal that students reviewing the medium or long syllabi vs. the short syllabus had a more positive impression of the course and professor and a majority of students (66.6%) indicated a preference for a long syllabus with all assignment details versus a shorter syllabus with assignment details being provided later in the semester.  
  10. "A Brief Social-Belonging Intervention Improves Academic and Health Outcomes of Minority Students" (Science, vol. 333 issue 6023, 18 Mar 2011) — An intervention focused on reducing stereotype threat by framing adversity as common and transient results leads researchers to find that over a three-year observation period, the intervention raised African Americans’ GPA relative to multiple control groups and halved the minority achievement gap.

Crafting More Inclusive Syllabi

Addressing Hot Moments in the Classroom • Managing Class Conversations

Self-Reflecting & Thinking About Language

Understanding Core Concepts

Assessing Implicit Bias

Taking Action

Inclusive Teaching: Growth Mindset, Imposter Syndrome, Stereotype Threat

Learning about Inequity in the Covid Era

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