Beyond Teaching: Using Context Diversity to help students thrive while broadening diversity in the geosciences


Monday, October 22, 2018

10:00 am PT | 11:00 am MT | 12:00 pm CT | 1:00 pm ET

Presenters: Gary Weissmann and Roberto Ibarra (University of New Mexico)

This webinar is part of a series supporting teaching with InTeGrate principles, using InTeGrate-developed and curated materials as tools.

Registration deadline: Thursday, October 18

Our current approaches to diversity, equity, and inclusion are still rooted in Affirmative Action systems that were instituted in the 1960s. These approaches follow a diversity model that measures success by counting the number of women and racialized underrepresented minorities (URMs) in higher education. While the model enabled institutions to recruit these populations into STEM disciplines, this approach fails to address a key systemic issue in the STEM culture; valuing of one mode of cultural context in terms of knowing and doing science while simultaneously discounting other ways of knowing and doing. This assimilationist approach can be problematic for diversity programs and initiatives in STEM. Multicontext theory offers a new understanding of diversity in ways of knowing and doing. Presently, the culture of STEM tends to value “low context” approaches to scientific inquiry (e.g., individuated, task-oriented, compartmentalized task and concept orientation, and linear and logical thought processes) while “high context” approaches are often less valued (e.g., integrated, process-oriented, holistic, and systems thinking). Multicontext theory allows us to articulate these cultural contexts and apply them to reframe our approaches to scientific inquiry and teaching, thus activating the full strengths of diverse populations. This webinar will introduce participants to concepts and applications of Context Diversity in Geoscience.

At the end of this webinar, participants will:

  • Be introduced to Multicontext Theory and Context Diversity;
  • Be able to see how Context Diversity may influence their teaching, research, and academic careers;
  • Be provided with examples of how to activate Context Diversity concepts in their departments and classrooms.

Please email Mitchell Awalt (mawalt@carleton.edu) if you have any questions about this event.

All webinars are recorded. If you can’t make the live event, check back on the webinar information page for the screencast/recording.