Outline for Engaged Teaching Fellows Showcase: May 2Nd, 2014

Outline for Engaged Teaching Fellows Showcase: May 2nd, 2014

NdidiAmutah

Eva Goldfarb

9:05 – 10:05

9:05 – 9:15 Introduce exercise and give context for how it has been and can be used

• This has been used in teacher education classes to look at biases in teaching
• In public health to examine how biases can impact health and healthcare access
• This exercise can be used in any discipline ( Business, Education, Science, Law, etc.) to help people to explore their own as well as society level biases and how these have an impact on interpersonal dynamics as well as policies and practices that affect different populations of people differentially.
• Explain that this activity is only done near the end of the semester when the group has developed into a safe and trusting learning community. Group groundrules have been established early on in the semester to ensure a safe space
• Acknowledge that while it is difficult to do participants should respond as an undergraduate student would

Explain that the demonstration here is from a class in Public Health but that we will discuss how it can be adapted to other fields at the conclusion of the activity.

9:15 – 9:30 Divide the participants into 5 groups and have each group go to one of the newsprint sheets hanging around the room (they are concealed). Tell participants that on these sheets are types of people who may be in need of some healthcare. Tell them that they will have two minutes at each sheet and then will rotate around and they are to write on the newsprint, their responses to the questions on the Powerpoint. At each station, the group was to write on the sheet their responses to the following questions:

• What are some stereotypes about this person?
• What health problems does this person have?
• What does this person look like?

(Review questions). Allow participants to reveal newsprint sheets. After two minutes have participants rotate around to next sheet. Continue this process until everyone has returned to their original sheet. Make sure participants in each group take turns writing and that they leave the marker behind so that each sheet will have its own marker color (to protect authorship anonymity)

9:30 – 9:50Once groups have returned to their original sheet, tell them that they should now pretend that they are the person described on their sheet. Ask them to read the comments that were made about them and answer the following questions (reveal on Powerpoint):

• Is this list accurate in its description of you?

• If you do have health problems, what barriers do you face?”

Give the groups a minute or two to discuss these questions in their groups then process the activity with the following questions:

• What was it like to do this activity?
• What surprised you as you were doing this?
• What was challenging about it?
• How did it feel to be the person depicted on the newsprint?

Go around to each newsprint and ask:

• What barriers need to be overcome to help this person improve his/her health?”

9:50 – 10:05 Debrief. Ask group

• What do you think of this activity?
• Explain what usually follows this activity
• Can you think about how you might adapt this to your own classroom?
• Questions, comments.

Participant Categories – Pick five from this list. Ahead of time, prepare these sheets and hang around the room. Bring 5 markers so each group has one.

• Muslim woman in traditional garb
• Large, heavy young woman
• Young urban professional
• HIV+ twenty something
• Pregnant adolescent
• Mexican Immigrant