Jennifer Pinkney Pastor

To increase motivation in my Cultural Psychology classes, I am planning the following changes in my courses:  a focus on expanding autonomy, mastery, and purpose; a focus on tasks to increase a sense of belonging and a reduction of fear/anxiety/stress among vulnerable students.

To increase belonging and a sense of community, I am planning the following:

1. Silent meditation at start of the class
2. Affirmation of the week (on board, on assignments, and online on Blackboard)
3. Role model of the week (present biographical story of a psychologist/researcher who studies/addresses issues affecting URMs – under represented minorities in STEM).
4. More group work
5. Mandatory in person/online check in with each student at the end of each month (Sept., Oct. & Nov.)

To increase autonomy and student driven learning, a combination of group and individual project work will be implemented including:

1. Individuals will select their group to work with for a presentation project
2. The group will select/vote for their own group’s leader who will get extra points for managing their group.
3. The group will decide on the topic of their group’s presentation to the class
4. Each individual will select the topic of their individual paper, which they can also expand from their group project.

To increase mastery of course content, each group will do the following:

1. Choose a topic, issue, or intersectional challenge affecting a particular ethnic/racial minority
2. Engage in intellectual “scavenger” hunts on their selected topics or issues
3. Engage in “Freedom Dreaming” regarding their chosen topic, including:  imagining how their group would fare in a world with social justice and no oppression.
4. Build a hypothesis and preliminary grant proposal to solve a social justice issue affecting their chosen ethnic/racial minority group.

To increase purpose among students, students will focus on their values and reasons for solving various issues among ethnic/racial minority groups.  Students will list their purpose/values as they complete all assigned work and projects, with a focus on “Freedom Dreaming”.  Examples of questions for students to contemplate include:

1. What do I want to know about X?  Why is this important to me?
2. Why should I care about fairness or equity in the community?  What can be gained from this?
3. How can the world improve if/when oppression is diminished?  How can lives be improved?

Proposed Changes to Syllabus:

Individual Homework assignments on each textbook chapter will embed a “Freedom Dreaming” component with a focus on social justice problem solving.

A group project will be assigned whereby students will present a hypothesis and mini-grant proposal to solve a problem affecting an Under-represented minority (URM) group.  Freedom Dreaming will be assigned to facilitate the possibility of positive outcomes for the URM group.

The current analytical paper (high stakes writing assignment for WI course) will be replaced with a paper that will be designed as a grant proposal to fund future research that solves a problem for an URM group.  Students will write this paper individually and may choose the same topic as their group presentation, or a different topic of their choice.  The grant proposal will embed the concept of Freedom Dreaming as a way to improve outcomes for URM groups.