2020 Conference Resources
2020 HILT Conference, "Championing Equitable Instruction and Inclusive Classrooms"
Held virtually on Friday, October 16, 2020.
Explore resources and materials by section:
All conference videos are available below:
Click on the following cards to view all 2020 HILT conference video recordings, including our follow-on event "I Learn Best When”.
2020 HILT Conference: Welcome Remarks
Welcome remarks: The ninth annual HILT Conference will bring together a diverse, engaged, and engaging set of speakers and panelists to share their successes and challenges in building equitable learning opportunities, facilitating charged or difficult class discussions, and supporting students as they navigate rapidly shifting circumstances.
Morning Panel: A Conversation on Inclusive Excellence
Speakers:
- Sherri Ann Charleston, Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer, Harvard University
- Anthony Jack, Assistant Professor of Education (HGSE)
- María Luisa Parra, Senior Preceptor in Romance Languages and Literatures (FAS)
- Clint Smith, staff writer at The Atlantic and the author of Counting Descent
- Introduction by Bharat Anand, Vice Provost for Advances in Learning (VPAL); Henry R. Byers Professor of Business Administration; Senior Associate Dean, HBS Online (HBS)
Equity Principles for Course Design and Community Building
Speakers:
- Lilu Barbosa, Chief Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging Officer (SPH)
- Jennifer Betancourt, Director of Educational Policy (SPH)
- Monik Jimenez, Assistant Professor of Medicine (HMS); Assistant Professor in the Department of Epidemiology (SPH)
- Dan Levy, Senior Lecturer in Public Policy (HKS)
Approaches to facilitating difficult or charged conversations
Speakers:
- Sheehan Scarborough, Senior Director of Harvard Foundation (FAS)
- Josh Bookin, Associate Director, Instructional Support and Development HGSE)
- Eric H. Shed, Lecturer on Education and Director of the Harvard Teacher Fellows Program (HGSE)
- Katie Rieser, Lecturer on Education (HGSE)
Adaptive pedagogies: Supporting students during challenging times
Speakers:
- Pamela Pollock, Director of Professional Development, Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning (FAS)
- Alexis Stokes, Director of Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging (SEAS)
Student perspectives on equitable and responsive classrooms
Speakers:
- Ashley Akaeze, Student at Harvard College Buse Aktaş, Graduate Student at Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
- Nari Johnson, Student at Harvard College
- Robert Morris Levine, Graduate Student at Harvard Graduate School of Design
- Jo Persad, Graduate Student at Harvard Graduate School of Education
- Noelle Lopez, Assistant Director, Equity and Inclusion, Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning (FAS)
- Sindhumathi Revuluri, Associate Dean of Academic Engagement (FAS)
Capstone: “I Learn Best When” Centering Student Voices
This event is a follow-on to the Harvard Initiative for Learning and Teaching (HILT) annual conference, “Championing Equitable Instruction and Inclusive Classrooms.” Learn more about the 2020 HILT Conference on our website at hilt.harvard.edu/annual-conference.
Breakout session materials:
Approaches to Facilitating Difficult or Charged Conversations
- Breakout session slide deck
- Difficult Conversations Breakout handout
- Resource Guide: Teaching in Times of Strife and Trauma
Equity Principles for Course Design and Community Building
Pre and Post Conference Events:
- How Good Accessibility Practices Enhance Online Teaching (September 30, 2020)
- Next Gen Success = Harvard Success: Inclusive Practices for Supporting First-Gen, Lower-Income Students In and Beyond the Classroom (November 10, 2020)
- Human Bridges in the Study of Race, Religion, Art, and Politics (December 7, 2020)
- How to talk about far-right extremism and disinformation in the classroom (February 9, 2021)
- “I Learn Best When” – Centering Student Voices (April 29, 2021)
- “Building Inclusive Virtual Classrooms: Using the Four Cs Model to Encourage Tough Yet Necessary Discussions Among Students” by Alexandra Sedlovskaya
University-wide Resources:
Digital Accessibility Services (DAS) supports the Harvard community in making sure that everyone has the opportunity to access the university’s knowledge, ideas, and resources. Check out their resources page and a Guide for Utilizing Inclusive Course Design and Principles of Universal Design for Learning in the Creation and Delivery of Online Content.
Harvard Diversity Inclusion & Belonging works with stakeholders and partners across the University to guide Harvard’s culture toward sustainable inclusive excellence. Visit their resources page for current offerings at the local School and University level. Familiarize yourself with Harvard’s five core values which suggest how each of us can act to create an inclusive culture and invites everyone to embrace these values to strengthen the foundation of inclusion needed for the pursuit of excellence.
The Global Health Education and Learning Incubator at Harvard University supports interdisciplinary education about world health through the production, curation, and dissemination of educational public goods.
This digital collection curated by the Global Health Education and Learning Incubator at Harvard University brings together evidence-based approaches for building more racially equitable and inclusive undergraduate and graduate classrooms. With particular focus on the public health classroom, the collection includes resources for educators seeking to augment their vocabulary and classroom practice around racial equity, as well as practical strategies designing syllabi, assignments, and other instructional material.
Link recently developed a new Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DIB) Channel. The channel surfaces relevant news, upcoming events, and related organizations. Harvard faculty, staff, and GSAS students who login with HarvardKey are able to personalize recommendations based on noted interests.
As part of the Harvard Culture Lab Innovation Fund’s 2020 cohort, the Next Gen Initiative utilizes technology to align, consolidate, and enhance institutional support and community building pathways for all Harvard undergraduate and graduate students who are the first in their families to pursue a degree in the U.S. and/or are from underresourced or underserved backgrounds. While there is no universal Next Gen student experience across Harvard, there are shared challenges, needs, and areas of opportunity that can be addressed through the innovative retooling of existing Harvard resources and services. As a starting point, this initiative created three helpful resources that instructors and academic professional staff can use to integrate into classroom pedagogy. Watch this video for an introduction to their resources.
Teachly is a web application that strives to make higher education classrooms both more inclusive and more effective by providing faculty a window into their teaching that they would otherwise not have. Teachly creates increasingly personalized learning experiences for students by making data readily available to faculty and their teaching teams.
Data are critical to Teachly’s mission — data about students, about faculty teaching habits, and about in-class interactions. Teachly lowers the barriers to use data by bringing the data faculty need into one place to help faculty take more immediate action in the classroom. Teachly has 3 key features:
- Real-Time Stats: Teachly generates session-by-session analytics — combined into thematic dashboards — that identify patterns and help to flag students that may be falling through the cracks.
- Student Profiles: Teachly builds rich, searchable student profiles about their backgrounds, interests, and goals. This allows for personalized interactions with each student.
- Interactive Seating Chart: By visualizing data as they’re laid out in the real world, Teachly focuses attention on spatial blind spots, as well as on individual students that may need support.
Watch a short video about Teachly or this video that describes how to use Teachly.