Deep Teaching Residency: A faculty development community for inclusive practices

With the support of an NSF-IUSE award, we designed the year-long faculty development Deep Teaching Residency (DTR) in order to substantially change faculty mindsets and inclusive pedagogy practices. 'Deep Teaching' (Dewsbury, 2019) is an inclusive pedagogical philosophy that seeks to better understand and apply the social context of the education process. This involves faculty engagement in a constant, critical evaluation of how instructor self-awareness, students' personal histories, and broad social structures impact the development of an equitable pedagogy. This project has the potential for large-scale transformation of the ways that faculty view and approach their students and their instructional roles in creating inclusive classrooms.

The Deep Teaching Residency (DTR) engages participants in a 4-day face-to-face summer residency program sandwiched between preparatory readings and reflections (Pre-Work) and a sustained virtual community during the subsequent fall and spring semesters. The immersive summer program includes interactive workshops, beginning with an exploration of self and student in the context of social structures and inequities, and then building pedagogical approaches and networking practices from that foundation. Substantial time is dedicated for participants to develop an individual plan to transform an aspect of their teaching or departmental practices at their home institutions during the subsequent academic year. Feedback from the first two cohorts show that DTR provided a safe and respectful space for participants to engage with topics of anti-racism, identity, and bias and to self-reflect about how to modify their own practices to create more equitable course structures and build supportive relationships with students. Feedback also emphasized the value of having sustained time to think and plan, and to do so through discussions and with the support of a community of colleagues. Formal program evaluation and data analysis are underway and will inform next steps for the DTR program.