Student Highlights
The following students from across academic disciplines share their experiences on what it means to attend a Hispanic Serving Institution and how teachers engage in inclusive, diverse, and equity-minded pedagogies. By highlighting students' experiences with teaching, we aim to facilitate transdisciplinary conversations to improve teaching as informed directly by students' perspectives.UTRGV students highlighted here are advocates and collaborators who assist the CTE on:
- Developing a guide to inclusive and equity-minded pedagogies at UTRGV
- Providing feedback and offering recommendations on resources, readings, teaching conversations, and programming.
If you are a UTRGV student who would like to be highlighted on this page or if you are a UTRGV faculty member who would like to recommend a student to be highlighted, please send an e-mail to cte@utrgv.edu.
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Alonso J. Troncoso Classification: Sophomore Major: Business Management |
How have your instructors created inclusive, diverse, and accessible teaching and learning spaces for all students?
My instructors have done a good work including everyone in the class. They host student introductions, allowing us to express who we are, and feel welcomed to the class. We interact with our classmates, finding things in common, or sharing experiences.
One thing an instructor did is to provide accessible teaching by posting the PDF documents we are reading. He also posted the lectures to Blackboard for the students who were unable to attend the live session or for those who wanted to re-watch the lecture to review the content. This is great because as students, we feel like we have the same opportunities as the rest of our classmates, so we feel included as everyone gets to participate and learn from the lectures.
Another assignment in which I felt engaged is when a professor asked us to write an essay about how covid-19 affected us because covid-19 affected everyone in different ways. That essay was for our economics class, so we were expected to write about the financial challenges that we faced with the covid-19 pandemic. However, the professor allowed us to talk about any other challenge not just financial ones, so that made us feel engaged. We were being heard in every challenge we faced. Yes, we did face financial challenges, but we also faced psychological and mental challenges. Being heard by the professor made me feel more comfortable because to be honest, I needed to talk about it with someone else. All of my classmates felt the same way as it was a good way to talk about economics, relating what we were learning with the things we faced, and that makes learning meaningful.
What is one thing a faculty member can do to challenge racism, implicit bias, and systemic barriers in their teaching to ensure all students have opportunities to achieve success?
Something faculty members can do is to inform the students and provide them with resources. For example, I have suggested to implement some changes in the syllabus, such as stating if a book for the course is optional or required and providing some resources for the students to get the book with a discount or for free. Sometimes, students do not know where they can get the book or how, so informing them is helpful. Also, there are plenty of free resources available for students, so accepting older versions of the same book can be helpful. We cannot assume that the students know how to get the book or that they are available to buy it because we are assuming things about their financial status. So, I have suggested this to some faculty members; they get happy with these suggestions because they feel like they are helping the students to have equal learning opportunities, so I am glad that they like and implement the ideas I suggest.
Now, a suggestion to challenge racism can be to state rules to create a learning environment where students have to respect each other. This is for students’ interaction, but to do your part as a faculty member, you have to encourage activities where they can be themselves, like allowing them to reflect on who they are, where they come from, the things they have faced. Also, treat everyone with equity, and there is a difference between equality and equity. Equality is to give everyone the same while equity is to give everyone what they need. This is important because as an instructor, you need to know or identify what your students need. This is a challenging task, but it is worth it to create a better learning environment where everyone gets the opportunities they need to succeed in the course. This will help to fight back racism and implicit bias because we should not assume things about people just because of where they are from, their religion, race, cultural background, gender, etc.
What is one meaningful teaching approach, activity, or assignment your professors implemented? Why was it meaningful to your learning and academic journey?
I honestly like discussion boards, and they are meaningful because in most cases, we relate the things we learn with daily live scenarios, and this is the meaningful part for our learning. I also like to engage with other students, and interact with them. This was a great alternative for distance learning, because even in person, we would have these discussion boards, but it worked different, you would raise your hand or the professor would call someone’s name to have participation, and someone else would reply. Now, I had a professor who took this to the next level because we are used to seeing the Blackboard discussion boards, which works so well, and it has many tools that the professors could implement to boost the engagement. But, my professor would use other platforms to participate in our discussion. The platform we used was Flipgrid, and we recorded our discussion, and other students would reply with a video as well. It was a different level of engagement because we were watching the person speaking, and we knew who the person was, not like Blackboard, that you only know the students' names. The professor also would participate in the discussions too showing us how to use the platform and how we would do it. Having a professor showing the students how to do the assignments is important because the professor is guiding the students, and it boosts their learning because they get a better idea of what to do, and I always ask for examples to get a better idea.
What is one of the most impactful things a faculty member did/could do for your learning/growth?
A meaningful thing a professor can do is to give feedback because it helps us grow. Aside from having the professor show how to do the assignments, it is important for the professor to assess the students while they do their work. I always wonder why I get a 90 sometimes. I am not saying that I did not deserve it; I am saying that I would like to know why I deserve it, so I can fix my mistakes and do a better job next time. It is what feedback does, it helps to improve things, so students can improve themselves and their assignments. These two things highly impact my learning, and it is what helps me the most to learn because I like to receive feedback from the professor as they are the expert and the one teaching us what to do and how. I could ask my classmates for feedback, which is helpful too, but they are not the ones grading the assignment.
What advice would you give to a faculty member about receiving student feedback to create inclusive, equitable, and accessible spaces for teaching and learning?
I like to use this example because when I use it, faculty members take it and like it as well and it encourages them to implement feedback they receive from students. College is perceived as a business, and education is the service this business provides. Students are the customers, and just as in a business, the customers’ opinion matter. In college, student’s opinion is important because it will help you to improve the way you provide a service, to attract more customers, or in this case students. So, my advice is to hear your customers’ opinion because they are the ones consuming the product (receiving education).
Students’ feedback is always going to target inclusion or different ways of teaching; this will help you as an instructor to give them the opportunities they need to succeed in the course. Always hear the feedback that is being provided, whether you implement it or not, listen and reflect on it and be thankful for the feedback because they are being brave enough to give you feedback, and they do it with the best intentions.
Feedback is a two-way street, so just like you give the students feedback, you should also be open to receive feedback. Instructors usually give feedback to students because they want them to learn and improve their performance, and students provide professors feedback because they want them to improve the course for the future generations as well. Feedback is an important key for education, and everyone needs it. Hearing your students also helps them to feel that they are being heard, and it helps create a better learning environment.
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Kiara Dayana Jiménez Graduation Year: May 2022 Major: Interdisciplinary Studies: EC-6 Bilingual Certification |
How have your instructors created inclusive, diverse, and accessible teaching and learning spaces for all students?
Various ways my instructors have created inclusive, diverse, and an accessible learning environment in my courses was by allowing us to do service hours since our first year in University, helping apply theory to practice. Along with this, there was also a great emphasis in group work, in doing research, video portfolios, and digital notebooks, in which we each had a role assigned by the professor to complete our assignment. Lastly, I believe the most impactful way my past instructors were inclusive, were by asking their students to participate consistently in class and asking them to relate to their experiences, as well as allowing the time and space for there to be discussions and interactions in class.
What is one thing a faculty member can do to challenge racism, implicit bias, and systemic barriers in their teaching to ensure all students have opportunities to achieve success?
One thing faculty members can do to remove these barriers is by having assignments that include the students’ personal experience or the opportunity to reflect. By giving students the space to relate to the assignments, not only will they have a better learning experience, but faculty members will also learn from their students and clear their implicit biases. Another implementation that faculty members could consider is to include articles/readings from different perspectives, such as from women and people of color. When students are able to learn from people who look like them or share a culture with them, they are more willing to try their best in the course and see themselves as future lawyers, doctors, and educators.
What is one meaningful teaching approach, activity or assignment your professors implemented?
Why was it meaningful to your learning and academic journey?
One meaningful assignment that one of my professors implemented was the Digital Testimonio, in which we were asked, through an interactive video, to describe our childhood and the difficulties we had growing up, as well as how we learned our second language, and what lead us to decide to become educators. I believe this assignment was necessary for us to reflect on our teaching philosophy, as well as recognize that everything we went through in life had a purpose.
What is one of the most impactful things a faculty member did/could do for your learning/growth?
I believe that the most impactful thing a faculty member did for us was that they dedicated the first 15 minutes of class to meditate and do breathing exercises to help us relax before we moved on with the class. These 15 minutes dedicated to our mental health helped the students feel more comfortable in class and approach the professor for questions and comments.
What advice would you give to a faculty member about receiving student feedback to create
inclusive, equitable, and accessible spaces for teaching and learning?
My advice would be to introduce students to the meaning of effective and empathetic feedback little by little since the beginning of the course. They could implement it by first having them give feedback to their peers and demonstrating/modeling to them what effective feedback is for them to learn how to give constructive comments. Faculty members could also begin practicing feedback with their students by having surveys at the beginning of the class or exit tickets at the end of class that can prepare both the faculty and the student to an
environment where feedback is reciprocal and accepted. Once students are used to the idea of receiving feedback from their peers and professor, they will feel comfortable in giving feedback to the professor as well. Most importantly, the faculty member has to model to them what effective feedback is through their assignments and daily discussions
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Ana Paula Suárez Graduation Year: 2024 Major: Interdisciplinary Studies with a Concentration in Special Education |
How have your instructors created inclusive, diverse, and accessible teaching and learning spaces for all students?
Over the years I've studied I have encountered many ways that instructors created inclusive, diverse, and accessible teaching and learning environment for all students. The first example that strikes my mind whenever I think of this is that once during my first year at the university an instructor let us know that we would need to do a project in groups, and the motivation behind why he liked to bring about collaboration was for the basic explanation that somebody may not comprehend one section, for instance, the numerical part, yet the other colleague comprehends the other part about clarifying what was done as such to talk, so this assists everybody with aiding one another and contribute their spot in their strong areas. I personally really appreciated this since I had never thought of group works in that way and I felt that the professor was doing everything on his side to make us students feel included and cared for every one of us to succeed in the teaching environment.
What is one thing a faculty member can do to challenge racism, implicit bias, and systemic barriers in their teaching to ensure all students have opportunities to achieve success?
One recommendation that I could give is that teachers could learn more information about what happens with these sensitive topics. Knowing more about these topics will be a huge help in not judging a person before knowing who that person really is. Professors can also cultivate awareness of their biases, professors are also humans therefore influenced by psychological biases. By creating awareness, teachers can get to know the students, practicing activities such as introducing themselves so that they know them and know each other long before they begin to judge.
What is one meaningful teaching approach, activity or assignment your professors implemented? Why was it meaningful to your learning and academic journey?
Once in a UNIV learning framework class that I had in my first year of college, the professor asked each of us students to present ourselves, and toward the end, the teacher started to take statistics of how many of us had pets, or how many of us had siblings, how many of us spoke Spanish, and so on. I really appreciated her doing so because it caused me to understand that the teacher was interested in knowing who she was going to teach the remainder of the semester and helped me realize that the professor was very caring even though it was a college course. I remember when I first entered college I had this vision that university professors were all severe and mean, however, I was absolutely off-base, we are all humans and can be delicate eventually. This type of inclusivity and communication is a suggestion I would like to point out especially for professors teaching first-year students.
What is one of the most impactful things a faculty member did/could do for your learning/growth?
Personally, I believe that perhaps the most effective thing a faculty member could accomplish for students' learning and academic development is to have empathy at a level where the student doesn't take advantage of the nobility but on the other hand is permitted to be successful too. For instance, when a student is continually mindful of class, turns in tasks on schedule, and just once misses an assignment, if the student requests one more opportunity for a late attempt, the most the instructor could accomplish for that student is offering him/her the chance. Whenever offered the chance, the student will have a decent picture of that educator considering him to be an individual with compassion and feeling roused to do well in the course as opposed to being frightened and shy.
What advice would you give to a faculty member about receiving student feedback to create inclusive, equitable, and accessible spaces for teaching and learning?
I would like to let all the teachers know that their work is truly admirable and that the feedback they get to hear from SaLT partners is just to benefit all, we are simply attempting to further develop everything for the community that we have been framing in UTRGV.
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Jacaranda Garcia Classification: Junior Major: Biomedical Sciences |
How have your instructors created inclusive, diverse, and accessible teaching and learning spaces for all students?
My professors have created inclusive, diverse, and accessible classrooms through the resources and activities we do in the classroom. This can be from many professors purposely including free online websites that are easy to navigate and can be easily used on mobile devices such as phones. One of the most remarkable classrooms was a calculus class as we used a website called WeBworks. This website is a free online homework system that made my calculus learning much simpler as I was able to communicate my concerns on specific questions with my professor all while being able to retry the question limited amounts of times and be given partial credit after the due date. With these special functions, I have been able to maintain a positive mindset on my mathematical learning experience and not give up simply because simple mistakes and/or past due dates.
What is one thing a faculty member can do to challenge racism, implicit bias, and systemic barriers in their teaching to ensure all students have opportunities to achieve success?
Faculty are human, and humans make mistakes and often fall into implicit biases and systemic barriers they might not be aware of. Though the United States has established multiple anti-racism laws, there is no way students can be protected by implicit biases and systemic barriers, so it is important for faculty to be aware of these as not only is the student education at risk but also there is no protection against it. One thing faculty can do to challenge impact biases and systemic barriers is communicating with students. This can be through surveys or personally emailing students with the lowest scores. Though many faculties say it’s responsibility of the students to communicate directly with the professor specific items during specific times, these strict measures are possibly one the causes of why they are not able to communicate or preform at their best. Another example of how faculty can challenge implicit biases and systemic barriers is my diversifying learning methods and having multiple students actively participate in the assignments. Faculty often fall in the trap of using one student as the pacemaker of the learning process. This can be as speeding on areas of which one student knows and slowing down on areas of which that same student knows.
What is one meaningful teaching approach, activity, or assignment your professors implemented? Why was it meaningful to your learning and academic journey?
One assignment a professor implemented that has impacted my learning and academic journey is being able to attend an online city commission meeting and being able to write about the experience while using the learning I gathered and retained in that semester. I found this activity meaningful as I remember clearly being able to actively combine my learning and its importance in the community. This mind-blowing experience caused me to actively become educated in academics and constantly bring it back in outside experiences especially those that affect my day to day living.
What is one of the most impactful things a faculty member did/could do for your learning/growth?
One of the most impactful things a faculty has done for me in my learning and growth is knowing my name. As simple as being able to pronounce my name and recall me in a 30+student classroom and multiple sections, taking the time to know me has made an impactful growth in my learning. Knowing my name triggered my realization that I am no longer a random person in a class rather an individual student who is vital part of the classroom. Having professors ask me questions, for participation, and even welcoming me to the classroom has made me feel much confident and comfortable as a student in the class as the relationship with the professor is much meaningful that just a distant interaction.
What advice would you give to a faculty member about receiving student feedback to create inclusive, equitable, and accessible spaces for teaching and learning?
Do not conform with a single feedback of a student. Actively seek for different student voices as students will give you personalized feedback of what they seem is the ideal classroom. The best judge of the classroom is yourself and possibly even your former students as their experience can give you a close-up view of what is reflected in the classroom while your view can help the classroom keep your values and teaching philosophy. And even if you thought you have found the best recipe for the ideal classroom, look out for changes in students’ learning. As seen in the transition of online to in person, and vice versa, don’t assume all students have adjusted to your classroom simply because you did. Events such as this or even the introduction of new technology, can help or affect the student’s learning at very generation.