NECIT Spring 2006 Seminar

Faculty and students at Massasoit Community College often come from very disparate cultural, socioeconomic, racial, and educational backgrounds. The curriculum we offer is often a reflection of our own value system; the strategies used to deliver that curriculum are often byproducts of our own learning styles and academic experiences. Because MCC is an open-admissions college, we encounter a very diverse student body. Some of our students’ previous academic experiences include alienation, failure, miscommunication, and misunderstanding of expectations. In this seminar, we will take up the issue of how to design an inclusive curriculum that takes into account our students’ varying academic and cultural backgrounds. Some questions seminar participants might explore include:

How do you design an inclusive curriculum?
What are the benefits/or disadvantages of an inclusive curriculum?
How do you bridge academic and cultural communication gaps?
How do you insure faculty and student expectations are clear?

In this seminar, we will collectively share, examine, design, and refine syllabi as well as other curriculum materials to reflect inclusive teaching.

Sharing the Harvest

On the basis of their seminar work, participants of this seminar will share (within and beyond the Massasoit community) some of the pedagogical strategies and insights that emerge in the course of the semester. Participants will cooperatively plan and develop the contexts and contents for the sharing of the seminar’s product.