Training in Anti-Racist and Inclusive Pedagogy

The Department of History Graduate Program is pleased to offer an optional Training in Anti-Racist and Inclusive Pedagogy. This department-run training is designed to enhance graduate students’ knowledge in anti-racist and inclusive pedagogy, to promote an intellectual learning space where graduate students can address biases that recreate societal barriers for the students they teach, and to offer an opportunity for graduate students to develop skills for a diverse job market.

Students may complete the optional training at any time in their graduate program tenure. While the training will not appear on your official UW-Madison transcript, the department will provide evidence of your completion of the training. To submit evidence of completing the training, please go to https://forms.gle/qh3AM7oNstmdYh977

Training in anti-racist and inclusive pedagogy is a crucial tool for allowing instructors to create more equitable and transformative classroom experiences for students. Anti-racist pedagogy considers the historic and contemporary role of higher education in producing and naturalizing racist outcomes. It is inherently intersectional in its analysis of power relations, considering how oppressions and inequities on the bases of race, class, gender, sexuality, and (dis)ability are intertwined. Our discipline of history is a particularly important learning space in which instructors can help students to identify the historical origins of our contemporary world as well as the myriad alternatives—both enacted and imagined—to facets of our society that might today seem natural or inescapable. By introducing instructors to the insights and practices of generations of educators, prompting us to interrogate our own positionality and unconscious biases, and providing concrete strategies through which to cultivate community in the classroom, training in anti-racist and inclusive pedagogy prepares instructors to create more equitable and effective courses.

The training in Anti-Racist and Inclusive Pedagogy addresses the following goals:

• Finding tools to help identify and decrease biases in the classroom
• Practicing self-interrogation to articulate assumptions and gaps in knowledge
• Developing skills to foster an inclusive sense of community and belonging in the classroom
• Designing courses and content that negotiate the histories of violence and resistance that undergird our course material and the academy itself
• Creating intellectual spaces that allow all participants to recognize and critique the power dynamics that structure historical narratives and classroom relations
• Building confidence and capability in dealing with challenging moments in the classroom and beyond and in doing so developing sensitivity, emotional intelligence, and interpersonal skills that transcend the classroom in preparation for future careers

The training consists of three main components:

1. Department-approved TA training (either History-coordinated training sequence or department-approved alternate training)
2. Ten hours of UW-sponsored community-based diversity, anti-racist, and inclusive training and engagement activities. Options may include but are not limited to:
   1. Delta Program workshops
   2. Departmental pedagogy forums and workshops
   3. The Discussion Project
   4. The Writing Center
   5. Ethnic Studies TA training
3. Portfolio
   1. Annotated course syllabus that highlights and explains learning from the training
   2. Annotated discussion lesson plan that highlights and explains learning from the training
   3. Teaching philosophy statement or diversity statement for the job market (academic or non-academic job market). Some possible questions to consider in developing this statement are:
      1. What were some of your most important learnings from the training?
      2. Which workshops or trainings were the most/least useful? Why?
      3. Reflect on a challenging moment that you had in the classroom. How did the workshops or trainings help you reflect on the experience that you described, or how did they help you handle the situation in the moment?
      4. How do you envision using the learning from the training in the future?
      5. What piece of advice would you give students who want to learn more about anti-racist and inclusive pedagogy?
      6. What do you still want to learn more about? What do you want/need to work on in your own pedagogy?