DEI-Informed Dialogic Pedagogy Micro-credential

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CU Dialogues offers a micro-credential workshop series for CU «Ƶ graduate students. Micro-credentials are issued and acknowledged by CU «Ƶ’s Registrar’s Office to recognize sustained inquiry and skill-building around a focused topic. The Spring 2025 DEI-Informed Dialogic Pedagogy workshop series will be offered to up to 20 graduate student instructors and will meet over the course of 10 weeks. Through in-person sustained dialogue practice, asynchronous activities, and readings, participants will learn about DEI-grounded dialogue, with attention to designing and facilitating dialogic practices that center intersectional equity in classroom practices.

The creation and offering of this micro-credential is part of a long-term goal of advancing a campus culture attentive to dialogue and listening across many intersectional identities. We see this workshop series for graduate instructors as one pathway for developing a network of opportunities for undergraduate students to experience DEI-grounded dialogue in CU classes. In the future, we hope to establish a comparable workshop series for faculty. 

The DEI-Informed Dialogic Pedagogy Micro-credential equips graduate students to:

  • Integrate DEI-grounded dialogic practices that center intersectional equity into their teaching,
  • Develop critical self-awareness around positionality and power in instructional spaces,
  • Create a cross-disciplinary community for graduate students, particularly for those who are from historically marginalized backgrounds. 

Workshop Series Details:

  • The program will run for 10 weeks, starting the second week of the spring semester (week of Jan 27th). Thursdays 3:30-5:00pm alternating in person and remote. 
  • Participants should commit to one 90 minute-long meeting each week.  This will be a combination of in person and remote gatherings.  In addition, participants should plan on ~30 minutes of prep work before each session.
  • Participants will have the rest of the fall semester to complete their learning portfolio and demonstration of competencies in order to earn the microcredential digital badge. 

The DEI-Informed Dialogic Pedagogy Micro-credential is open to all CU «Ƶ M.A. and PhD students, particularly those currently working as Graduate Part Time Instructors (GPTIs) or Teaching Assistants (TAs) in any academic department or those who will be teaching in the upcoming semester.

Participants will commit to completing the full ten week training program including work and assignments for each topical module.  Modules will likely include 1) Completing course readings and other media, 2) Completing written personal reflections, 3) Creating artifacts related to curricular design, class activities, & dialogic practices, 4) Engaging in cohort peer led facilitated dialogue related to positionality, power, and DEI at the university, 5) Attending synchronous (in person and remote) cohort meetings.  Throughout the semester, participants will develop a personalized teaching and reflection portfolio that will be showcased in their unique digital badge.

 One of the core principles behind this offering is a recognition that dialogue is not always experienced as inclusive and equitable practice. Bringing people together for an “open” exchange of ideas, perspectives, viewpoints and stories can reinforce existing social hierarchies and end up re-silencing people from historically marginalized backgrounds. Recognizing this potential for dialogue to silence (and thus not advance a sense of belonging) should not prevent us from holding dialogue but rather deepen our commitment to designing and facilitating dialogue with an informed understanding of, and commitment to, equity and inclusion.

We created this workshop series to address three main needs/demands:

  1. The need for undergraduate students to engage in dialogue that is grounded in understanding of power, privilege and intersectional equity:
    In order to have “respectful and empathetic dialogue” that resists reinforcing existing social hierarchies and barriers, we need to design and facilitate dialogue with DEI-informed principles in mind. Designing and facilitating DEI-grounded dialogues is a learned practice. It is both an art and a skill that takes time, practice, and reflection to develop. This program provides structured training for graduate student instructors to learn about and practice DEI-grounded dialogue, followed by an apprenticeship model to practice integrating and facilitating dialogues in their courses.  
  2. The need to provide training in DEI-grounded dialogic practices, especially at a predominately white institution (PWI):
    While interest in learning to facilitate dialogue is high, integrating dialogue into the curriculum is not a simple, standardized “plug in” process. Rather, especially at a PWI, dialogue needs to be carefully tailored to the course and its demographic make-up in order to provide for the possibility of open sharing and the development of a sense of belonging that dialogue promises. When dialogue is approached simply as a process to hear across “all voices,” without attention to intersectional differences and power differentials, it continues to silence historically marginalized voices. Therefore, training in dialogue as an inclusive pedagogical practice requires concurrent training in the understanding of DEI principles, which this workshop series develops. 
  3. The need to build community and belonging for graduate students at CU: The recent campus culture survey indicated that only 47% of graduate student respondents agreed with the statement “I have a sense of community at CU,” and that number decreases dramatically for BIPOC students (42% agree), LGBTQ students (37% agree), self reported disabled students (36% agree) and gender diverse students (32% agree). As an opportunity for sustained dialogue with a small cohort of fellow graduate students, the proposed training program would provide a space for building community amongst graduate students. We intend to specifically welcome graduate students from historically marginalized backgrounds into this training program.

Micro-Credentials are recognitions issued and acknowledged by the Registrar’s Office to document participants’ successful completion of specific professional development and training that goes above and beyond disciplinary program area content.  Upon completion of a micro-credentialing program participants are issued a ‘digital badge’ which is a public facing accredidation describing the content of the training, works completed, major learnings, and participant generated artifacts (e.g. syllabi updates, lesson plans, teaching statements).  These digital badges are included in official transcripts and may be integrated into participants’ resumes / curriculum vitae and visible to future employers, collaborators, and research partners. LEARN MORE.