Purpose

Faculty often feel overwhelmed at the immensity of the challenge of ending disparities in student outcomes. Our community is designed to help you choose just one thing you can do to enhance equity in your students’ learning environments. By methodically working through the implementation of a single action, we hope that you’ll develop a replicable approach to implementing equitable teaching practices that is practical, effective, tailored to your personal strengths as an educator, and consistent with the dynamics of your discipline. We also hope that you’ll be empowered to share your practices with colleagues and administrators, turning the ripple of “just one thing” into a wave of equity for Minnesota State students.

Task

1. Draft your plan. Use the Action Plan form to generate the initial draft. Once you have generated a Word document from this form, save the Word document to your files and do not return to this form. You cannot save your work directly in this form, but you can make edits to the generated Word document.
2. Evaluate and revise your plan. Participate in the following (optional but highly encouraged) incremental supports for developing your Action Plan.
   • Enroll in a review group during Module 2. In that group, you will partner with one or two of your faculty colleagues to offer and receive feedback from a subject matter expert in your field (or, for the Cross-Disciplinary FLC, from another Minnesota State faculty member). We provide an Action Plan Feedback Form to suggest specific, structured feedback you can offer your colleague(s).
   • Use the Effective Actions discussion for Module 3 to evaluate prior participants’ Action Plans and apply insights to your own plan’s development.
   • Post your Action Plan for peer feedback (a draft is sufficient) by the end of Module 3 for your partner to review through a discipline-specific lens.
   • Post Feedback for Your Colleague by the end of Module 4 so that you and they have time to incorporate peer insights into the final Action Plan submitted for the FLC.
3. Submit your plan. Submit the Word document that you generated from the Action Plan form (and revised throughout the FLC) to the Action Plan assignment by the end of Module 5.

We will also provide ample opportunity for participants to share Action Plans in live sessions and receive insight from colleagues.

Criteria

You have created an effective Action Plan if you have done the following (think of these as “criteria,” although there isn’t a baseline “score” you must achieve in order to receive your stipend):

• Choose a single research-supported practice that enhances equity in learning environments.
• Describe specific, time-bound steps for implementation.
• List tools and other resources needed to successfully implement the chosen practice.
• Identify potential challenges and resources to address them.
• Choose at least one quantitative and one qualitative way to evaluate the effectiveness of the chosen practice once implemented.

These criteria are broken down in detail in the Action Plan Feedback Form.