Student Success & Equity with Dr. Christine Harrington

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Learn about culturally affirming and meaningful assignments.

In this episode, I interview Dr. Christine Harrington, Faculty, Community College Leadership Doctoral Program, Morgan State University.

The focus of the episode is her book, Creating Culturally Affirming and Meaningful Assignments: A Practical Resource for Higher Education Faculty.

(Scroll down to access the transcript.)

We cover the following key topics:

4:55:50: What is "culturally affirming" assignments?

6:36:64: Ways to get to know your students.

7:57:50: Why giving student choice in culturally affirming assignments is critical.

10:03:00: Guided choices is key. Don't overwhelm students with too many choices. 

13:32:50: Culturally affirming assignment example across disciplines: the power of oral history.
 
19:47:25: Culturally affirming assignment example: reflection in healthcare practices.

23:05:00: Grading

30:32:00: Culturally affirming assignments in science.

37:48:25: Key checklists & reflection questions.

40:52:50: Assignments with meaning: world of work focus.

Select Dr. Christine Harrington episode quotes:

"Culturally affirming assignments are learning tasks, endeavors, and exercises that reflect a value for students cultural identities. Acknowledge how content and learning processes are culturally constructed, and uphold cultural diversity as a productive, meaningful, and generative learning asset." [Definition by contributing author, Adrian Martin.]

"Getting to know as much as you can about students through different techniques. Knowing your demographics through your college stats, looking at your previous students and really understanding who they were, reaching out to your students before the semester starts, and asking them some questions about who they are and what matters to them. You may not get every student to respond prior to the start of the semester, but you'll probably get a number of them, and they'll probably appreciate you asking for their voices to be heard even before the start of the semester. So, getting to know your students is a really critical element because it's impossible to be affirming if you don't know much about their lived experiences or what is a value to them, what their career aspirations might be."

"I don't think you can really say you're doing culturally affirming assignments without assignment choice, because you'll never be able to create a one size fits all assignment that's going to affirm every student in your class and be meaningful to every student in your class. So giving students choices around their assignments is probably at the crux of being culturally affirming."

"In terms of grading, one of the areas that I'm a big fan on is giving students the opportunity to revise and resubmit their work. That's powerful. Now, I know faculty out there listening to this are going to be like, "Oh my God, Christine. I can't go and grade all my stuff after doing it yesterday. I don't want to do it again today and tomorrow. It's exhausting." And I get it, I do, I really do. I think it's important that we take time out to have some fun. You can't just grade papers and assignments all day and night. But I do think we can integrate some of that feedback into class time."

 

About Dr. Christine Harrington
Dr. Christine Harrington has been working in higher education for over 20 years and is an expert on student success and teaching and learning. Currently, she is a professor in the Community College Leadership doctoral program at Morgan State University. Previously, she launched and coordinated the Ed.D. in Community College Leadership program at New Jersey City University and worked at Middlesex County College for 18 years in a variety of roles including professor of psychology and student success, director for the Center for the Enrichment of Learning and Teaching, first-year seminar course coordinator, counselor, and disability services provider. Christine also served a 2-year appointment as the Executive Director for the Center for Student Success at the New Jersey Council of County Colleges.

Christine is the author of numerous books and articles related to teaching and learning. She is the editor of an upcoming book, Creating Culturally Affirming and Meaningful Assignments: A Practical Resource for Higher Education Faculty. Other books include Keeping Us Engaged: Student Perspectives (and Research Evidence) on What Works and Why, Dynamic Lecturing: Research-Based Strategies to Enhance Lecture Effectiveness co-authored with Todd Zakrajsek and Designing a Motivational Syllabus: Creating a Learning Path for Student Engagement co-authored with Melissa Thomas, Why the First-Year Seminar Matters: Helping Students Choose a Career Path co-authored with Theresa Orosz, Engaging Faculty in Guided Pathways: A Practical Resource for College Leaders and Ensuring Learning: Supporting Faculty to Improve Student Success. She also authored a research-based first-year seminar textbook Student Success in College: Doing What Works!, now in the 4th edition, published by Cengage. She is frequently invited to give plenary presentations at national and local conferences as well as at colleges and universities across the nation.

About Dr. Al Solano
Al is Founder & Coach at the Continuous Learning Institute. A big believer in kindness, he helps institutions of higher education to plan and implement homegrown practices to improve student success and equity by coaching them through a process based on what he calls the "Three Cs": Clarity, Coherence, Consensus. In addition, his bite-sized, practitioner-based articles on student success strategies, institutional planning & implementation, and educational leadership are implemented at institutions across the country. He has worked directly with over 50 colleges and universities and has trained well over 5,000 educators. He has coached colleges for over a decade, worked at two community colleges, and began his education career in K12. He earned a doctorate in education from UCLA, and is a proud community college student who transferred to Cornell University.

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