This page offers resources for faculty and staff to incorporate AU Unfiltered into their curriculum and classroom discussions, fostering a deeper understanding of diversity, inclusion, and cultural competency. These applications are suitable for all courses, not only those focused on identity, culture, race, or diversity, as they foster inclusivity, empathy, and personal connection across a wide range of disciplines.
Integrating AU Unfiltered in your Classroom
Faculty can utilize AU Unfiltered as a case study and a teaching tool to spark discussions on diversity and stereotypes, challenging students to think critically.
Student-Led Reflection Activities
Personal Story Sharing: Invite students to share brief personal stories about moments they’ve felt misunderstood or faced stereotypes. This allows students to connect with each other and see firsthand the power of storytelling in breaking down biases. AU Unfiltered stories can serve as a model, showing students how personal narratives contribute to empathy and understanding.
Guided Reflections: After viewing AU Unfiltered stories, ask students to journal about how these narratives relate to their own experiences. This can be followed by a classroom discussion where students are encouraged to share insights, fostering a safe space for open dialogue.
Reflective Portfolio Assignments: Throughout the semester, students can build portfolios of their reflections on different AU Unfiltered stories, as well as their own personal experiences with identity and bias. This culminating project encourages them to continually engage with the material and provides a space for ongoing self-reflection and growth.
Storytelling Workshop
Crafting Empathetic Narratives: Hold a workshop where students learn the basics of storytelling, including elements like tone, imagery, and emotional resonance. They can create their own stories with themes of inclusivity and personal challenges, inspired by AU Unfiltered. This exercise enhances students' empathy and helps them understand diverse perspectives.
Peer-to-Peer Interviews: Students can pair up and interview each other about an aspect of their identity they feel has been misunderstood. They can then present each other’s stories to the class, which emphasizes the importance of active listening and accurately representing others' experiences.
Research and Critical Analysis
Media Analysis Assignment: Students can analyze AU Unfiltered stories, exploring how visual media and storytelling can influence public perception of diverse identities. They can discuss the techniques used in AU Unfiltered and compare them to mainstream media portrayals of similar themes.
Compare and Contrast Essays: Assign students to explore similar storytelling projects from other universities or social initiatives, comparing approaches to inclusivity and examining different impacts. This gives them a broader perspective on how diverse voices are amplified in different settings.
Empathy and Role-Playing Exercises
Impact Mapping: Using AU Unfiltered stories as a starting point, students can create "impact maps" to explore how stereotypes and biases influence individuals’ experiences in educational and social environments, examining the long-term impacts on identity and self-perception.
Impact mapping is a strategic planning method that visually maps goals, actions, and outcomes, showing how specific activities contribute to broader objectives, such as promoting inclusivity or empathy. While similar to mind or concept maps, impact maps focus on driving tangible outcomes by connecting each classroom activity to its intended impact. Here is an example.
Visual Arts and Creative Expression
Creative Response Projects: Students can create their own artistic responses to AU Unfiltered stories (e.g., photo essays, poetry, or short videos) that express their interpretation and understanding of the themes. This engages students in a hands-on, reflective approach to processing what they’ve learned.
Class Mural or Digital Storyboard: Collaboratively, the class can create a mural or storyboard that visually represents the diverse stories from AU Unfiltered. This serves as a physical or digital reminder of the class’s exploration of identity and inclusivity.
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Additional Resources to Support Teaching Inclusion and Curriculum Integration
Bring real-world cultural diversity into your classes, enriching students’ global perspectives with these resources:
Resources on Teaching and Learning: Integrate diversity and inclusion into your curriculum with prepared lesson frameworks.
- CTRL Teaching Tips, A Collection of Teaching Strategies: Frameworks for inclusive discussions.
Curriculum Integration: Utilize AU Unfiltered as a foundation for building cultural competency across various subjects.
Diversity Toolkit: Access practical exercises and classroom activities designed to facilitate discussions around cultural diversity.
- Learning For Justice: A platform offering classroom resources for exploring race, identity, and inclusion.
- AU CTRL DEI Resources Page; AU CTRL's full DEI resources page, highlighted inclusive pedagogy resources & information on AU's membership with the National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity (NCFDD).
Discussion Guides: Use curated questions to explore themes like identity, implicit bias, and the impact of storytelling.
- Project Implicit by Harvard: Interactive tools for introducing implicit bias.