WEBVTT
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(applause)
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Alright, so we're gonna start out,
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I wanna ask you a question.
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We're gonna have a quiz on this,
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but I'm gonna give you some time to think about it.
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So, I'm Dr. Jean Mohammadi-Aragh.
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I want you to think about who this person is,
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Mahnas Mohammadi-Aragh, if you're paying attention
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early in the morning, you might notice that
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we have the same last name, so.
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Maybe it's my husband, my aunt,
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maybe they're not related to me at all.
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I don't know.
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Alright, you kinda got a picture in your mind
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of who this person is?
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Alright, so the quiz, I'm gonna make it a little easy,
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'cause, you know, we're not really ready for school yet.
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We're gonna have some like, just two choices.
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You've got a 50/50 shot on everything,
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so everyone's gotta guess, you're gonna need to answer
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by raising your hand, alright?
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So, the first one, let's talk about male or female.
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Who thinks this person is male, raise your hand.
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Alright, who thinks this person is female?
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Alright, so majority female this time, alright.
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Let's talk about what language they speak.
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Alright, there's a lot of them.
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So, we'll make it a little easy.
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Alright, what we're gonna decide is,
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is this person a native english speaker
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or is their native language,
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the first language they learned,
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something other than English?
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Alright, so who thinks that this
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person is a native English speaker?
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Alright, who thinks that it's something
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other than English?
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Alright, so the majority on that was non-English.
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The majority on the first one was female,
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if you weren't looking around.
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Alright, so where is this person from?
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Alright, I'll make it easy again.
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Let's say that this person is a native Mississippian,
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say born right here in this state
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or they were born somewhere else, alright?
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Okay, so who thinks this person is a native Mississippian?
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Alright, who thinks this person was born somewhere else?
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Majority have it with the somewhere else.
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Alright, guess what?
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Surprise, this person is me.
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Alright, so I am Mahnas Jean Mohammadi-Aragh,
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that is my full name.
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I was born right here in Starkville, Mississippi
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and of course, the first language I learned was English.
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Alright, I know that there's some people
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that got 100%, namely 'cause there's some
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students of mine in this class today,
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but who thinks, who got a 100%, be honest.
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Alright, this is like more than has ever happened before,
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but I see my students (laughs).
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So, what I'll say is when your first going
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into your classroom and you're looking at your students
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and we value diversity and inclusion here
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at Mississippi State.
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The first thing you need to do is acknowledge your biases.
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You all have them.
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Everyone who didn't get that 100%,
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you looked at that name and you thought,
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"This is a foreigner who can't speak English
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"and I don't wanna sign up for their class."
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How do I know that?
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Because it happens every semester.
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We have two sections of Introduction to Circuit Analysis
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in Electrical and Computer Engineering.
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Everybody signs up for the English faculty member
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and they don't sign up for me
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and I walk in and I'm like, "Sweet, I have less to grade."
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(laughter)
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It's wonderful.
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Alright, so acknowledge your biases.
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You have them, whether it's with international,
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where someone's from, it doesn't mean that it's
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a harmful thing, it just means that you assume
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things when you see someone or see their name
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or something like that.
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So, don't try to make those assumptions
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hurt your students, you acknowledge that you have them
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and be very fair with all of your students.
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At the same time, keep in mind that all of your students
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have biases too.
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So, just like you have biases about who I am,
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they have biases when they sign up.
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You could get angry at it.
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Like I said, I have less to grade, it's awesome.
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I also like surprising my students
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when I come in the first day and speak fluently, English
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and they can understand, for the most part,
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what I say, I think I might have a Southern accent,
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since I am from Mississippi,
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so if they're from the North, maybe not, I don't know.
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Alright, but one thing you can do
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is try to help your students be more comfortable
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in your classroom.
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So, I know that my last name is a mouthful.
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So, somebody wants to call me Dr. Mohammad-Aragh,
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that's gonna be challenging, unless maybe you've
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met one of my siblings or from, my dad's from Iran,
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so, if you're from Iran, you probably know
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how to pronounce my name, but, I kind of break it down.
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I'm gonna make you feel a little bit more comfortable.
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So, Mohammadi-Aragh, it's actually really easy, alright?
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So, we've all heard of the boxer, Muhammad Ali,
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or maybe the profit Muhammad,
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so, we can all say Mohammad, yeah?
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Mohammad, alright.
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Then there's that i on the end,
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messing it all up.
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It's just like a d, so Mohammadi, Mohammadi
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and then the other part that's a little tricky,
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is that gh on the end of Aragh, it's a k sound,
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it's kind of like a Loch Ness Monster,
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so kind of like a girl stock,
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so, I have a picture of Iraq up there
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because it's a like a rock you pick
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up off the ground, yeah?
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So, Mohammadi-Aragh.
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(audience in unison) Mohammdi-Aragh.
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This is wonderful, every graduate I see on this campus
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can pronounce my name, yeah (laughs).
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Alright, it's not that bad,
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alright, also the students in my department
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call me Dr. Jean, it doesn't bother me.
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You know, some people may want to be more formal,
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especially as new teachers, you're younger,
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you're closer to their age,
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so, perhaps, you wanna be more formal
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and be Mr. and Mrs. last name,
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for me, it doesn't really matter.
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You can do little things like that.
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Alright, so, what I'm gonna talk about
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for the rest of this is these tips
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in order to create inclusive, positive,
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diverse environments and kind of support everybody.
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So, there's these five tips.
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The first one is acknowledge biases,
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we talked about that ad nauseam.
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I want to, these say steps up there,
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it's more like strategies, you don't
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have to do everything, you can pick one or two,
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things that may be more appropriate
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for your classroom environment
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or that your more comfortable doing,
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the acknowledging biases is kind of a big one
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because that's a common thing across classrooms,
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but maybe some of the other things aren't.
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So, we just really wanna make our classrooms
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equitable and make sure it's fair
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for all of the students coming in.
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Alright, so also I'm in engineering,
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so a bunch of my examples are gonna come from engineering,
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they may be totally inappropriate for your discipline,
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so when I'm talking about an under-represented group
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member, a lot of my examples are women,
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'cause I'm in electrical engineering
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and come on, there's like two women faculty
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and maybe 10 female students in there.
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So, if you're a female and want to major
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in electrical engineering, we're recruiting.
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No, I'm kidding (laughs).
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So, the first is, equip the under-represented group member.
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Again, for me, this tends to be female.
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It's also African American and other minorities,
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but if you are in a major where it may not be female,
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it may be male, so just kind of flip it around.
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Alright, so in this strategy or tip,
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there's an assumption, underlying assumption
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that the under-represented group member is deficient.
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So, this is kind of a bad assumption to have
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unless there is some truth or something to it,
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but you have to be really careful using this strategy
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because you don't wanna have your biases assume
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that there's a deficiency and then go forth,
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it needs to be something that really exists.
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So, for example, in engineering,
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we have spatial visualization and what that is
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is, I guess we can look at the clicker.
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You have this object.
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I'm looking at it from this direction.
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I want to know what's on the other side,
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so without flipping it, can I sketch the other side?
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So, this is kinda symmetrical, it's not that big of a deal,
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but, if you have like a bigger shape,
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like maybe a gear or something like that,
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being able to rotate that in your head
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and draw it and like know what that looks like,
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women have a harder time doing that than men.
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It is proven, I can't tell you why.
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There's some theories, like perhaps,
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because women play less with Legos and shapes
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where they're building things
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and maybe that's something that they don't learn.
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Maybe it's something that's inherently genetic.
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They're not really sure, but I can give
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a spatial visualization test and women
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will typically perform worse.
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That doesn't mean that there are no guys that perform worse.
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So, one thing we sometimes do in engineering,
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especially for engineering students that are
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freshman, first getting in there,
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we may have some spatial visualization help,
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maybe it's an extra course, maybe it's something
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you can do outside the class, just some hints
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or maybe it's part of your introduction class.
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So, we're trying to equip everyone
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to make sure that there's a level playing field.
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So, if you're struggling with that,
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these like, extra help, may get you there.
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Of course, it's not really fair to say all women
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need to sign up for this and no one else does.
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Okay, 'cause there's guys that have a hard time
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with spatial visualization too.
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So, one way we can do that in engineering,
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is we can give all entering freshman
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the spatial visualization test
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and if you score less than 70%,
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we can can sign you up for a spatial visualization class
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to help you out because we're equipping you
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with the skills to be successful in engineering.
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That sounds more fair to me, yeah?
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If you go take the class, there are more women than men,
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but we didn't stick you in there just because
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you were female, that make sense?
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Alright, so, same if you're doing something with shop,
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like sometimes minority men might not have had
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as much experience or been able to be
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in the environments where they're using
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these machining tools, so maybe having something
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after class where they can come practice that skill
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to get a little better.
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Alright, so, now, your disciplines are all different.
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I don't know what skills you need.
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You likely are not sitting next to the same person
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in your discipline, but you might be,
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but, I want you to turn to the person next to you
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and talk about your disciplines and just real quickly,
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is there some strategy you might think of
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that would be more appropriate for your discipline
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or am I totally off the wall crazy up here?
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Alright, go.
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It should be really loud in here, yeah.
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(audience murmuring)
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Alright, let's come back together.
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You all are way better than freshman (laughs).
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Alright, there's always a danger in this,
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I don't know if I'll be able to come back, we'll see, okay.
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So, does anyone have an example that
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they want to share with the group?
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(laughter)
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No, we do not want to talk in front of this group.
260
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Alright.
261
00:12:04.418 --> 00:12:07.132
So, I am in history,
262
00:12:07.132 --> 00:12:09.299
and one thing I've noticed
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is that, I work with international students
264
00:12:14.963 --> 00:12:17.481
in the last school and when you're
265
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dealing with international students
266
00:12:19.030 --> 00:12:22.494
you can't assume some of the basics about
267
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American history that anyone living here would know.
268
00:12:25.464 --> 00:12:29.033
You can't assume that they know President Kennedy
269
00:12:29.033 --> 00:12:32.700
was assassinated or that Abraham Lincoln was
270
00:12:34.391 --> 00:12:36.350
president during the Civil War.
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You have to talk to someone like you would
272
00:12:40.339 --> 00:12:42.298
want someone to talk to you if you were going
273
00:12:42.298 --> 00:12:46.686
to China, you probably don't know that much about China.
274
00:12:46.686 --> 00:12:50.362
Absolutely, that is a wonderful example.
275
00:12:50.362 --> 00:12:53.369
So, an international student who's taking history
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00:12:53.369 --> 00:12:55.964
classes may not recognize, your example was
277
00:12:55.964 --> 00:12:58.743
President Kennedy was assassinated,
278
00:12:58.743 --> 00:13:00.577
I could even take that one step further.
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00:13:00.577 --> 00:13:01.944
When my father came here,
280
00:13:01.944 --> 00:13:03.541
he came here as an undergraduate degree,
281
00:13:03.541 --> 00:13:05.408
he didn't speak English
282
00:13:05.408 --> 00:13:06.332
and when he was in history,
283
00:13:06.332 --> 00:13:10.536
he didn't know that George and Washington were names.
284
00:13:10.536 --> 00:13:11.484
(laughter)
285
00:13:11.484 --> 00:13:14.124
He just knew that those were English words.
286
00:13:14.124 --> 00:13:17.763
So, President Kennedy, is Kennedy a name?
287
00:13:17.763 --> 00:13:21.432
Is that a place, a person, is that a food?
288
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I'm not sure (laughs).
289
00:13:23.136 --> 00:13:25.307
So, of course, he did take some English classes
290
00:13:25.307 --> 00:13:27.327
and picked up on that, but he talks about
291
00:13:27.327 --> 00:13:29.199
history being one thing that he definitely
292
00:13:29.199 --> 00:13:31.303
struggled in because there's so many words
293
00:13:31.303 --> 00:13:35.656
that are names, so yes, something to keep in mind.
294
00:13:35.656 --> 00:13:37.295
Alright, I also really love that example
295
00:13:37.295 --> 00:13:38.769
'cause it's totally different than engineering
296
00:13:38.769 --> 00:13:41.107
and something I hadn't thought about.
297
00:13:41.107 --> 00:13:42.814
Alright, so hopefully, you're able to
298
00:13:42.814 --> 00:13:44.232
come up with maybe something in your discipline.
299
00:13:44.232 --> 00:13:46.054
Again, keep in mind, this is something that
300
00:13:46.054 --> 00:13:47.825
you don't have to employ,
301
00:13:47.825 --> 00:13:49.482
it's just a strategy that if there's something
302
00:13:49.482 --> 00:13:51.549
in your discipline you might be able to.
303
00:13:51.549 --> 00:13:53.308
Again, if you're also teaching a lab,
304
00:13:53.308 --> 00:13:55.787
you may not be able to do this,
305
00:13:55.787 --> 00:13:57.072
'cause they're coming in, they're testing,
306
00:13:57.072 --> 00:13:59.980
it's not like you're able to have lots
307
00:13:59.980 --> 00:14:04.035
of extra time to, you need to be protective of your time
308
00:14:04.035 --> 00:14:07.078
and so you don't have tons of extra time
309
00:14:07.078 --> 00:14:10.420
to teach a second course to help somebody out.
310
00:14:10.420 --> 00:14:12.715
Alright, so maybe the next strategy would work.
311
00:14:12.715 --> 00:14:15.146
This is create equal opportunity.
312
00:14:15.146 --> 00:14:17.868
So, we're talking about when you have a group
313
00:14:17.868 --> 00:14:21.206
and one thing that happens in engineering,
314
00:14:21.206 --> 00:14:23.131
when I was an undergraduate,
315
00:14:23.131 --> 00:14:26.714
I was usually the only female in the class.
316
00:14:27.584 --> 00:14:28.975
That's fine, I actually am kind
317
00:14:28.975 --> 00:14:31.584
of a bold extroverted female,
318
00:14:31.584 --> 00:14:34.437
so I don't think that it really impacted me personally,
319
00:14:34.437 --> 00:14:38.349
but, even though I'm a leader, I'm outspoken,
320
00:14:38.349 --> 00:14:41.426
I don't mind talking in front of 300 people,
321
00:14:41.426 --> 00:14:45.881
I often was given the role of secretary or scribe,
322
00:14:45.881 --> 00:14:47.817
as we call it now to make it sound better,
323
00:14:47.817 --> 00:14:50.022
(laughter)
324
00:14:50.022 --> 00:14:53.212
alright, so, if you have a situation, again,
325
00:14:53.212 --> 00:14:55.035
women, 'cause I'm in electrical engineering,
326
00:14:55.035 --> 00:14:58.535
it's where I see a lot, if you have groups
327
00:14:59.819 --> 00:15:01.398
and you kind of see that happening
328
00:15:01.398 --> 00:15:05.923
where somebody always gets put into this gender role,
329
00:15:05.923 --> 00:15:09.525
or some other role based on who they are,
330
00:15:09.525 --> 00:15:11.939
you might be able to do things to change that.
331
00:15:11.939 --> 00:15:15.347
So, one thing you can do is, like in engineering,
332
00:15:15.347 --> 00:15:16.715
if there were two girls in the class,
333
00:15:16.715 --> 00:15:18.704
you might put both of them on a team,
334
00:15:18.704 --> 00:15:19.710
'cause at least only one of them is gonna
335
00:15:19.710 --> 00:15:24.657
be secretary, no, (laughs) no, you can put
336
00:15:24.657 --> 00:15:27.299
both of them on a team because sometimes
337
00:15:27.299 --> 00:15:31.389
if you're a minority, you don't speak out as much,
338
00:15:31.389 --> 00:15:33.002
because you're kind of letting the group lead,
339
00:15:33.002 --> 00:15:34.838
but if they're both on that team,
340
00:15:34.838 --> 00:15:38.253
now they're not, there still may be three or four guys,
341
00:15:38.253 --> 00:15:39.994
but now there's like someone else kinda
342
00:15:39.994 --> 00:15:42.140
help them feel more comfortable in speaking out.
343
00:15:42.140 --> 00:15:45.163
The other thing you can do is kind of assign group roles.
344
00:15:45.163 --> 00:15:49.760
So, you're gonna be the scribe, 'cause I said so
345
00:15:49.760 --> 00:15:52.260
or you might try and assign roles based off
346
00:15:52.260 --> 00:15:54.437
what somebody's strength is or you might
347
00:15:54.437 --> 00:15:56.357
just rotate roles, so if there's multiple projects,
348
00:15:56.357 --> 00:15:59.461
who's the leader, who's the recorder,
349
00:15:59.461 --> 00:16:02.788
another fancy name for secretary, things like that.
350
00:16:02.788 --> 00:16:06.955
(audience member asking question)
351
00:16:26.237 --> 00:16:29.334
Yep, so the question was, she's been in
352
00:16:29.334 --> 00:16:31.657
creating group environments before,
353
00:16:31.657 --> 00:16:34.399
been in the situation and she's tried to encourage
354
00:16:34.399 --> 00:16:37.105
the minority or under-represented group member
355
00:16:37.105 --> 00:16:41.197
to take the lead or take on some other role
356
00:16:41.197 --> 00:16:43.055
and sometime it's challenging because that's
357
00:16:43.055 --> 00:16:44.232
not in their personality.
358
00:16:44.232 --> 00:16:45.825
So, that's absolutely true.
359
00:16:45.825 --> 00:16:47.804
I'm sure that there are many of you in here
360
00:16:47.804 --> 00:16:49.793
that if I asked you one by one to come up here
361
00:16:49.793 --> 00:16:54.299
and talk to everybody, the anxiety would just,
362
00:16:54.299 --> 00:16:55.721
really be there.
363
00:16:55.721 --> 00:16:57.698
So, it's not necessarily in your personality
364
00:16:57.698 --> 00:16:59.019
to be like this.
365
00:16:59.019 --> 00:17:02.019
So, I guess my advice there is maybe
366
00:17:03.251 --> 00:17:04.203
two different things.
367
00:17:04.203 --> 00:17:06.433
One is that definitely you can't force
368
00:17:06.433 --> 00:17:08.408
somebody to do something, but there are
369
00:17:08.408 --> 00:17:09.959
maybe other ways to encourage them.
370
00:17:09.959 --> 00:17:11.323
Maybe they're never gonna be the leader,
371
00:17:11.323 --> 00:17:13.840
but if you can rotate maybe through some
372
00:17:13.840 --> 00:17:17.840
of the other roles, we might have, someone who's
373
00:17:19.582 --> 00:17:23.369
the recorder of the meeting, the leader,
374
00:17:23.369 --> 00:17:25.225
maybe someone that's taking some lead
375
00:17:25.225 --> 00:17:27.475
on one of the research tasks that we need to go figure out
376
00:17:27.475 --> 00:17:29.836
the weight of a counterbalance to make
377
00:17:29.836 --> 00:17:32.349
the trebuchet shoot the ping-pong ball
378
00:17:32.349 --> 00:17:34.626
some distance, like maybe giving them another
379
00:17:34.626 --> 00:17:38.064
real substantial role could help.
380
00:17:38.064 --> 00:17:39.648
Another thing I do in my groups is,
381
00:17:39.648 --> 00:17:42.678
if I was gonna divide all of you all
382
00:17:42.678 --> 00:17:46.428
into groups, I like to do it really randomly.
383
00:17:47.265 --> 00:17:49.622
So, if you have a group where you let
384
00:17:49.622 --> 00:17:51.211
friends get together, so say there's three
385
00:17:51.211 --> 00:17:52.943
or four people that know each other
386
00:17:52.943 --> 00:17:54.560
and then a fifth person gets put on
387
00:17:54.560 --> 00:17:56.808
'cause you want to fifth, five person team,
388
00:17:56.808 --> 00:17:58.489
those four people already have a relationship
389
00:17:58.489 --> 00:18:00.198
and they're already gonna be communicating
390
00:18:00.198 --> 00:18:01.511
and you're gonna leave someone out,
391
00:18:01.511 --> 00:18:03.791
so especially if that is the unrepresented group member,
392
00:18:03.791 --> 00:18:06.071
that's a terrible situation to be in.
393
00:18:06.071 --> 00:18:09.302
So, when I do my first year engineering design
394
00:18:09.302 --> 00:18:12.028
projects with students, we have to have some
395
00:18:12.028 --> 00:18:15.013
programming and MATLAB, so those type skills
396
00:18:15.013 --> 00:18:18.437
maybe we also need team skills, so someone
397
00:18:18.437 --> 00:18:20.301
who's worked on a project before or something.
398
00:18:20.301 --> 00:18:22.036
So, I can do this, I can say, "Who in here
399
00:18:22.036 --> 00:18:26.248
"has ever programmed in MATLAB, raise your hand.
400
00:18:26.248 --> 00:18:28.696
"Alright, who in here has every programmed
401
00:18:28.696 --> 00:18:32.863
"in any language like C++, Perl, maybe even HTML, alright.
402
00:18:34.652 --> 00:18:39.532
"Who in here has worked on a design team before?"
403
00:18:39.532 --> 00:18:41.482
So, the hands are going up, okay, alright,
404
00:18:41.482 --> 00:18:42.868
and I'll go through a few more questions
405
00:18:42.868 --> 00:18:44.683
and at the end when I'm trying to make sure
406
00:18:44.683 --> 00:18:46.665
I got everybody, I might have some sneaky
407
00:18:46.665 --> 00:18:48.590
things that I do, but okay, so we've done this so far.
408
00:18:48.590 --> 00:18:51.005
So, you see, we have some skills that are distributed
409
00:18:51.005 --> 00:18:53.490
among this class and so I'll say,
410
00:18:53.490 --> 00:18:55.078
"Okay, if you've programmed in MATLAB before,
411
00:18:55.078 --> 00:18:56.922
"y'all don't do this right now, but if you've
412
00:18:56.922 --> 00:18:58.753
"programmed in MATLAB before, come line up,
413
00:18:58.753 --> 00:19:00.273
"starting right here around the room."
414
00:19:00.273 --> 00:19:01.401
So, all the MATLAB people come down,
415
00:19:01.401 --> 00:19:03.333
'cause that's a big skill 'cause you're gonna
416
00:19:03.333 --> 00:19:04.385
be using MATLAB.
417
00:19:04.385 --> 00:19:06.849
Now, all the MATLAB people are there,
418
00:19:06.849 --> 00:19:08.745
so anyone up here who said that they had programmed,
419
00:19:08.745 --> 00:19:10.906
I want you to keep lining up around the wall.
420
00:19:10.906 --> 00:19:12.650
So, now the people that have programmed,
421
00:19:12.650 --> 00:19:13.952
'cause that's similar to MATLAB,
422
00:19:13.952 --> 00:19:15.514
so that's another good skill.
423
00:19:15.514 --> 00:19:17.368
Maybe you've been on a design team before,
424
00:19:17.368 --> 00:19:19.424
so you have some teaming experience,
425
00:19:19.424 --> 00:19:21.453
maybe in high school, so you're lining up around the room
426
00:19:21.453 --> 00:19:26.277
and I line everybody up and then I'm getting to the end,
427
00:19:26.277 --> 00:19:28.495
nobody's admitting to knowing anything at this point.
428
00:19:28.495 --> 00:19:32.558
So, I'm like, okay, so if you're from Starkville
429
00:19:32.558 --> 00:19:33.709
and you're still sitting up there,
430
00:19:33.709 --> 00:19:37.266
come line up and if you're from anywhere else,
431
00:19:37.266 --> 00:19:38.198
come line up.
432
00:19:38.198 --> 00:19:40.413
So, now I got everybody lined up around the class
433
00:19:40.413 --> 00:19:42.612
and it would be zigzagged all through the auditorium
434
00:19:42.612 --> 00:19:43.755
if we were doing it in here
435
00:19:43.755 --> 00:19:45.975
and I'm like okay, I know how many students I have,
436
00:19:45.975 --> 00:19:47.675
I have 100 students, I want teams of five,
437
00:19:47.675 --> 00:19:49.184
so that means I'm gonna have 20 teams
438
00:19:49.184 --> 00:19:50.227
and I start counting.
439
00:19:50.227 --> 00:19:51.605
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight,
440
00:19:51.605 --> 00:19:53.440
nine, ten, eleven, twelve, up to twenty.
441
00:19:53.440 --> 00:19:55.342
One, two, three, four, five, six, up to twenty
442
00:19:55.342 --> 00:19:58.080
and now what happened is, I have the first 20 people
443
00:19:58.080 --> 00:20:00.062
are people that knew something about programming,
444
00:20:00.062 --> 00:20:02.992
so every team has a programmer on it.
445
00:20:02.992 --> 00:20:05.949
Every team has someone who's been on a team before,
446
00:20:05.949 --> 00:20:07.840
so they can provide some experience
447
00:20:07.840 --> 00:20:09.904
and it doesn't quite work out,
448
00:20:09.904 --> 00:20:11.290
if we only had seven programmers and had 20 teams,
449
00:20:11.290 --> 00:20:13.101
but at least I spread it out,
450
00:20:13.101 --> 00:20:14.700
so you don't have one team where everybody's
451
00:20:14.700 --> 00:20:16.930
done MATLAB and they're gonna be way up here.
452
00:20:16.930 --> 00:20:18.869
The other thing that happens is,
453
00:20:18.869 --> 00:20:19.981
I just randomly put you up there
454
00:20:19.981 --> 00:20:21.599
and if you went up there with your programmer friend
455
00:20:21.599 --> 00:20:23.498
and stood beside him, like yeah, we're gonna
456
00:20:23.498 --> 00:20:25.090
be a team together, I'd just put you on different teams.
457
00:20:25.090 --> 00:20:29.257
So, what happens is, you would see, as the students,
458
00:20:30.239 --> 00:20:32.409
that it was just really random.
459
00:20:32.409 --> 00:20:35.377
I didn't show any preferential treatment to anybody.
460
00:20:35.377 --> 00:20:37.196
You would also see that all the skills
461
00:20:37.196 --> 00:20:39.310
were kind spread out as well
462
00:20:39.310 --> 00:20:42.005
and then, you're not with your friends.
463
00:20:42.005 --> 00:20:44.461
So, that's another strategy you might be able to use to help
464
00:20:44.461 --> 00:20:46.190
'cause if I'm down here and I'm like,
465
00:20:46.190 --> 00:20:47.023
well, I don't know how to program,
466
00:20:47.023 --> 00:20:49.166
but I know that there's someone else that can on my team,
467
00:20:49.166 --> 00:20:52.833
maybe that will empower me a little bit too.
468
00:20:53.803 --> 00:20:56.553
Alright, so if this doesn't work,
469
00:20:58.151 --> 00:20:59.449
maybe you're not doing teams,
470
00:20:59.449 --> 00:21:02.290
maybe there's not some way that you need to create
471
00:21:02.290 --> 00:21:05.788
equal opportunity, maybe you can use this strategy,
472
00:21:05.788 --> 00:21:09.884
which is value differences and this one, I'll admit,
473
00:21:09.884 --> 00:21:12.843
I am the worst about, okay?
474
00:21:12.843 --> 00:21:14.367
So, this is just pointing out that under-represented
475
00:21:14.367 --> 00:21:17.184
group members have a lot to contribute,
476
00:21:17.184 --> 00:21:20.040
so the great example, again, we'll go back to being
477
00:21:20.040 --> 00:21:22.542
female in electrical engineering,
478
00:21:22.542 --> 00:21:24.589
when I'm talking about engineering managers,
479
00:21:24.589 --> 00:21:28.900
the names that I naturally use are Bob, Tyler,
480
00:21:28.900 --> 00:21:31.067
John, let's list them out.
481
00:21:33.700 --> 00:21:37.867
So, all these male names and I was giving a lecture one time
482
00:21:39.061 --> 00:21:42.129
and it was actually Dr. Bruce who was observing me
483
00:21:42.129 --> 00:21:44.686
as a new instructor, kind of giving me some feedback
484
00:21:44.686 --> 00:21:48.059
and guidance and he said, "Jean, when you talk about
485
00:21:48.059 --> 00:21:51.499
"engineering managers, you never use a female name
486
00:21:51.499 --> 00:21:54.082
"in your word problems, never."
487
00:21:55.523 --> 00:21:57.085
Because, I guess it's like something I didn't really see,
488
00:21:57.085 --> 00:21:58.582
but at the same time,
489
00:21:58.582 --> 00:22:00.540
if you are a female in my class,
490
00:22:00.540 --> 00:22:01.904
luckily you would say,
491
00:22:01.904 --> 00:22:06.287
"Well, she's female, so maybe I can succeed in engineering,"
492
00:22:06.287 --> 00:22:09.947
but if I'm always just talking about males,
493
00:22:09.947 --> 00:22:14.179
maybe you start to think that this isn't the place for you.
494
00:22:14.179 --> 00:22:15.791
Also, there's the important thing of
495
00:22:15.791 --> 00:22:17.466
when we're different, we see things differently.
496
00:22:17.466 --> 00:22:19.737
So, if you come from a different country,
497
00:22:19.737 --> 00:22:23.134
you've learned differently and you may
498
00:22:23.134 --> 00:22:27.301
have a perspective that's very valuable to the team.
499
00:22:28.777 --> 00:22:31.168
So, I don't necessarily have an example for the classroom,
500
00:22:31.168 --> 00:22:32.601
but I could talk about my husband and I
501
00:22:32.601 --> 00:22:34.254
and how we see things differently
502
00:22:34.254 --> 00:22:37.220
and we were climbing this trail up to the waterfall
503
00:22:37.220 --> 00:22:40.926
in Yosemite Park and at the very end of it,
504
00:22:40.926 --> 00:22:42.550
if you've ever been out there,
505
00:22:42.550 --> 00:22:45.446
you're like climbing along the edge of a cliff
506
00:22:45.446 --> 00:22:47.274
and the path is like this wide
507
00:22:47.274 --> 00:22:49.948
and this is a cliff and this is a drop down,
508
00:22:49.948 --> 00:22:51.933
and I am not okay with that
509
00:22:51.933 --> 00:22:53.828
and they had this railing and you touched the railing
510
00:22:53.828 --> 00:22:55.730
and it shakes like this,
511
00:22:55.730 --> 00:22:58.865
and I'm like, oh my god, I'm not even touching
512
00:22:58.865 --> 00:23:01.751
that railing, I don't wanna be on that side at all,
513
00:23:01.751 --> 00:23:03.904
it's so shaky but, on the other hand,
514
00:23:03.904 --> 00:23:07.925
my husband was walking along the side where the wall is,
515
00:23:07.925 --> 00:23:10.178
there's lots of rocks and things that have collected,
516
00:23:10.178 --> 00:23:12.734
so it's easier to trip and in his mind,
517
00:23:12.734 --> 00:23:14.520
he's like, "I'd rather be on this side,"
518
00:23:14.520 --> 00:23:15.694
where it's kind of a clear path,
519
00:23:15.694 --> 00:23:17.376
I'm like, "I'd rather be on this side
520
00:23:17.376 --> 00:23:19.284
"because that railing is not gonna hold me,"
521
00:23:19.284 --> 00:23:21.108
but he wasn't depending on the railing, I guess,
522
00:23:21.108 --> 00:23:22.682
I don't know, so, yeah.
523
00:23:22.682 --> 00:23:24.813
So, it's like a little silly thing when we got to the top.
524
00:23:24.813 --> 00:23:26.865
I'm freaked out, he's not freaked out.
525
00:23:26.865 --> 00:23:28.258
He's like, "This is beautiful, look,"
526
00:23:28.258 --> 00:23:31.181
so different perspectives, you can bring that to a team,
527
00:23:31.181 --> 00:23:34.293
you can bring that to an engineering experience as well.
528
00:23:34.293 --> 00:23:38.382
Alright, so we talked about these three,
529
00:23:38.382 --> 00:23:42.530
really quick, the last one is change the culture.
530
00:23:42.530 --> 00:23:44.473
This one I'm not gonna belabor too much
531
00:23:44.473 --> 00:23:46.551
because a lot of this has to do with maybe,
532
00:23:46.551 --> 00:23:49.577
as you move on from your graduate teaching position
533
00:23:49.577 --> 00:23:52.597
into a faculty position or into a leadership position,
534
00:23:52.597 --> 00:23:56.757
you might be able to really do something to
535
00:23:56.757 --> 00:23:58.208
change the culture.
536
00:23:58.208 --> 00:24:00.150
In engineering, we have a lot of things about
537
00:24:00.150 --> 00:24:01.816
changing the conversation, so this is like,
538
00:24:01.816 --> 00:24:03.418
be more inclusive in using women as examples
539
00:24:03.418 --> 00:24:06.419
of engineers and things like that.
540
00:24:06.419 --> 00:24:08.213
What you could consider doing is
541
00:24:08.213 --> 00:24:09.820
using a different classroom pedagogy,
542
00:24:09.820 --> 00:24:11.000
so instead of just lecturing,
543
00:24:11.000 --> 00:24:12.626
you might be able to do active learning
544
00:24:12.626 --> 00:24:14.415
or something like that in order to,
545
00:24:14.415 --> 00:24:16.949
kind of, people learn differently,
546
00:24:16.949 --> 00:24:19.461
and so it might be better for different group members
547
00:24:19.461 --> 00:24:23.628
to learn with problems instead of you just lecturing.
548
00:24:25.002 --> 00:24:26.107
So, the five things in this review is
549
00:24:26.107 --> 00:24:28.923
acknowledge biases, equip the under-represented
550
00:24:28.923 --> 00:24:31.463
group member, create equal opportunity,
551
00:24:31.463 --> 00:24:33.689
value difference and change culture.
552
00:24:33.689 --> 00:24:34.632
If you want to know more about these,
553
00:24:34.632 --> 00:24:36.361
there's a web link where there's a webinar,
554
00:24:36.361 --> 00:24:39.716
and this is actually an hour and a half seminar,
555
00:24:39.716 --> 00:24:41.599
so you can learn more about any of them individually
556
00:24:41.599 --> 00:24:43.426
or all of them together,
557
00:24:43.426 --> 00:24:44.758
but I encourage you to think about what
558
00:24:44.758 --> 00:24:46.569
might be useful in your classroom
559
00:24:46.569 --> 00:24:49.352
and then apply that as appropriate.
560
00:24:49.352 --> 00:24:53.519
Again, not all five of these, maybe one, maybe two.
561
00:24:54.730 --> 00:24:59.583
Alright, this is who I am, my email is jean@ece.msstate.edu
562
00:24:59.583 --> 00:25:00.476
if you have any other questions,
563
00:25:00.476 --> 00:25:01.753
I'm happy to answer them,
564
00:25:01.753 --> 00:25:04.249
feel free to email me, thanks so much.
565
00:25:04.249 --> 00:25:06.499
(applause)