It has been one year since CRLT has broadened its lens to center equity in our teaching and learning frameworks. Across workshops and programs, we’ve made decisions to emphasize teaching as a ‘corrective tool’ that works to actively disrupt practices of inequity in higher education. This year’s Equity-focused Teaching at Michigan May Series (formerly Inclusive Teaching at Michigan May Series) gives instructors opportunities to reflect on their own commitments to equity in teaching and learning, with a focus on how one’s teaching can be a corrective tool that transgresses limited notions of inclusion in the classroom. Some questions we will explore together during this year’s Series include: 

• How has our shift towards ‘Equity-focused Teaching’ (EfT) allowed you to be more responsive to the larger social, economic, and political conditions that shape teaching and learning? What teaching practices are you committed to maintaining? What practices and philosophies are you letting go of? 
• Where in your teaching are your commitments to making equity legible to your students? 
• How has teaching during pandemic times impacted your capacity to be trauma-informed in your engagements with students and colleagues?  And in this way, what does teaching allow you to heal? 
• What creative tensions emerge as you work to implement EfT in your classroom and in your discipline? How might these tensions necessitate action towards justice and equity? 

Now in its sixth year, this annual series of workshops is open to all U-M instructors. This series will feature sessions on equitable classroom practices, trauma-informed pedagogy, and assessment. Each workshop offers opportunities to engage with colleagues from across the university and to think through a range of equity-focused teaching questions, challenges, and strategies.You are welcome to register for one or all of the workshops in this one-week series. 

As you prepare to participate in this year’s ET@M, check out this new video illustrating CRLT’s framework for Equity-focused Teaching. This engaging new video brings together graphic recording, illustration, and research to provide instructors with a captivating and insightful visual guide for exploring equity-focused teaching at Michigan.