Innovative Education Conference Keynote Speakers

January 18, 2024

“Creating Inclusive and Welcoming Classroom Environments”

Dr. Kelly Hogan, Duke University
&
Dr. Viji Sathy, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Description of Workshop

Chapel Hill, NC Kelly Hogan (left), a biology professor at Duke University, has been developing a more inclusive and interactive teaching method for her large classes designed to curb racial and socioeconomic gaps in student performance. Hogan has collaborated with Viji Sathy, another UNC Chapel Hill professor who teaches statistics in the psychology and neuroscience department.
Travis Dove for The Chronicle

Teaching strategies that emphasize structured active learning can create more equitable classrooms and improve learning for all students. As an introduction to inclusive teaching techniques, Professors Kelly Hogan and Viji Sathy will ask participants to reflect on inequities and diversity in their classrooms through interactive, hands-on activities. After providing a framework for inclusive design and their own research results, Hogan and Sathy will lead participants through active learning exercises and case studies that explore inclusive techniques. Drawing upon their own teaching experiences and educational research, they will model approaches that can be readily implemented with any discipline or class size to help all students achieve to their potentials.

Workshop Objectives

  • Explain the inequities that arise in an unstructured learning environment.
  • Describe techniques that add structure and equity to a classroom.
  • Brainstorm ways to reduce the inequities in your own courses.

Speaker Information

Biography

Dr. Kelly Hogan, Professor of Biology at Duke University, and Dr. Viji Sathy, Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at UNC Chapel Hill are both award winning instructors with a combined 30+ years in the classroom. They are passionate about student success, equity, and inclusion. They have expertise on inclusive techniques and active learning in any size crowd, because both have significant experience teaching hundreds of students. They worked for many years together administratively at UNC Chapel Hill in which they led curricular initiatives, institutional grant projects, and helped build a variety of technology tools to support student success. Kelly and Viji have shared their work with faculty through hands-on workshops at numerous types of institutions. Both have been active in the scholarship of teaching and learning in their respective disciplines of biology and statistics and their work has been featured in a number of national publications such as The Chronicle of Higher Education and the New York Times. In 2022, they published a book titled: Inclusive Teaching: Strategies for Promoting Equity in the College Classroom, sharing practical ideas that often can be implemented quickly. 

Social Media

X/Twitter: @vijisathy @DrMrsKellyHogan #inclusiveteaching #inclusiveclassrooms

Pronoun and Pronunciation

Both Drs. Hogan and Sathy use the pronouns she, her and hers.
Dr. Sathy’s name is pronounced Viji (rhymes with Bridge-y) Sathy (rhymes with Cathy). You can listen to an audio pronunciation here: http://bit.ly/vijisathy_mp4