OLC Ideate—DEI Action Planning for Digital Learning Environments

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By Alexander Case, OLC Associate Vice President of Strategic Partnerships

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A free event for educators to discuss and operationalize our efforts to ensure equitable and inclusive access to digital learning environments.

Over the course of four days next week (June 1-4), the Online Learning Consortium (OLC) in partnership with the Every Learner Everywhere (ELE) network will host a series of working sessions designed to bring us closer to direct actions toward Equity, Inclusion and Diversity in the Digital Learning Environment via its second OLC Ideate focused on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Action Planning for Digital Learning Environments. 

This OLC Ideate is a follow-up event to the December 2020 series of salons that collected emerging ideas, reflections and inspirations about how to create and uphold equitable digital learning environments.This upcoming OLC Ideate event will begin with a live (virtual) kickoff session, review the outcomes from the December 2020 Ideate, and outline goals to help extend our collaboration, self-reflection, and shared work.  

The OLC Ideate will begin on Tuesday, June 1 with a live kickoff session for all participants. Wednesday and Thursday, June 2 and 3 will be active working sessions around topics generated in the December 2020 DEI Charter. Participants will choose up to four sessions to which they might contribute. Working sessions will include facilitated data reviews, group ideation and design sprints. Each day will offer two themes or tracks, and you can participate in those that most interest you. All tracks will be asked to produce a plan of action that accounts for activities at the individual, organizational, and professional levels. Themes include:

  • Leadership
  • Pedagogy
  • Advocacy
  • Research
  • Educational Technologies
  • Community Conversations

Friday, June 4 will bring us all back together to share progress, prioritize outcomes and make commitments going forward. 

The OLC Ideate format was born of the opportunity to engage our diverse and robust community of educators in conversations and collaboration around best practices for ensuring quality in online teaching and learning. This particular Ideate event represents the second phase of serious work to name and confront many endemic discriminatory practices within our learning systems and environments. We have since centered our work around the following driving question: How might we create infrastructure, resources and support to ensure that our digital learning environments are equitable and inclusive of ALL learners?

Didn’t join us for the first OLC Ideate DEI event? No worries! We’ve designed this follow-up event with you in mind, as well, and look forward to you joining us! We need you, as collaborators, partners, thought leaders, colleagues, and friends.

OLC is proud to sponsor this event as part of its work in the Every Learner network. Every Learner Everywhere consists of twelve partner associations focused on improving student outcomes for Black, Latinx, Indigenous, poverty-affected, and first generation students. We’ve each collectively determined that through intentional collaborations, we must identify and operationalize critical support initiatives for equity within digital learning environments.

For more information and to register for the event, please visit our website at: https://onlinelearningconsortium.org/attend-2021/olc-ideate-dei-action-planning-for-digital-learning-environments/#schedule 

 

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