Equity-Minded Pedagogy Spring 2025 supported by Center for Teaching & Learning at Sacramento & the Chancellor's Office.

Equity-Minded Pedagogy | Pooria Assadi

Student Success Gap, Affordable Education, Active Learning

Reflection on Instructional Change:

A Los Angeles Times article pointed out that failing or withdrawing at high rates (i.e., high DFW) and experiencing equity gaps in outcomes are serious issues for the students at the California State University (CSU). Data from the CSU Dashboard demonstrates that these issues apply to Sacramento State as well. The equity gap for the Underrepresented Minority (URM) students remains an issue, with the data from the Office of Institutional Research, Effectiveness, and Planning showing that the graduation rates of full-time undergraduates significantly varies by race.

The most current data from the CSU Dashboard demonstrates opportunities for improvement within various courses on our campus. For example, MGMT 117: Business Ethics and Society. This writing-intensive GE course investigates "contemporary business issues and management dilemmas in relation to broad social concerns. Focus is upon public and private decision making in the business environment and how business practices, ethics, and social concerns interrelate. Topics such as the nature of property and profits, efficiency and human values, the balancing of claims of owners, employees, customers, and others in community, corporate responsibility, corporate governance, government regulation and international dimensions of public policy will be covered." The data shows that DFW (i.e., non-passing) rates as well as differences in GPA between URM and Non-URM and between First-Generation (i.e., neither parents attended any college) and Not-First-Generation could be improved in this course.

Unaffordable teaching and learning materials represent an important institutional barrier that undermines equity in student outcomes, especially in efforts to reduce DFW rates and GPA disparities across demographic lines. The high cost of textbooks and other required materials disproportionately affects URM and First-Generation students who tend to come from lower-income backgrounds at higher rates than their peers. When the course materials are unaffordable, students may delay or forgo purchasing required texts, and therefore less likely to be prepared for the class, participate in discussions, complete assignments, or succeed on assessments.

My interaction with the FLC activities was very helpful in implementing low/no cost teaching and active learning materials in my classroom and making improvements in the way of equitable pedagogy. The insights from our live sessions and resources from the facilitators were instrumental, so were reading and reflecting on my colleagues' experiences with the "student support" module. In particular, surveying my students and directly collecting data from them were crucial. Here are a few sample quotes from my students: (1) "I am very grateful for the zero cost approach of this course, not only from a financial aspect, but it also allows us (students) to read articles from multiple perspectives. I also appreciate the additional/optional readings and videos that are given because they contextualize the concepts in a relevant and often current way. Thank you for alleviating some of the costs for us, I really appreciate it and it is my opinion that many your future students would share my sentiment." (2) "I truly appreciate your effort and consideration for students' financial well-being. Your Zero-Cost approach has not hindered learning; in fact, it provides students with more relevant information on current trends and news." (3) "Having such a deep consideration for students and offering accessible content reinforces the ethical standards we discuss in the course. Seeing the concepts reflected in the course structure itself is immensely valuable."

**Faculty Bio**
Faculty Picture	About Me
Pooria Assadi	Pooria Assadi is an Associate Professor of Management and Organizations in the College of Business at California State University, Sacramento. His research interests include business ethics, decision making, and strategic management.

**This work was supported by:**
Projects	Logos
National Science Foundation Hispanic Serving Institution Project STEM Zone DUE 1832335 US Department of Education Hispanic Serving Institution Project Degree with a Purpose P031S210061 US Department of Education Hispanic Serving Institution Project STEM4Equity P031C210012 *Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation or the US Department of Education.