EDUC 169 Cross-Cultural Bridges: A Humanist Approach to Education

Anti-Racism, Community Building, Culturally Relevant Pedagogy

Course Description

This course is designed to expand students' knowledge of how history informs present day dynamics of race, culture, and socioeconomic status in education. Students will examine how humanists in history navigated cultural differences. A critical discourse that centers on humanist pedagogy will be used to show how future educators, leaders, and students can evolve in their own identities to understand cultural differences and how they can create change. The course meets the Race and Ethnicity Graduation Requirement and GE Area C.

Overview of the Redesign Project

I have been teaching this course in person for several years and per students' requests, wanted to offer an asynchronous section. The most important feature of the course is building community, providing a safe space for students to discuss difficult topics such as racism, systemic issues, cultural identity, and cross-cultural alliances throughout history in small groups. Using culturally relevant pedagogy, my hope was to recreate community and reflective critical thinking in an asynchronous version of this course. My goal was to recreate my classroom discussions to a virtual space.

1. 1. Design and set up weekly discussion prompts
  2. Foster a positive and safe space for students to engage in discussions
  3. Create an environment where students feel "seen" through culturally relevant curriculum

Assessment of the Redesign Project

This table shows three ways I assessed my course redesign.
Encouraging Critical Dialogue	Creating Community	Validating Student's Responses
Screenshot of assignment for a weekly discussion Here is a sample of one of my Discussion Board assignments: Discussion #2 (Documentaries) - Small Group Discussion for Week 3 Watch the following two videos and then respond to the questions (6-8 sentences per question) below. Reply to two other people in your small group once they have posted responses. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGqWRyBCHhwLinks to an external site. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THGKl6JkH9wLinks to an external site. Discuss how these two videos demonstrate ideas of uplift suasion (term from the reading this week) and/or assimilationist ideas for both groups of students. Reflect on how you personally experienced this expectation in your own K-12 schooling and/or a good example of this going on in education today.	Screenshot of initial posts from Student A, reflecting on videos Although it is only Week 3, students began revealing themselves through their connections to the readings and videos. Here Student A is responding to Question 2 (see question in Column 1) on how they were impacted by assimilationist ideas in their K-12 education. She responds in her post: I have personally experienced this expectation in k-6 when speaking Spanish. I did not have many classmates that spoke Spanish but when I did I felt "at home" and it seemed to have bothered teachers I had in the past. At first, I thought it was maybe because she might think we were saying something bad but then I realized that she just began to treat me differently and pick on me in class. A different kind of "picking on me" to where I did not want to go to school. I was in the 3rd grade, and it broke me in the moment and almost made me feel embarrassed to speak Spanish, until i spoke to my mom about it and she reminded me to be a proud bilingual girl and to never let anyone stop me from speaking Spanish because it is not a crime.	Screenshot of Student A responding to two other students Student A then offers thoughtful responses to two other students in their small group, validating and affirming who they are and their experiences. Discussion #2 (Documentaries) - Small Group Discussion 3 Sep 14, 2025 8:41PM Student A Hello Student B, Thank you for sharing your experience with us. It’s unfortunate that just because your mom filled out a paper saying Spanish was spoken at home, they felt the need to take you out of class to “test you”. Unfortunately, schools seem to almost think oh “they need academic help” because they know two languages. You mentioned you were on honor roll and a smart kid but not even that was “good enough” for them to not take you out of the classroom and that’s really unfortunate. I’m glad your mom was able to speak to them and let them know that there was no reason to take you out of class. from Discussion #2 (Documentaries) - Small Group Discussion 3 Sep 14, 2025 8:47PM Student A Hello Student C, Thank you for sharing your experience! That’s unfortunate you had to experience all of that and not only from students but from teachers as well. Having a teacher compare you to others and say how you should act can be really hard on someone at such a young age, I’m sorry that the teacher felt comfortable enough to speak to you in that way. School should be somewhere you learn and make friends not to be confused on “who you are “ because the teacher feels as if you have to be “the exact same way” as the other Asian American students”. I hope you slowly get all of your confidence back and know that you should not change no matter what anyone has said in the past or says in the present. We all have our strengths and weaknesses but that’s what makes us human!

Reflection

A large part of my in-person classes is built around classroom discussions. Moving to an asynchronous learning space was challenging. I created weekly Discussion Board posts where students viewed videos or a PowerPoint presentation, answered specific questions regarding the content, posted their responses, and then were asked to reply to two other students in their small groups of four students. Typically, during my in-person classes, students like to stay with the same three or four individuals for the whole semester and they get to know one another pretty well. I did my best to recreate a similar online experience by using these same parameters.

I was surprised how quickly many students readily revealed issues they experienced in their childhood. What also stood out to me was how kind and thoughtful they were in their responses to one another, empathizing and validating their K-12 experiences as well. We can see this clearly in Student A's initial posts and responses to two other students in their group.

The biggest challenge was due to Canvas. Due to the delay of some students responding to one another, I was unsure if they all read the responses from other students. The most important step I will do next is to create a Qualtrics survey for my students to see how they experienced the Discussion Boards and what worked and what didn't work for them.

Faculty Biography

This table includes my faculty biography.
	Dr. Angela Leslie is an Associate Professor in Undergraduate Studies at the College of Education at California State University, Sacramento. Her teaching focuses on anti-racism and curriculum that centers on how institutional practices and policies influence gender, race, and socioeconomic disparities in education. Her research has focused on the underrepresentation of Latinas in K-12 history textbooks and how college students’ learning about humanists in history can promote cross-cultural alliances today. Dr. Leslie and Dr. Rose Borunda co-authored the book, Learning from the Path of Our Better Selves as a model to further examine racism and cross-racial relationships through the lens of history.

**Program Sponsors**
	This work was supported by: Sacramento State Academic Affairs - Center for Teaching and Learning