Dr. Karen Singer-Freeman sees the path to increase success for all students as incrementally taking baby steps until more equitable outcomes result. In her work mentoring faculty at Wake Forest University’s Center for Teaching and Learning or in her new position at George Washington University, Dr. Singer-Freeman encourages faculty to look beyond the final course grade to the more micro-moments within a class. “Every faculty member wants to measure student learning accurately.” However, frequently measurements of learning are imperfect and can be improved. 

Becoming more culturally responsive can be easier when targeting the micro-level of assignments because we can analyze them objectively. Critiquing our own work is easier at this level. With the assumption that demonstration of student learning is a reflection of effective teaching, instructors can identify what they need to do differently in the classroom and improve  assignments to limit  bias or barriers to demonstrating learning for under-served groups of students. 

Dr. Singer-Freeman cites fear as holding of us back from making equitable improvements.  Public shaming and national events have caused paralysis among many faculty who fear not being culturally-responsive or inclusive enough . We need to give ourselves and each other grace to make mistakes because every faculty member wants to measure their students’ learning accurately without bias. We need to take the shame out of making mistakes. The irony of how a movement about equity and inclusion has validated shaming people is not lost on her. 

To alleviate the fear of making serious mistakes, assessment professionals can give faculty and instructors small things they can do and help them measure the impact of these changes. We can make small changes to assignments until we see better evidence that our assessment tools are treating students more equitably. “And if you do enough small things, it's going to add up to big things. But don't do nothing, because you want to do the biggest thing.”