The Walker Konigar Group

We have provided workshops at a variety of Conferences around the United States on different topics.  You can review a short list of previous workshops:

1. Seeing the Common Humanity
   As tensions are running high pertaining to race on many college campuses, it is important to temper the rhetoric. We are to explore how we all have feelings and bias that needs to be identified before we can even begin to work on developing Culturally Relevant Curriculum. 

2. Disrupting Salient Racial Beliefs
   In an attempt to understand ourselves, we need to realize that we all have implicit bias.  With the use of White Fragility, we can evaluate the importance of understanding race in order to analyze how we can improve our teaching practice and professional relationships.

3. How to be an Ally for People of Color
   Utilizing works such as, How to be an Anti-Racist, we explore what does an ally look like.  Utilizing examples from Black Panther, we examine the difference between a racist, an ally, and a white savior complex. 

4. The Whitening of the Curriculum
   The curriculum is intentionally developed around the concept of whiteness that pushes minorities out of the academy.  This presentation is striving to discuss how whiteness has shaped and continues to shape curriculum.

5. Creating Meaningful Online Discussions to Build Community
   The lifeblood of many classes is discussions.  We define a discussion and the purpose of a discussion in order to utilize it to build a sense of community within the class.  Many students hate discussions, while professors love discussions.  The disconnect is mainly due to professors needing to be explicit in the purpose and intent of discussions.

6. Building Community
   The importance of building community in the classroom is that it helps increase retention and overall student performance.  Many of the common issues within the class, such as distractions, tardiness, and retention are all tied to the type of community that has been created within the class.  Community is always being built; therefore, professors should be intentful in designing community.

7. The Politicalization of the Academy: Pepperdine University
   Evaluating how the university is intertwined with higher education.  This is a sample of how a university became aligned with a political party. It is through political alliances that helps develop fundraising plans.

8. Backward Design
   Before we walk in the classroom, we need to consider what would you like your students to learn.  What are our underlying expectations and hopes for each of our students?  Once we can identify those objectives, then we need to consider how it is aligned with our course Student Learning Outcomes.  Finally, we can begin to outline how the course assessments and course readings can help demonstrate the SLOs.

9. Don't Break Your Soul
   We will discuss ways to build your class to demonstrate your joy, so your students can share in your joy for the        class and maintain high student success. Your joy is their joy!

10. Develop Course with Intention & Purpose
    ​How to create a more engaging English 101 course with a diverse population.  I provide sample assignments and an outline of the course with reading material.​​​​​

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