Work-Family Teaching VCS: Community Conversation
December 3, 2021
2:00-3:30pm GMT
(10:00-11:30am New York, US; 3:00-4:30pm London, UK; 11:00pm-12:30am Tokyo, Japan)
Educating the next generation on work and family-life issues is a vital and growing part of higher education curricula across disciplines. To begin to build a collaborative community of work-family-life educators, WFRN is sponsoring a virtual conference session (VCS) which we hope will become an ongoing series of informal community conversations.
What is the goal of this community conversation? This 90-minute session will provide work-life faculty the opportunity to informally share ideas, challenges, materials, and support. Three work-life educators will share specific examples of assignments and curriculum developments as a starting point for conversation. This session will be interactive, including breakout room discussions guided by participants, as well as a discussion of future community conversations and developing the WFRN teaching resources.
Moderators:
Caryn Medved, Professor, Baruch College, City University of New York, WFRN Teaching Specialist
Julie Wellmann, PhD Candidate, University of Minnesota, WFRN Membership Committee
Speakers:
Dr. Samantha K. Ammons
Associate Professor
Department of Sociology & Anthropology
University of Nebraska- Omaha
Do your students struggle with work-family theories? In this session, I present an assignment that I developed in my sociology work & family course. I ask my undergraduate and graduate students to keep detailed time diaries for several days and apply work-family theories (life course, bidirectional work-family conflict, bidirectional work-family enrichment, and boundary theory) to their lived experiences. My students use their time diary examples to illustrate and discuss theory within a paper that is 5-7 pages in length.
Renada M. Goldberg, PhD, LGSW
Assistant Professor
School of Social Work
Simmons University
When I teach work-family conflict (WFC), I work with students to understand how our current widely used scales and measurements do not fit the realities of so many workers: either through their family configuration (intergenerational caregiving, extended kinships, etc) or the reality of their work demands on their family roles (degrees of work schedule flexibility, autonomy, and supervisor support for low wage/hourly workers). There is a measurement mismatch for many working caregivers that ends up excluding their actual WFC experiences. In this session, I present an activity using 3 work-family scenarios that provide the basis for students to examine 2-3 widely used WFC self-reported measurement scales and 2 observational measurements (HR records). Either in small groups or as large group, considering the time, students critique the measurement goals of the scales and observational records and brainstorm possible solutions to this methods barrier in WFC.
Heather Cluley, Ph.D.
Associate Director & Assistant Teaching Professor
Graduate Programs in Human Resource Development
Villanova University
In 2020, Villanova University’s Graduate Program in Human Resource Development launched our Inclusion & Diversity Strategy certificate. We knew we needed to educate students about the context of diversity in the U.S. and Globally and dive deeply into HR analytics issues, but we also wanted to put inclusion first. Our Work, Family, and Career Considerations course helped us forge that connection between organizations’ strategic goals and the on-the-ground practices that foster inclusive environments and have the potential to help organizations attract and retain diverse employees. Students are asked to make a case for work-family programming as a way to meet DEI objectives, research work-family policies through the lens of different social identity groups, and propose new or improved programs that better meet diverse employee needs. In this workshop, I’ll describe some of these pedagogical ideas and how they could be applied for courses using other strategic perspectives (Sustainability, Innovation, Globalization, etc).
To register for the event and learn more about our upcoming events, click here or follow this link: http://wfrn.org/2021-virtual-conference-series/