In Celebration of International Women’s Day, Macmillan Learning’s co-leads from our WOMEN@ML Employee Resource Group, Susan McLaughlin (Executive Development Manager, Humanities) and Heather Halter Kimball (Digital Solutions Team Lead), share their thoughts about the digital gender gap.   Did you know?  Thirty-seven percent of women worldwide do not use the Internet 259 million fewer women have access to the Internet than men, even though they account for nearly half the world's population A global analysis of 133 AI systems across industries found that 44.2% demonstrate gender bias A survey of women journalists from 125 countries found that 73% had suffered online violence in the course of their work For International Women’s Day 2023, the United Nations is recognizing and celebrating women and girls “who are championing the advancement of transformative technology and digital education.” The theme “DigitALL: Innovation and Technology for Gender Equality” focuses on “the impact of the digital gender gap on widening economic and social inequalities,” while shining a light on the importance of protecting the rights of women and girls in digital spaces, and addressing online and information and communications technology (ICT) gender-based violence. Now, more than ever before, women depend on technology to communicate with family and friends, to work, learn, shop, make a doctor’s appointment, pay a bill, buy a train ticket, and so much more. If women can’t access the Internet or don’t feel safe online, they can’t develop the necessary skills to engage in digital spaces. This affects all aspects of their lives, especially educational and career opportunities in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. According to the UN, 75% of jobs will be related to STEM areas by 2050, highlighting the need to bring women into technology as a major priority. This will result in creative solutions and innovations that meet women’s needs and promote gender equality.  The UN reports that the gender gap in digital access keeps women from unlocking their potential as well as technology’s potential. Underrepresentation of women in STEM education and careers continues to be a major barrier to participation in tech design and governance. Additionally, the threat of online gender-based violence without legal protection can force women out of the digital spaces they do occupy.   The good news is that technology is providing opportunities for the empowerment of women and girls worldwide. From “gender-responsive digital learning to tech-facilitated sexual and reproductive healthcare, the digital age represents an unprecedented opportunity to eliminate all forms of disparity and inequality,” according to the UN. It’s a topic that’s important to WOMEN@ML, Macmillan Learning’s employee resource group for women, as their mission includes offering educational and volunteer opportunities for all women at the company and their allies to help them determine and reach their personal and professional goals. On International Women’s Day, the UN is calling on governments, activists and the private sector to “power on” in their efforts to make the digital world safer, more inclusive and more equitable.    ... View more

Last year, Macmillan Learning and instructors from 13 colleges that primarily serve Black, Latin, and Indigenous students set out to learn more about the impact of evidence-based teaching practices. These are practices that are shown to be effective and help to meaningfully improve student outcomes; many also support student motivation and engagement as well as increase accountability and perseverance. As part of that journey to learn more, Macmillan Learning partnered with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and instructors from institutions with an all too often marginalized student population. While there’s no shortage of research that demonstrates evidence-based teaching practices support students’ deeper learning of concepts and better development of problem-solving skills, there's still a lot more to learn, particularly to learn how to best use educational technology and courseware to support the most impactful implementation of evidence-based teaching practices..  “The research that we’re undertaking will help us better understand which practices are the most effective, how instructors are actually using them with the support of digital courseware, and the impact of those actions on the outcomes of marginalized students,” said Marcy Baughman, Executive Director of Learning Science & Insights. “There’s always room for new ideas and opportunities to do more, and we plan to use what we learn to develop even better solutions.” Baughman added, “We know that student success depends on what happens both in and out of the classroom, and we believe evidence-based teaching practices can make a difference. These practices can help students be better prepared for class, provide more opportunities to interact with course materials and to work on class assignments, and get better feedback from their instructors to prepare themselves for assessments. All of these activities contribute to student success. If courseware can help create opportunities to create an equal playing field for all students and improve student outcomes, we want to learn how.” About the Research Instructors from two- and four-year colleges were part of a study to learn whether (and how) a courseware platform such as Achieve can help to close equity gaps in course completion for historically and presently underserved students. The research, which was conducted by Macmillan Learning in partnership with instructors from 13 colleges, aimed to learn more about the impact of four evidence-based teaching practices through observation, a range of student surveys, weekly check-ins, implementation logs, use of specific tools within digital courseware, and an analysis of student course performance. The four practices include:  Outcome-driven instruction: The study measured the impact of tools within Achieve -- such as goal-setting and reflection surveys, learning objectives, and insights and reports -- on student success. Formative assessment with feedback: The study measured how use of formative assessments like mid-stakes testing, homework with adaptive quizzing (offering hints and targeted feedback) and interactive and low-stakes homework where students are given feedback, video hints, and opportunities to troubleshoot impacts student success. Active learning: The study measured how using iClicker (for attendance, polling, and/or in-class participation), Instructor Activity Guides, and other tactics impact student success. Metacognition: The study reviewed how activities that enhance metacognition and reinforce critical thinking skills -- like assignments that prompt explanations, opportunities to set and reflect on goals, and self assessment/confidence ratings with iClicker -- impact student success. “These best practices teach students soft skills like goal-setting, time management, and metacognition. We plan to quantify the impact of each of the four practices and learn more about the role Achieve and other courseware like it can play,” Baughman said. Introduction to Psychology and Sociology courses were selected for research because they are considered “gateway courses” -- foundational, credit-bearing, lower-division courses that act as gatekeepers to degree completion. Research for Introduction to Psychology will be done using Macmillan Learning’s digital learning platform Achieve featuring the best-selling Achieve for Psychology in Everyday Life, 6e, written by David G. Myers and Nathan C. DeWall. Research for the Introduction to Sociology courses will be done using Achieve for OpenStax Sociology, 3e.  Achieve was developed using learning science and in partnership with students and instructors. One of the key goals of the platform is to support students of all levels of readiness and to engage them in and out of class to improve their outcomes. Forthcoming opportunities to participate  Instructors teaching Psychology or Sociology at colleges that primarily serve Black, Latino and Indigenous students are encouraged to apply to participate in forthcoming studies. Research in the 2023 Spring semester will focus on students' sense of belonging and metacognition. The research seeks to understand the impact of using resources embedded within a digital courseware platform to improve students’ sense of belonging and metacognition skills alongside their relation to other outcomes of student success, like course retention, content knowledge and exam scores. Participation in either of these studies provides educators and their students an opportunity to contribute to the emerging research literature on the use of digital courseware to improve equity for traditionally underserved populations. Each instructor will receive a summary of research findings from their classes as well as the opportunity to be acknowledged for their contribution to the research.  Participating in the research also benefits students. In addition to receiving several gift cards, students that participate will have free access to their online courseware. Analysis of the research, which took place during the Fall 2022 semester and had more than 1,000 students opt-in, is currently underway by the company’s Learning Science & Insights team. Once completed, Macmillan Learning will make its findings publicly available and create an implementation guide with examples of evidence-based practices that can be used by any organization developing digital learning systems or other educational technology.  This spring, Macmillan is researching students’ sense of belonging and metacognition. This study, also done in partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, seeks to understand the impact of using resources embedded within a digital courseware platform to improve students’ sense of belonging and metacognition skills. The study will also examine whether improved sense of belonging and metacognition skills are related to other student outcomes such as course retention, content knowledge and exam scores. Instructors interested in participating in upcoming semesters for the evidence-based teaching practice or sense of belonging research can get additional details and learn how to apply here.   ... View more

A Bainbridge Island Story, 1942-2022 Bainbridge Island lies ten miles across Elliott Bay from downtown Seattle, accessed by ferry from Colman Dock at the Seattle Ferry Terminal. On a March morning last year, my wife (Kimberly), her close friend (Carina), and I boarded the Tacoma for the short ride, taking in the scenery from its foredeck. We were visiting Bainbridge Island at the invitation of Dave Myers, best-selling textbook author of Psychology and Psychology for the AP Course among several others, as well as books for the general public; his most recent, How We Know Ourselves, having been published last year. For the three travelers, two life-long friends with me tagging along, it was an opportunity to spend a few days on the coastal waters of Puget Sound away from our daily obligations. The invitation to the island from Dave and his wife, Carol, came with one request: Please visit the Japanese American internment memorial on Bainbridge Island.  Formally known as the Japanese American Exclusion Memorial and built on the land where the first internees were taken from their homes, the site preserves the memory of the tragic period in our nation’s history when Japanese immigrants and American citizens of Japanese descent were ordered and removed from their land, their homes, their communities, and their livelihoods and crudely transported to internment camps hundreds of miles away. Issued on February 19, 1942, by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Executive Order 9066 authorized the forced removal of all persons on the West Coast deemed a threat to national security to “relocation centers” in remote areas in six western states and Arkansas. The order resulted in the incarceration of 122,000 Japanese Americans, nearly two-thirds of whom were American citizens. The first removal, enforced by Civilian Exclusion Order #1, began with Japanese Americans living on Bainbridge Island.    The memorial is located on a budding landscape on the south end of Eagle Harbor, the cityscape of Seattle not far from view. On this March day the skies are clear and the temperatures a bit brisk as we make our way down the path: its first marker the sinking but orienting words: “Nidoto Nai Yoni” (Let it Not Happen Again). Designed as a “story wall,” and built out of old-growth red cedar, the memorial weaves into the natural landscape, guiding its visitors through wooded acreage recounting the experience of Japanese American families forced from their homes on Bainbridge Island for the duration of World War II. Remarkably, after four long years of internment, most of them would return to reclaim their land and practice the trades that they had hastily handed over to fellow residents under a community promise that their houses, farms, and property would once again be their own. This promise by their fellow residents rejected their government’s racist and xenophobic judgment that if any Japanese American may be a threat then all must be deemed worthy of relocation and imprisonment.  Placards line the exhibit, simply yet artfully designed, each one devoted to an individual or family removed from the island. Each person’s name is paired with their age at time of their forced relocation and recognizes the intergenerational impact on those taken from their homes: Hayano Moritani, 54; Nobuichi Moritani, 27; Tatsukichi Moritani, 24; Shigeru Moritani, 20… Otokichi Nagatani, 61; Kiwa Nagatani, 46; Ichiro Nagatani, 25; Kimiko Nagatani, 23; Kiyotaka Nagatani, 21; Miyoko Nagatani, 15. The placards appear to have no end, broken only by friezes etched into native wood depicting scenes of the families being herded away, children in the arms of their parents, the images ornamented by strings of origami left behind by visitors before us. Pinkish-red leaves of spring accent native growth of mahonia, salal, and shore pine bordering the walkway, steps from where two hundred and seventy-six residents of Bainbridge Island were shuttled to the Eagledale Ferry Landing over the course of the morning on March 30, 1942, federal troops at guard, rifles fixed with bayonets.  Nearly three thousand miles east, the grounds of Hyde Park in the Hudson Valley of New York are a long way from Bainbridge Island but a short drive from my home; stunning and beautiful, they overlook the Hudson River as it winds its way north of West Point. It is now autumn and my parents, Richard and Susan, are visiting. Both of them earned their graduate degrees in political science (inspiring their son to do the same many years later) and each remains a student of history. We are visiting Hyde Park to take in Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Presidential Library and Museum located on his family’s expansive estate. It's easy to find parallels in the beauty of the grounds at Hyde Park to what I remember from walking the coast of Bainbridge Island, but I’m on the lookout for something less panoramic: how the inspiration to bear record to one of our great presidents recounts his most grievous act. We make our way through the many exhibits, losing sight of each other as we are distracted by scenes of interest: recordings of FDR’s fireside talks intended to unite a nation, hallways devoted to legislation promising a New Deal, even his statements marking the end of Prohibition. I’m standing in front of a small piece dedicated to the events that followed the signing of Executive Order 9066, a brief mention of Eleanor Roosevelt’s opposition to the act (and her advocacy that followed), a short acknowledgement of its folly, a blight on his presidency it will say. No mention of Hayano or Nobuichi or Kimiko.  Allyship has been on my mind lately, in some ways because it is a newer term to my vocabulary; in other ways, because you come to learn it has always been present in our lives. On that day in March 2022, off the coast of Seattle and on a walkway as American as any other, I was left with gratitude for the allyship expressed by people in our lives like our friend, Carina, and our friends, David and Carol Myers. My wife and I would not have known about the memorial on Bainbridge Island without their insistence or understood their advocacy for it without the stories Dave had written; and the events and memories of that day would not have been as meaningful if we had not shared them with our dear friend, Carina. I’m grateful to the artists that dedicated their time to create a space worthy of the lives and events of the Japanese Americans on Bainbridge Island interned and wrongfully imprisoned during WWII. I’m also left thinking about the role of our communities and the manner in which the people of Bainbridge Island, no matter their ethnic background, took up the cause of their fellow residents’ well-being to ensure that they had homes to return to, land to farm, and trades to pursue. Each story, deserving of memorial, educates us and inspires us, and connects us with a history of allyship. It is one of the reasons why I’m grateful for colleagues that have come together to make Macmillan Learning the community it is today, and with special thanks to those colleagues who form our Pan Asian Alliance Network (PAAN) Employee Resource Group (ERG) and the way they encourage more of these stories to be lived and told.  The March day that I’m revisiting in memory and sharing with all of you ends with Kimberly, Carina, and I watching ships pass through Elliott Bay, many bound for East Asian ports, a few of them perhaps a signal light of how far Japanese and American relations have come. But today, February 19th, on the “Day of Remembrance of Japanese American Incarceration During World War II,” we remember the individuals, the families, their stories and their communities, like the ones on Bainbridge Island, that saw events unfold earning  their place in our nation’s history.  ... View more

On the red carpet for the 2017 Emmys, Issa Rae iconically declared that she was “rooting for everybody Black”. I cannot begin to describe how much I relate to that sentiment.  Some of my clearest memories involve my grandmother, Olivia, refusing to run any errands, schedule any appointments, or otherwise leave the living room of our home, when normally her attention was rarely glued to the television. Her excitement was visceral in 1996 when Dominique Dawes was the only Black member of the Magnificent Seven. I can recall not a single instance prior to that year when anyone in my household - in my life - had ever cared about gymnastics. My grandmother didn’t understand what we were watching; she didn’t know how the judges were scoring or what they were looking for. Grandma only cared about supporting Dominique.  But this was nothing compared to the feverish energy that came upon my grandmother whenever she heard the names Venus and Serena. She watched more than just the Olympics to get glimpses of these two phenoms, consuming the sport of tennis as if it had always been a passion in her life. She cheered with a rowdy tone that one generally hears coming from hockey fans. She cried when they won and cried when they lost. Her eyes would twinkle in anticipation when she realized one or both of them would be on television later that day. “I’ve got to watch Serena play,” Grandma would declare softly, and authoritatively, a reminder to all of us that whatever we were watching would come to a swift and necessary end.  Her enthusiasm wasn’t just limited to women, either. I was shocked by how much Grandma seemed to love golf as soon as she was introduced to Tiger Woods. Out of nowhere she began to follow the PGA Tour, and cereal boxes with his face found themselves in our kitchen cabinets. Not a single one of us had ever before eaten Wheaties.  She fell ill in the fall of 2007, suffering from a stroke that left her mostly paralyzed and unable to speak. But in the months before, she’d known about Barack Obama. She’d heard about him before I did, having started following him almost the exact moment he’d announced that he was running for president. I don’t think my grandmother knew anything about his politics, his platform, or his plans. I kept reminding her that he had to clinch the party’s nomination first. Yet she was so certain that he really could win - or, perhaps, she just wished for it so strongly that every other option fell away from sight.  Olivia passed away in August of 2008, before Obama’s historic victory. I thought of her when I heard the news, saddened by the fact that I wouldn’t get to see her dance or shed tears of joy for a man who had achieved what she, and many others, believed to be the greatest demonstration of Black excellence of all time. I cut clips from newspapers, just as she would have done, and tucked them into the photo album that she’d gifted me as part of my freshman starter package.  As a woman born in 1924, seeing Black people succeed in areas where very few people of color had been allowed access was everything to Olivia. She’d been raised in North Carolina, where her father’s hold on our family land was never secure, the system bent on taking the meager prosperity that belonged to him the moment that justification became available. She married my grandfather, and together they moved up north to Queens, NYC, hoping to create a better life for their family. Their children had a lighter complexion than Olivia, and she was harassed by strangers who accused her of kidnapping the children from white families. My mother remembers hands grabbing her chin, closely examining her features to confirm that she really was a colored child. They would demand Olivia prove that her babies belonged to her, that she had the right to have them in her care.  After growing accustomed to the treatment, my grandmother buried her dissatisfaction when my grandfather’s job forced them to leave the neighborhood and relocate to New Jersey, where they’d yet again be outsiders, to be scrutinized by a new set of unfamiliar people.   I knew enough about my grandmother’s challenges to know why it was so important to her to root for everybody Black. My grandmother, and many in her generation, believed that the success of any of us was a triumph for all of us. Anything positive that I accomplished, anything positive that any Black person accomplished, moved the needle towards equality and understanding, made us more human in the eyes of others, helped society to realize that we deserved rights and respect. My success, and my excellence, was never just for me - it was for the culture. I carried this pressure well into my adult life, and have come to recognize how it showed up in my career. Some of you have heard me share the story that publishing as an industry had been almost invisible to me, as a young Black woman in college. No one I knew worked in publishing, and only one person ever suggested that I consider it as an option. I was the only Black person in my internship group at a small not-for-profit publisher, and the only Black person in my office at my first full-time job publishing scientific journals. When I left there almost sixteen years ago, I started working at Macmillan Learning, and became one of few Black people in the 41 Madison office in New York City. We were all in different departments, and rarely interacted for work purposes, which meant I was often the only Black person in meetings and on conference calls. Back then I never explicitly acknowledged the weight that I assumed in response. But deep down I wanted - needed - to work hard, to succeed, to prove that I belonged, not just for myself and my love for the work that we do, but for the culture. For all Black people everywhere.  In recent years we have come closer to accepting that it is not the responsibility of Black people to prove their humanity to others. Those who do not see us as equals, as people, will not be convinced due to our athleticism, or scientific achievements, or artistic talents. Black Americans have managed to rise to astounding levels of success in diverse fields of interest, achieving firsts and setting records throughout, striving to make the dream come true. We also continue to endure traumas and indignities due to racial prejudices and harmful stereotypes. As I finish editing this essay, my heart is broken over the murder of Tyre Nichols, an act of police brutality that reminds us of the history of slave patrols and the horrific treatment of enslaved Africans in this country. No number of gold medals will stop racism in its tracks.  Our first employee resource group, BLACC (Black Leaders Actively Changing Culture), has given me a space to support Black colleagues and find community among them in a way that I was lacking, and desperately needed. BLACC came together to sponsor an externship program for young BIPOC students, offering three weeks of engagement where they would be exposed to various departments and positions throughout the organization, and would complete a project that highlighted their chosen interest. Being a member of the committee that brought this to life felt like a dream come true and is one of the most incredible things that I’ve ever been a part of. The BLACC Voices series is yet another way that we get to impact how colleagues think about the world, by bringing in guest lecturers to discuss topics of social importance, which in turn impacts the contributions that we make through our work. We must continue to have these conversations, as difficult as it might sometimes be, to ensure that Macmillan Learning is truly inclusive and equitable, to be both appreciative of the value of our team members as they bring unique perspectives and identities to their work, and intentionally acknowledge the vast diversity reflected in the students and instructors who interact with our products.  Today, I can’t help but to think of Olivia, cheering as loudly for me as she once did for Serena, and I’m motivated by the possibility that she would see my contributions as beneficial for the culture. I choose to keep doing that work, keeping the bigger picture in mind, doing what I can to move the needle forward in any way possible. I’m also relieved to know that my personal development and our social evolution allow me to be a fallible, honest, dedicated human being. That I can put down that pressure and just be myself. That even when I make mistakes, I am still succeeding, and somebody, somewhere, is rooting for me. ... View more

One of my most profound memories of growing up was having Sunday dinner at my grandmother’s house. My grandparents migrated north to New Jersey from the rural coast of North Carolina in the mid-fifties. They paved the way for my grandmother’s siblings to all eventually migrate north and settle with their families near my them at the Jersey shore.   My grandparents were proud people who sacrificed everything they had to provide passage for our family out of the  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivering his I Have a Dream Speech at the Civil Rights March on Washington, D.C. 08/28/1963 ARC Identifier 542069segregated south into the freedoms and opportunities promised in northern communities.  My sister and I were always excited to make the hour or so drive to the shore to visit my grandmother, the surviving matriarch of the family, on those Sunday afternoons after church.  Although our grandfather passed away when we were very young, we felt a strong sense of pride and love that we knew had been created by both of their hard work and steady hearts and was there, waiting to touch everyone who entered into that home.   By the time we arrived at my grandmother’s house, relatives had already begun to filter into the living room, laughing and sharing stories from the past. There was a familiar sense of safety and peace that we each felt knowing that we had created something special that we would always share -- a common heritage and history that transcended blood-ties and family trees. We were the survivors of Jim Crow and the promise now of an opportunity to be who we were always meant to be, a people born with freedoms and dreams.   The smell of great soul food and the sounds of warm laughter would bring us together in anticipation of a meal at the dining room table -- the most intimate space to share. When dinner was ready to be served, we would all stand around the dining room table and hold hands and pray. All the food would be perfectly assembled on the table, as we waited quietly for one of my uncles or my father to bless the meal.  In those moments, I noticed that on the wall in my grandmother’s dining room, was a picture of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. My grandmother had done what so many Black families had done who were survivors of the Jim Crow south and who had witnessed the call for America to step into the light of equality and racial justice.  She joined the ranks of countless Black southerners living in the north, who felt pride and even a duty to prominently display a picture of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in their home.  My young mind couldn’t appreciate the true meaning behind his presence at every Sunday dinner, watching over our every word and peering into our hearts with a stoic moral reminder of how far we’d come. There were plenty of framed pictures of family members freckled throughout my grandmother’s house on mantles, dressers, tables, and in photo albums that we enjoyed thumbing through after we had our fill of fellowship at the dining room table.  However, that picture hanging in my grandmother’s dining room was different from the other pictures set throughout her house. The picture of Dr. King wasn’t really a picture as much as it was an image of ourselves, reminding us of how fragile freedom really is and how the sacrifices of the civil rights movement can easily be undone when we forget the faces of those who dared to embolden our self-worth and our right to dream the impossible dreams that push America to be better to its people.  Dr. King was there with us- while we sat laughing together in the living room, while praying words of thankfulness before eating, and while we gathered ourselves to leave and return to our own homes.  He was there to remind us that freedom is a long march, not a fleeing spring, and that the best of him was in all of us as we marched forward into the promises that awaited us in the future. His eyes, faithful and focused, pushed us to never forget that just a generation prior to that moment, we were limited by the confines of segregation and a generation before that, we were oppressed by the yoke of slavery.  His presence, there in the middle of our family gathering each Sunday, was meant to motivate us to continue the march forward and uncover new opportunities, for ourselves and those around us. The march toward equality and the freedom to realize our greatest potential is not reserved for the privileged, but rather a blessing that we share with each other.  We reject the barriers of injustice and hatred that can so easily divide us as people. As I look toward remembering Dr. King during this national day of remembrance, I am honored to have had Dr. King’s presence alive in our family gatherings, reminding me to continue the march towards freedom and justice for all.  ... View more

Research has found that students who use their metacognitive skills have higher rates of success -- not only do they earn better grades, but they also gain a better ability to transfer knowledge and achieve higher graduation rates. It’s something that we’ve long been interested in at Macmillan Learning, and are excited to learn even more about -- especially as it relates to under-represented student populations. To that end, we partnered with The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to research and test equity-centered enhancements for digital courseware, such as our learning platform, Achieve, in the introductory courses of psychology and sociology. We believe that if we increase Black, Latino/a/x and Indigenous students’ sense of belonging and metacognitive skills in key gateway courses, then we can increase the likelihood of students successfully completing these courses along with other courses to come. But why is that? To explain better, it’s important to have a better understanding of what metacognition is and how it can impact student success. About Metacognition As was mentioned in the first part of this blog series, Metacognition is thinking about ways to improve your own thinking and learning processes. It’s valuable within an education setting because it helps students analyze new problems, identify which resources and strategies are useful to solve those problems, and also to assess and adjust their learning strategies as necessary. In other words, the metacognition required within self-regulated learning helps students to plan, monitor and evaluate their learning. Picture this scenario: A student is taking a low-stakes exam in their psychology class. They begin by reviewing all of the end-of-chapter questions to identify which questions they can answer straight away, and which they need to think more on and save for later. Throughout this process, they’re monitoring how many questions they have left and how much time they have before they need to turn their work in. Once they finish, they then reflect on questions they may have gotten wrong and some concepts they could have understood better. They decide to set aside time to look back on the chapter and join the class’ study group. Within this example, the student would have used all three metacognitive skills: planning, monitoring and evaluating. Planning: When students are setting goals for tasks, identifying the task’s critical features, and planning strategies to solve the task Monitoring: When students are tracking where they are in their learning and monitoring progress towards their goals Evaluating: When students are reviewing whether they met their goals and reviewing the strategies they used to accomplish them Using these skills will help make them a better student by enabling them to gain a deeper understanding of the class’ content and develop more productive ways to study. How Metacognition impacts student success At its heart, metacognition is a student’s ability to adapt problem-solving behaviors to different academic tasks. Primarily, it impacts the skills and motivations that control how a student learns, and it's critical for successful subject mastery and achievement. It’s also something that’s commonly referred to as self-regulated learning. By better understanding how they best learn, students will not only retain more, but they will also instill a greater understanding of how that knowledge can be applied to other situations. Some students may need extra time for writing assignments, or know that they need to put their phone away to avoid distractions when studying. It’s having this kind knowledge about how they learn that helps them to create an environment that enables them to succeed. It can also help them to make better use of their own time, allowing them to make even more progress. Picture this scenario: A student approaches their instructor after class to understand why they didn’t do as well as they thought they would on an exam. They read the material and highlighted the points they thought were most important. The instructor asks a question about how to apply the knowledge to a different scenario, and the student is unable to. While the student became familiar with the topic, they didn’t understand it deeply or learn how to apply what they learned. With strengthened metacognition skills, the student would be better able to reflect on their own learning and develop the kind of higher-order thinking that’s required to succeed in class and throughout their college experience. With time, it will be second-nature to the student as they continue to think about improving their learning. How Instructors Can Support Metacognition One of the most important things an instructor can do is to create connections between how students can apply what they learn to their goals -- both within their class and the real world. Psychology and sociology are often required within a student’s general education and are critical to learning about human nature, but not necessarily tied to their major. While students may not have prior knowledge of or interest in the course material itself, the instructor’s role and metacognitive activities become even more critical to the students overall success. Another way is for instructors to ask prompting questions. Research has shown that asking these questions can lead to students’ increased learning and performance. An example of this is requiring explanations of students’ thought process or asking them to defend a position within their homework assignment. This type of task would help the student to think about their thinking and would prompt the kind self-explanation required to demonstrate understanding of the concept. A different set of interventions aimed at increasing metacognition are self-reflection exercises. These goal setting and reflection surveys can serve several purposes including offering insight into students, establishing a baseline students can measure future progress against. This can be done via surveys or exam wrappers, and would include likert scale and open-ended questions to help students reflect on their study plans and goals. Instructors can also ask students to go through their graded exam to reflect on the answer they got wrong and think about how they could improve on future exams. Our own research has demonstrated that courses which assigned two or more surveys saw a minimum 15% increase in assignment completion, which resulted in at least an 8% point increase in student grades in the course compared to those that assigned only one or no surveys. And finally, instructors can help students to build self efficacy by normalizing adversity. Tools such as Learning Curve’s adaptive quizzing with targeted feedback can help students succeed. The adaptive algorithm selects questions for each student based on their own performance, challenging them with more difficult questions as their performance improves. It’s completely normal to struggle in class, and tools like this can help students to identify gaps in their understanding, get targeted feedback and hints, and allow them to solve the problem again correctly. Both the goal setting and reflection surveys as well as Learning Curve’s adaptive quizzing are available within Achieve, Macmillan Learning’s digital learning system. We’ll explore the connection between courseware and metacognition in the next in the series. In the meantime, learn more about Macmillan Learning’s partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. ... View more

Metacognition is thinking about ways to improve your own thinking and learning processes. And for students, the act of knowing themselves and seeking to improve their learning process can positively impact their success in college. Importantly, for students it’s an internal guide that recognizes their own strengths and weaknesses, that helps them plan to achieve their goals, and enables them to monitor if they are doing what it takes to be successful. Realizing that you might not be on the right path to achieving your goals and correcting your course of action?  That’s metacognition in action. Students want to excel in college. In fact, 48% strive to get an A in all their courses, according to a study in Spring of 2022 of more than 1,400 undergraduate students by Student Monitor. Some of the more common activities they participate in outside the classroom to get a better grade are participating in a study group, or meeting a professor, and watching online videos. Metacognitive and self-regulating behaviors help learners conceptualize their academic goals and then  identify the  tools and processes necessary to be successful. The act of regulating oneself as a learner is a critical area of focus in the company's recent grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. More broadly, the research will focus on how digital courseware can help to close equity gaps in course completion, retention, and performance rates for historically and presently underserved students. In this brief blog series about metacognition, we’ll explore how students' metacognition impacts their behavior and attitudes in the classroom and, more broadly, in college. It’s part of Macmillan Learning’s commitment to sharing knowledge about what we learn throughout our research. Next month we’ll explore how metacognition impacts behaviors (goal setting, study habits, asking for help) and attitudes (self-efficacy/confidence, grit/productive struggle, intrinsic motivation.) Learn more about Macmillan Learning’s partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. ... View more

Dr. Eric Chiang is no stranger to being online and in front of a camera. The Economics: Principles for a Changing World 6e author and instructor was a pioneer in online learning, bringing tech to teachers and students - an environment he was very familiar with well before virtual learning took over during the COVID-19 pandemic. In fact, his stint on the nationally televised show Holey Moley was when I first met him. Just as I was curious about his time on the show in 2019, I’m curious about what got him to that point. At Macmillan Learning, we recognize that the success of our textbooks and courseware is in large part due to our outstanding authors. With this Author Spotlight series, we offer students and instructors a unique opportunity to better get to know these extraordinary authors, whose remarkable careers and interests often extend far beyond higher education.  There’s so much genuine interest and passion about the world’s economies within Dr. Chiang that helps make Principles for a Changing World the compelling text that it is. Within it, learners can hear his distinct voice speaking to them as they are introduced to economic concepts and the many unique examples from both within the United States and around the world. Economics can be practical Economics doesn’t have to be some pie-in-the-sky, impractical set of concepts. And Dr. Chiang doesn’t teach it that way because he didn’t learn it that way. His journey into economics began when he was just a boy, with everyday lessons from his father, a chemist by trade, who had immigrated from Taiwan in the 1960s. While his father had always been interested in economics, he felt compelled to go with the trend of the time within the Taiwanese culture of coming to the United States and studying either engineering or the sciences. Despite that, his father never lost his interest in economics, and he began to teach Dr. Chiang the principles of it with practical life lessons -- how to be frugal with money, how to save money and how to invest money. “He got me excited because he spoke about it in ways that made sense. Oh, we eat at Wendy's a lot, do you want to own a piece of Wendy's?” Dr. Chiang did want to invest and he saved his birthday money and allowances for some time so that he could invest $100. “He taught me about how companies make profits, how companies work -- and the fact that I owned just a few shares of Wendy's … it felt really exciting.” And it’s that same practical thinking that he uses to teach his students at Florida Atlantic University and the College of Southern Nevada. His interest was further piqued when, in high school, he had the opportunity to take classes at Indiana University South Bend. “Everything I’d learned as a child just sort of formalized into these economic models.” And while he considered pursuing careers in his other interests during his undergraduate years of college, like geography or hotel management, he was always drawn back to economics. “Economics provided a foundation that allowed me to study many other subjects,” he explained with a smile. It was ultimately Game Theory, the study of how and why people make strategic decisions, that took him from the role of student to teacher. As a graduate student at the University of Florida (Go Gators) he was expected to teach an undergraduate class; he saw that Game Theory was an option in the catalog and decided to go for it. It was his first teaching experience, so he over-prepared his lectures, memorizing and scripting them. As it turns out, that wasn’t necessary. “As soon as I stepped into the classroom it became so natural, I absolutely fell in love with it. From that point on, I knew I was going to be a teacher because spending time with my students in the classroom was the highlight of my week.” And while he loved teaching Game Theory, the topic proved to be a specialty and niche subject. So niche that he was having to come up with his own course materials for his students because there wasn’t much out there for him to use. “I wasn't satisfied with the existing textbooks at the time, so I was always using my own content.” And while he went on to customize chapters in other economics textbooks, something was still missing in those textbooks and, well, most others. “One part missing in most books that I wanted was the story behind the concept. For example, most principles textbooks jump right into supply and demand, they jump right into elasticity, and they didn't really start the chapter with ‘Why is this important, and how is this relevant to everyone's life?’, and that was the part that I kept sort of filling in right when I customized the book.” And soon enough, he got the chance to write one on his own terms. At first he began as an accuracy checker and reviewer of an economics textbook written by Jerry Stone, but quickly became more and more involved as a contributor. The two authors had a lot in common, with both Stone and Chiang teaching at public universities catering mostly to non-traditional students, who often took classes at night because they were working during the day or had families. Both believed in teaching practical, usable versions of economics -- Chiang understood just how valuable the students' time was and wanted to help them invest it in their future. To do that, Stone and thereafter Chiang tailored the textbook to the needs of those students with the philosophy of being practical and connecting economics to the real world. “You have to be a little more thorough in your explanations, and you have to provide those additional explanations and examples and connect what we're learning to the real world.” That philosophy may be the reason why the largest population of students using the book are those from community colleges. A global perspective When Chiang began authoring the Principles for a Changing World textbook in 2014, he brought in a wealth of modern examples and global perspectives to create even stronger connections with the students. He also placed a greater emphasis on data literacy, all while still staying true to the original philosophy of being practical and connecting economics with the real world. In writing, he made sure that the text attempted to make connections with every student by offering examples from across various regions of the US and even the world. “Take, for example, sports. We’re not just talking about baseball and football in the examples. We’re also talking about cricket, soccer and field hockey. That makes it more relatable.” Chiang is passionate about international travel and culture, which is evident throughout the textbook. Every chapter of the book has an “around the world” feature, offering a different way to think about economics. “If you look at most other textbooks, if they're talking about something in another country, it is because they're comparing their country with our country. It’s their growth rate vs. ours. For me it's more from an individual perspective -- if you were standing in that country, how would someone in that country solve a problem?” Take, for example, Disneyland in Tokyo. It’s quite different from the Disney World or Disneyland that students in the U.S. are used to. Culturally, in Japan, they are not as interested in thrill rides, like roller coasters, but they love photo taking. “Line management in dealing with scarcity and surplus is different in Japan. The park is so crowded but everyone's having a great time because there's so many characters walking around, and you can always take a picture with them and it's a very fulfilling experience …It's just interesting to see how different countries address different demands, and different cultural differences of what people value and that goes into their decision making. It all goes to show there’s not just one way to solve an economic problem.” Growing up, Chiang never traveled far from his Indiana hometown. So as an adult he makes up for it by trying to visit a new country every year. He wants to bring new examples, ideas and stories to his students, which is how he came up with the idea of his Around the world in 80 hours series which is “a fun way to show the class how economics is all around the world.” I asked him about his favorite spots and he mentioned Japan and Singapore. Although he tends to stay a very short time in each country, his reasoning is that there’s around 200 countries in the world, so he’d like to have a glimpse of as many countries as possible -- his face lights up just thinking about it. His most striking economic lesson was when he traveled to Bhutan, a small agricultural Kingdom in the Himalayas. According to Chiang, while it’s not modern (he did not see a single traffic light in the entire country), it’s one of the safest, healthiest and happiest places in the world. “You know they don't have much, but they live very, very well so to me that's a striking economic example.” “The government doesn't measure their well-being through gross domestic product, which is how every other country measures the size of their country.” Rather, Bhutan has a Gross National Happiness Index comprising of nine domains that include psychological well-being, health, education and good governance, among others. “I think Bhutan offers an example of the opposite of what we think of as societal norms - you don't have to have money or lots of possessions, but you have to have community. And that’s a different way of thinking about the health of a country and its economic well-being.” And that’s what makes Bhutan Bhutan. And what makes each student their own person as well, which is why it’s so important that diversity is not only recognized, but championed. “Everyone faces different circumstances and manages resources differently, and that's what economics is about. How you manage your money and your time is different from how I do it. A lot of it's based on our circumstances and values, and how we grew up, and that's based on cultural diversity,” Chiang said. Students growing up in a small town have vastly different experiences than students growing up in an agricultural community, which differs vastly from those in a large city. And that’s just taking into account population size, let alone ethnicity, background, gender or income, among other factors. And that’s true for the world around us, for our classrooms and also for our textbooks. “In the past century there have been so many prominent economists and Nobel Prize winners that are women and people of color, and we highlight the biographies of many of these important contributors to economics,” Chiang noted. He cited Cecilia Rouse and Phyllis Wallace as examples. He further explained, “People always talk about prominent macroeconomist Milton Friedman, but actually he worked most of his life with Anna Schwartz, who was equally deserving of the Nobel Prize.” Dr. Chiang just finished writing the sixth edition Economics: Principles for a Changing World and notes that it will offer the practical and relevant content that’s been counted on for many years as well as fantastic new features like interactive graphing. But this new edition will offer even more information about diverse economists like Rouse and Wallace and how their contributions have affected our everyday lives -- including the economic decisions we make today. It will also include more stories, just like the Gross National Happiness Index from Bhutan that help students understand different ways of thinking about economics. Until then, you can find Dr. Chiang at FAU, UCS, or somewhere at cruising altitude. ... View more

In the summer of 1980, my family moved into our first home. I was six years old and was excited to have my own room, two floors to scamper through, and a yard. That home would be where my sister and I would spend the remainder of our childhood. It would serve as the anchor to a young life filled with school commutes, church functions, community service, summer jobs, and family outings. We had a sense of permanency in a world that constantly demanded our attention with each passing year.   That same summer that we moved into our new home, my father, who taught sixth grade at the elementary school we attended, accepted an assignment to teach New Jersey’s Migrant Education Program. We thought that it was odd that during the summer, when most teachers took a break from the challenges of the urban classroom, my father drove out each morning to help educate a much-forgotten population of students - the children of migrant workers. These children came from Black and Latinx families from the rural south who made their way to New Jersey to work the Garden State’s tomato crops.   For most of the school year, I’d watch my dad struggle with the challenges of educating our city’s urban youth, many of which came from single parent homes or foster home environments in poor neighborhoods. By the end of the school year, he would come home exhausted and depleted from playing so many roles all year long- surrogate father, life coach, and disciplinarian all in one.  I didn’t understand why he wanted to give his summers, his only reprieve from the chaos of the inner-city public school, and give his time to the children of migrant workers.   One day during that summer of 1980, I asked my father why. He told me that my mother had told him stories of the work she had done as a high school student volunteering as part of the Interfaith Youth Council to prepare food and provide clothing to migrant worker families.  Her stories about the tough conditions that these families endured, on the job and in their home life, had lit a spark in him to do something intentional about it as a young teacher.  He learned that there was a national movement to bring attention to the work standards and quality of life of farm workers that was being led by a charismatic and powerful organizer named Cesar Chavez.   My father described the justice and equality that he was fighting for as an extension of the foundational civil rights work done by Dr. Martin Luther King.  He and my mother were teaching me through their work, that there is always a marginalized group in our society that deserves the sense of permanency and promise that comes from a quality education, decent housing, and fair pay.  I learned that the wave of protest, awareness, and legal action that Cesar Chavez had sparked while organizing farm labor in California in the 60’s was alive on the East coast by the early eighties, inspiring a new generation of activists, organizers and educators like my father and mother.   My parents represented the realization of Cesar’s dream to protect the most vulnerable populations in our society- the American family with no permanent residency, no job security, and little formal education. I looked at the new house that my sister and I were so excited to now occupy as a privilege never to be taken for granted. I learned that there were courageous leaders, like Cesar Chavez, who dedicated their lives to fight for the basic rights of America’s forgotten families.  During this year’s observance of Cesar Chavez Day, I’m honored to know that his enduring legacy of selfless service continues to inspire generations of activists, advocates and educators to fight for a more inclusive and equitable America where all have the right to a meaningful and fulfilling life.   ... View more

Throughout the history of the United States, women have shaped efforts to gain greater rights and achieve economic and social justice. But it wasn’t until the late 1980s that the whole of American history began to be included in textbooks, when Mary Beth Norton and a team of co-authors wrote the first American history textbook that attempted to integrate the history of women, African Americans, immigrants and American Indians alongside that of men and white Europeans.  Since then, contextualizing history through different perspectives and offering a greater representation of diverse peoples has become much more common. This Women’s History Month, Macmillan Learning Author, Professor Nancy Hewitt, spoke with Macmillan Learning about some of those complexities and the women and movements that sought to gain greater rights and achieve economic and social justice -- all of which can be found in her textbook co-authored with Steven Lawson, Exploring American Histories.  “Stories of women and girls from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds, classes, regions and religions now appear in every American history textbook,” noted Professor Hewitt, co-author of Exploring American Histories and Emerita Professor of History and Women’s Studies at Rutgers University. Within those different stories, women's activism is an important theme that helps to illustrate the complexity of American history over time. There were different perspectives from the activists on topics like the intersection of gender and race as well as which movements should be addressed first.  Here are some of the stories that Professor Hewitt shared: In the 1830s, social justice movements were almost always segregated by race and sex, and women had limited roles. That started to change with women like Amy Kirby Post, who became involved in anti-slavery and women’s rights movements. Amy was raised in a Quaker farming community, and moved to Rochester, NY in the 1830s. While Quakers’ activism was generally limited to testimonies within the Society of Friends, Amy and her husband, Isaac, became active members of the Western New York Anti-Slavery Society, which was among the early efforts within social justice movements to create truly interracial and mixed sex organizations.  As part of that effort, she circulated anti-slavery petitions and forged more personal relationships across the color line by hosting Black activists in her home. The Posts also hosted traveling lecturers, including Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth, and participated in the underground railroad. In 1849, she joined with members of the city's African American Union Sewing Society to host an interracial dinner with the goal, according to Hewitt, of “persuading their white neighbors to embrace equality individually as well as philosophically.” These efforts contrast with the goals of other activists of the time, such as Reverend Charles Grandison. His evangelical religious views led him to promote social reforms, such as abolition and equal education for women and African Americans. However, while denouncing slavery, he opposed women's participation in the abolition movement along with other activities he considered “political”, including expanding women's rights. But the complexity of women’s movements and the fight for equal rights doesn't end there. Despite ratification in 1920 of the 19th Amendment, which stated that women could not be denied the right to vote on the basis of sex, the need for women's activism continued. Large percentages of Black women – like Black men – were denied the right to vote until Congress passed the Voting Rights Act in 1965. Women like Pauli Murray helped make the case for equal rights for Black people and women.  A descendent of white, African American, and American Indian ancestors, Pauli Murray grew up in North Carolina and moved to Washington D.C. in 1940 to attend Howard University Law School. There she led demonstrations against segregation in restaurants and on buses. She also wrote an important book on state segregation laws and her analysis was used to support the successful arguments in the 1954 Supreme Court Case Brown v. Board of Education. She went on to help launch the National Organization for Women (NOW). There she focused her attention on equal rights for all women, regardless of race or class.  Eventually, Murray’s support for NOW waned, as she believed that it became too focused on the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment. She believed most NOW leaders failed to see that, as Hewitt explained, “race and class oppressions were deeply intertwined with inequalities of gender.” The era dealt with sex discrimination, but ignored the ways that Black and working-class women were discriminated against. The ERA also sparked a strong conservative movement, led by Phyllis Schlafly. She was a conservative activist from California who gained popularity among housewives by claiming feminists disparaged them and wanted to do away with “natural” differences between the sexes. She also appealed to Christian women, whose values she claimed were under attack from feminists. These groups kept the ERA from being ratified.   In exploring American history, scholars now focus on the importance of women's activism across the entire span of American history. They illustrate the complexities of the various movements and the diverse goals of the participants. As with men, many of these differences were informed by the activists’ race, class, ethnicity, religion, region and political party affiliations. “Women activists embrace different, even opposing views about the kinds of change that would best serve their communities and themselves,” Hewitt said.  Because of this diversity, we find women involved in every important movement for social change, past and present. Hewitt said, “We can trace the deep roots of current campaigns to transform our nation back to its founding decades. Fully integrating these stories into American history textbooks can help to transform both the faculty who assign them and the students they teach.” ... View more

The HBCU Symposium on Rhetoric and Composition is happening now! This year’s theme is Transdisciplinarity @ HBCUs: Rewriting Black Futures Beyond the Margin. Just ahead of her keynote address: Still Standing: Student Voices, Curation, and HBCU Legacies, we had a conversation with keynote speaker Regina N. Bradley, Ph.D., Author of Chronicling Stankonia: the Rise of the Hip-Hop South and Assistant Professor at Kennesaw State University.  Who or what inspired you to become a writer? I've been reading and writing my entire life. I knew I might really be into this writing thing after documenting the 1994 Flood in my hometown of Albany, GA. I was 10 and wanted to make sure all the water I saw, people I talked to, and the devastation overall was never forgotten. I had to write to get out my sadness. I typed all my thoughts and observations out on my grandparents' old gray typewriter. I wrote/typed out nearly 30 pages.  What advice would you give to Black and Brown higher education students that are interested in studying English, Rhetoric, Composition, or Writing? English Studies is more than just dead, white, (usually) male writers and thinkers. It is okay to think outside-the-box and wander outside of the traditional canon. Stand on your own truth: ask yourself what brought you to the field in the first place and where do you want to see the field go? For me, I wanted to see more about the Black South from a southern Black person's perspective. That's my truth and it grounds my scholarship and research. Your book "Chronicling Stankonia: the Rise of the Hip-Hop South" is about more than OutKast -- it's about artistry and speaking one's truth. What can students at HBCUs learn from OutKast and speaking truth? Sometimes, your truth will be misinterpreted, dismissed, or completely overlooked because you do not follow a particular path. That's okay. Be like OutKast and do it anyway. Be unapologetic in celebrating who you are -- the institutions and people that have made way for you to be dope. Don't apologize for being dope.  Do.you. Student voices have always played an important role in building HBCU legacies. What should instructors do to help elevate their voices? The biggest challenge for me as an instructor is to get students to recognize that their voice is worth being heard, that they have something to share. My best advice for instructors is to be encouragement and stay encouraged: be in students' corners by pointing out what is great about their writing and what can be improved. Stay encouraged by continuously showing up for students even when they can't or won't show up for themselves. I've learned students don't appreciate you fully until after the class is over. You are making an impact. Have faith in that truth. To learn more about or register for the symposium, click here. Select sessions will be available on the Macmillan Community following the event.  ... View more

Below is a note written by Macmillan Learning Vice President of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Coltrane Stansbury (@c_stansbury), as he reflected on the anniversary of George Floyd's death. Tomorrow, May 25, marks the one-year anniversary of the murder of George Floyd. As I reflect on the tragedy of that event a year displaced from the shocking revelations of that dark day in Minneapolis, I am reminded of something that my mentor, Anthony Carter, would tell me early in my career in DEI- that no one truly looks like their story. Regardless of what our features and complexion might indicate about our heritage or even our surroundings might indicate about our upbringing, each of us is unique and rich with a story that only we can tell. Sometimes, not even the company we keep gives a true indication of the richness of our individual experiences, the successes and failures, tragedies and triumphs that make us who we are. Quote from Coltrane Stansbury, VP of DEI at Macmillan Learning We watched in the moments following May 25th of last year, as the eye witness video surfaced to the public, exposing us for the first time to images of George Floyd. Those video clips revealed to us a victim of a most brutal and cruel crime at the hands of those entrusted to serve and protect. As the media provided pieces of information about this man whose life was taken in front of the world, we were given a further glimpse into the challenging environment and circumstances that George Floyd lived through during his 46 years of life. The horror of the moment, the rushed context given to us by news outlets tell a short and poorly sketched narrative of who George Floyd really was. As I think about what Anthony was trying to teach me about people and their stories, I realize that the true tragedy of those events a year ago in Minneapolis is that George Floyd did not have the opportunity to tell his full story. The real danger behind discrimination, injustice, and inequities is that they ultimately seek to silence a person’s story, relegating them to an irrelevant, invisible, or non-existent status in society. But I realized, in the testimonies of his family and the tearful revelations of those who knew him best, that George Floyd indeed had a story to tell. That story is of a man who migrated across states to find opportunity, of a father who struggled through personal adversity to provide for himself and his family; of a beloved brother and friend who put the needs of others first even if it led to his own suffering. In many ways, I can see myself in much of his story of sacrifice, trials, hope and redemption. It is in George’s own story that we find out who he truly is and he is able to transcend the tragedy of that fated day where we shared in the shock of the ending of his life. Anthony was right, the George that we saw helpless under the knee of his tormentor, looked nothing like his story. Today, we must remind ourselves to show each other the humanity and respect to tell our stories and live with the human dignity that provides room for all to share equally in all that the world has to offer. ... View more

The Black employee resource groups from Macmillan Learning and Macmillan Publishers recently hosted a panel “From Our Perspective: Black Professionals in Publishing” to share perspectives on working in publishing and encourage BIPOC students to consider the industry as a future career.  The panelists represented a variety of roles, backgrounds and levels of experience in publishing, and shared valuable insights about what they’ve learned in their careers. The panelists included: Keith Barksdale, Jr., Publisher’s Representative, Macmillan Learning; Natalie Gordon, Benefits Manager, Macmillan Publishers; Phoenix Harvey, Director of Marketing, Enterprise & High School Solutions, Macmillan Learning; Dominique R. Jenkins, Senior Manager, Author Events, Macmillan Publishers; Jason Walker, Director of Product, eCommerce & Integrations, Macmillan Learning; and Natasha Wolfe, Senior Design Services Manager, Macmillan Learning. The 90-minute discussion covered a range of topics including these key insights from the panel: You don’t need a masters degree in publishing to get a job working in the industry (but it can be helpful).  Our panelists took a variety of different paths to get their publishing jobs. Only one of the panelists had a masters degree in publishing, Dominique Jenkins. While agreeing a masters in publishing wasn’t necessary for everyone interested  in a career in publishing, Dominique thought it would be helpful for her because she had a “late start” in publishing and her degree helped her network and “learn more about the ins and outs of the industry”. She noted “If you don’t want to spend the money for (a master’s degree in) college, there are other avenues to get a job in publishing.” Natalie Gordon got her start in publishing when she attended a networking event and sat with the Macmillan team; she used the connections she made there to reach out after she saw an opportunity on LinkedIn. Natasha Wolfe went to liberal art colleges to keep her options open, and went on interviews in hopes of being a graphic designer at an ad agency. When she discovered they would only hire for freelancing, she realized that wouldn't work for her. Her career counselor suggested that she try publishing -- 20 years later she’s still working in it. Keith Barksdale had a higher education background and took a risk. As it turned out, being able to talk to strangers on campus was a great benefit to his publishing sales job. Jason Walker had been working in the e-commerce space and was looking to change industries; the edtech space Macmillan Learning was playing in had interested him. Phoenix Harvey studied political science and accounting, but after she had a child and went back to work, she knew she wanted to work in education and make an impact. She did informational interviews with educational publishers, and it wound up being a good fit, so she began her publishing career as a sales representative. Not everyone who works in publishing first imagines a career in publishing.  Many of these talented employees found their way into publishing … but only after experiencing other industries and roles.  When she was younger, Phoenix didn’t have much of a vision for her career other than she wanted to carry a briefcase and be a “business lady”. Jason has degrees in biology and computer science, and thought he would go into medicine. He focused on academics and enjoyed doing research. Natalie imagined herself being a firefighter in elementary school, then wanted to be in computer systems. She knew she wanted to graduate from a four-year college and after a gap year and networking,  she got exposure to benefits and consulting and knew she wanted to work in HR Management. Dominique wanted to be a singing vet, and studied opera and theatre, and then wanted to do what Jackie O. did -- be a professional journalist. She ultimately wanted to shape the books her nieces and read, and found her way to publishing. Despite each of their early thoughts of their careers, their passions led them to a fulfilling career in publishing. You can pivot to a variety of roles in publishing. Publishing is about more than editing books, and several of our panelists have experienced a range of these roles in publishing. For example, Phoenix started her career in publishing as a sales rep, but has since had roles of increasing responsibility in marketing. Dominique has been in the industry since 2002 working for several publishers with roles in special sales, regular sales, marketing, conventions and library marketing, and author events.  Internships and networking can help springboard your career in publishing.  While internships help get entry-level experience and look good on the resume, there are other pathways that our panelists recommend. Networking was repeatedly suggested as one of the most important career strategies.  “Build your network,” Dominique said. She noted that informational interviews, joining diverse publishing communities -- including POC in Publishing and LatinX publishing, and LinkedIn are all important. She added on LinkedIn students should state they have an interest in publishing, join networks and don’t hesitate to reach out to people in the field. Natasha agreed, and noted that took advantage of her professors, especially the adjunct ones who had experience, and asked them for advice. Jason has done some meetups, which he noted are pretty popular in the tech space. People who are there are there to interact and exchange ideas.  Networking can be intimidating though, noted Phoenix, who is a self-proclaimed introvert. She explained that each of her roles in publishing have been supported by her strong networking and contacts who helped to open doors. It’s difficult to imagine going to a networking event, but you should consider it. “It just takes one to give you that opportunity,” she said.  Natalie mentioned that virtual coffee hours and reaching out to professionals on LinkedIn were options for introverts, “The worst thing they can tell you is no,” she noted. It’s important to advocate for yourself. Be active, know yourself, connect, listen and make mistakes. The panelists had a few suggestions for skills and experiences that were helpful for pivoting to a career in publishing. Jason suggested that students maximize their skills outside of class by joining in activities and Phoenix agreed, noting that leadership and organizational skills are important. While communications courses and networking were critical, if Dominique could go back she would also do more activities. One of her mentors told her not to give up on her dreams and remember who she was -- advice that has been critical to her success.  As an outside sales rep, Keith suggested that students listen closely. He also suggested that taking an improv class is a great way to help you think on your feet, and it also helps in becoming comfortable with being embarrassed. “Making mistakes will make you a stronger individual,” he said.  Phoenix recommended that students set up alerts on LinkedIn to be among the first to respond to influencers or people you respect when they post something interesting. This helps to build relationships, noting “If you comment on mine, I’ll probably comment back.” When Phoenix hires, she looks for experience that demonstrates skills like resilience and grit. For example, students who work during the school year and are still able to maintain good grades, or students that had a low GPA in highschool that were able to excel in college. Imposter syndrome is a real thing, but it can be overcome. Dominique noted that during her first job out of school, she had to fight to try to stay true to herself. “When you’re the only person of color in a department, it’s challenging. Having a strong circle of BIPOC friends helped me.” Keith noted that he was “unapologetically Black” and encouraged students to be proud of who they are and bet on themselves. Natasha felt like she needed to prove herself, but having a colleague who came in early just like she did helped to encourage her, and reminded her that she deserved to be there as much as -- and sometimes more than -- anyone else.  One final piece of advice from the panelists: Dominique: “Don’t be afraid. Walk into every job opportunity like you’re a boss.” Phoenix: “Make them tell you no. Do not count yourself out.” Natasha: “Stay hungry. Do what it takes to get your foot in the door.” Once you’re in you can explore further. Jason: “Don’t be afraid to create your own path.” Keith: “Take risks. Be bold. It’s not where you start, it’s where you finish.” What are the next steps for anyone interested in learning more? Watch the entire panel here!  Check out the internships open at Macmillan Learning and Macmillan Publishers Follow Macmillan Learning and Macmillan Publishers social media accounts along with others in the industry that you admire, and network with us! Join diverse communities, including People of Color in Publishing, Blk + Brwn Book Designers, LatinX In Publishing, Asians in Publishing,     ... View more

Major corporations across America are running a race towards an imaginary finish line. Seemingly every company is running it, no matter the industry, though at different paces and on uneven terrain. It’s an important race, an essential one, fueled by good-minded people who desire change. Many companies are celebrating the passing of each mile marker, and sometimes passing certain mile markers indeed feels like a big moment. Yet at times the outward appearance that companies project conveys a desire to reach an imaginary finish line when they can claim the moment that racism, prejudice, and bias no longer influence the products they create, the people they hire, or the culture of their workplace.  Macmillan Learning has been running this race for the last few years. To some of our employees the pace has felt feverish, to others looking for change to come faster it has appeared more like a jog, a feeling we were too focused on the marathon ahead. This week at Macmillan Learning has felt more like a sprint. And if we are running fast it is because we have to, because in a particular incident that emerged in the last month, we missed the starter’s gun entirely.  For the last three years, in various formats and detail, Macmillan Learning has been reviewing our course materials with a focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion. One tool at our disposal are audits of our published material. These audits identify inappropriate or outdated uses of language, underrepresentation and overrepresentation of people and perspectives, and subjects that require additional context to increase their pedagogical value. They aren’t employed to remove coverage of controversial subjects, instead they are used to enhance the likelihood of productive discussions about them. Nor do they attempt to impose an ideological point-of-view or a pedagogical norm on our authors, editors, or in the classrooms we support. These audits, and other elements of our editorial guidelines for diversity, equity, and inclusion, provide discipline and structure -- and demand a more diverse outlook as well as the inclusion and participation of broader perspectives to an editorial practice that has been too often informed by a homogenous group - authors, editors, reviewers, and instructors that too commonly can be identified as Western (and predominately White), Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic, as has so frequently been articulated in higher ed research.   Our efforts over the last three years have been forward-looking, but we have learned that sometimes when you concentrate on creating a better future you can fail to stop to take care of the present. In February, a school district notified us that a passage in one of our publications was offensive and risked negatively affecting students in their classroom. The passage had already been removed from the forthcoming edition of the book due to be published in late 2021. At issue? An edition of our world history textbook, Ways of the World, included a racial epithet employed in the running narrative of a chapter on British colonialism in India. The epithet was used to demonstrate the depth of racist attitudes that fueled British ideology in India. The epithet included an offensive, contemptuous term historically used to describe a Black person. To the reader, be they Indian, Indian American, Black, or White, the offensive phrase is encountered in the passage without warning or precondition. Its use lacked necessary context and historical reference and appeared more for effect than substance.  The authors’ intent was to demonstrate the far reach of European racism and to expose the largely American audience reading the book to how much racism has shaped the world outside our borders -- how personal it can be felt by people in countries beyond our own. It is a pedagogical goal that I can understand and appreciate. Yet the manner in which this reality was conveyed was unacceptable and carried too much educational risk for its intended benefit. Evaluating pedagogical value is part of our responsibility as a publisher. As editors we are the stewards of our publications, and our stewardship is foundational to the partnership and bond we have with our authors and those that use the educational resources we produce. Our authors are not to blame in this situation. We are. I am. This was an error in judgment exacerbated by publishing processes that did not empower our editors to root out a use of language that is not just disagreeable but which offends and potentially harms. The steps our authors and editors had taken with the upcoming edition corrected the error and recast the entire narrative in this area -- but we cannot miss this opportunity to correct it in the present. Addressing this case only in future printings and editions is not enough. And so in the last weeks we began this sprint. A sprint to update the language in these titles and ensure that classrooms using our books have access to new versions that reflect our commitment to supporting a pedagogically sound educational environment -- admittedly, a sprint in which we felt like we were chasing the field every day. But we are making progress. By publication of this post, adopters of every edition of Ways of the World in which the offensive reference appears will have been notified and we will have revised the language in all our e-books and online learning platforms. Any student, teacher, or instructor who logs into their e-book or online learning platform will see an updated passage. For schools that purchased print editions of our book, we are providing updated pages and access to the revised chapter and we will work to accommodate school-specific needs as they are identified. No more copies of this book will leave our warehouse or be offered online that include the offensive reference.  What does this mean for Macmillan Learning? It means not pausing to congratulate ourselves for fixing something that should not have occurred. It means continuing to look not only at the products that we produce but the people and culture that produces them. Numerous stories have been published in recent years detailing the lack of racial diversity in the publishing industry and our leadership team and employees at Macmillan Learning have taken them to heart. But what we take to heart requires commensurate action. Events like this one put these facts into starker relief as our leadership team continues to prioritize actions that will create an environment that supports an increasingly diverse workforce so that we can continue to create products and services that better reach an already diverse educational audience, now and in the future. In this specific incident, it has included taking care of our employees who both questioned how this occurred and who were affected by it, no matter their background or position on the issue, though taking greater care to speak to individuals and groups historically targeted by the reference.  And we are taking steps to ensure what we learn is carried forward in our products, through an editorial process that emphasizes the inclusion of more voices from differing perspectives, and through a cultural and editorial philosophy that insists we question the status quo and invites people to engage in difficult conversations.  There is no finish line to this marathon, but that fact does not make the necessity to pick up our pace any less urgent. And with that effort, each day we can become a better publisher.  Charles Linsmeier  Executive Vice President, General Manager Macmillan Learning  ... View more

I am thrilled to announce an important new team member has joined Macmillan Learning; Coltrane Stansbury is now our Vice President, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI). In this newly created role, Coltrane will lead our diversity and inclusion strategy and programs as well as amplify the work the company is doing in support of our people, programs and culture. He’ll be reporting directly to our Senior Vice President of Human Resources, Kristin Peikert. Creating an increasingly diverse and inclusive company is a core strategic goal for Macmillan Learning. While there has been much work and progress since we launched our initial grassroots D&I initiative in 2017, we knew we needed an experienced DEI leader with big ideas to help us broaden our efforts and help us come closer to fully realizing our vision. Our employee volunteers helped us to create the foundation for change through increased awareness, education, and engagement, and Coltrane is the leader that will help our initiatives flourish and make a lasting impact. Coltrane approaches inclusion and outreach in a holistic manner, creatively thinking about how programs can affect change in ways that tie closely to the mission of the business. Importantly, he has a passion for equity in education and already has many ideas on how we can foster internal growth and work in the educational community to engage all learners throughout their educational journey. Making impactful change is part of Coltrane’s DNA. He is an experienced DEI leader with an extensive background in business, policy, and community outreach. He comes most recently from Becton Dickinson & Co, PSEG, and Johnson & Johnson, where he was responsible for building DEI programs from the ground up. Coltrane is very active in his community, working with local schools, civic leagues, and the United Way.  Here’s what Coltrane had to say about his new role at Macmillan Learning: “A good education provides the nation’s youth with opportunities that would have not been otherwise available to them; especially underserved students, and students that come from a place of disadvantage. Working at Macmillan Learning allows me to contribute to their education, and in the process help students’ lives flourish.” This is an important moment, with so much momentum building towards a more equal society and culture. Our goal is to help all learners succeed. To that end, we’re proud to further move forward Macmillan Learning’s commitment to DEI in a meaningful way and are excited for Coltrane’s leadership during our journey.    Susan Winslow is President of Macmillan Learning   ... View more