The Five Keys to Inclusive and Equitable Teaching

Apr 11

Colleges and universities around the country are making substantive changes to foster more inclusive and culturally responsive learning environments for all students; advancing the implementation of inclusive teaching is crucial to these educational equity efforts.

The challenge for higher education leaders is how to build momentum for inclusive curriculum design, empowering more faculty to become drivers of inclusion as part of a shared aspiration to engender just experiences and outcomes for diverse student bodies. Elisa Glick Consulting recommends using our Signature Five Keys to Inclusive and Equitable Teaching to build faculty capacity for inclusive and equity-focused pedagogies.

The 5 Keys are tools that any faculty member or institution can use to advance inclusion and equity in instruction.

KEY 1 Instructor Self-Awareness

Reflect on Instructor Identity and Positionality

Be aware of your own identity and social location and prepare for possible reactions among the students to your race, gender, age, sexuality, ethnicity, nationality, physical attributes, and abilities.

Reflect on Biases and Power Dynamics

Take an honest inventory of your own practices, beliefs, and assumptions. Critically examine your own biases and attitudes towards students. Strive to minimize negative impacts. Do you propagate, interrupt, or challenge stereotypes?

Critically examine the influence of power, privilege, identity, and socialization in our classrooms as well as the historical roots of educational inequity.

Reflect on Teaching Practices

·Identifying teaching practices and institutional norms that contribute to and maintain disparities for marginalized and minoritized students.

KEY 2 Foster an Inclusive and Equitable Learning Environment

Inclusive Language

Curriculum and classroom culture incorporate inclusive language. (e.g., use person-first and identity-first language).

Chosen Names and Pronouns – Encourage sharing of pronouns. Respect chosen names and pronouns of transgender and gender nonbinary students.

Respect Diverse Ways of Learning

·Ask students how they learn best and make adjustments as needed. For example, present information in print, orally (eg podcasts, audiobooks), and visually to recognize various student learning preferences.

Digital and Open Accessibility

Content meets digital accessibility requirements and incorporate open access course materials.

ADA and Diversity Statements

ADA and diversity & inclusion statements present on syllabus.

Accommodations

Space, learning, and religious accommodations offered.

Universal Design for Learning Principles

Use UDL strategies to reduce barriers to learning and enable access of course content to all students: Getting Started with UDL.

KEY 3 Incorporate Diverse Representations

Diverse Scholarship

Contributions of women, Black/African American, Asian/Asian American, Pacific Islander, Native American, Indigenous, Middle Eastern, Latino/Hispanic people, LGBTQIA2S+ people, and people with disabilities are represented in the curriculum. Multiple voices, identities, and perspectives integrated throughout the curriculum.

Historical Awareness

Content encourages reflection on history of knowledge creation in the field and acknowledges biases, exclusions, and barriers to inclusion that perpetuate injustice.

Inclusive Content

Prioritize diversity, inclusion, and equity when selecting course materials such as textbooks.

Avoid “adding” a token marginalized perspective here or there instead of meaningfully including different perspectives. Equity-focused course content places multiple perspectives at the center, contextualizing and integrating them with care.

Consider your students when creating your content. How does your course content reflect the students you hope to serve?

Domestic and Global Diversity

Content engages students in learning varying perspectives of domestic and global diversity, inclusion, and equity.

KEY 4 Cultivate an Inclusive Climate

Community Norms/Ground Rules

Offer students the opportunity to have input on development of classroom norms or participation guidelines. How can you encourage your students to be learning partners and collaborators?

Instructor-Student Rapport

Establishing a rapport between teachers and students increases engagement and effective learner outcomes in in-person and online courses. Instructors should take a learner-centered approach in offering students various ways to engage with their instructor.

Some of the most effective ways to develop a rapport with your students are to (1) show them that you care (2) show them that you believe in their ability to succeed (3) be willing to be vulnerable. Try these Classroom Climate and Rapport Builders.

Inclusive Pedagogical Practices

Various teaching (discussion-based, seminar style, case study, etc) and participation (e.g. pair/share, group work, individual work, groups, ) techniques incorporated.

Inclusive Thinking

Course structure builds in opportunities for critical reflection around complex and difficult topics (e.g. privilege, systemic oppression, intersectionality).

Applied Learning

Course structure facilitates opportunities for students willing to engage in applied, experiential, or service-learning with the purpose of advancing historically underserved communities.

KEY 5 Create Equitable Assessment Practices

Assignment Rubrics

Clarify what students are being assessed on for an assignment.

Use rubrics in assignments to establish clear expectations. Consider having multiple rubrics for different types of assessments.

Consider how you would assess a student producing an infographic or online learning resource with the same rigor that you would a paper.

A well-designed rubric is a roadmap that will allow students to understand where they need to put forth effort on a project, identify critical project milestones, etc.

Inclusivity in Assessments

Create alternative assignments for students to demonstrate mastery of content. Alternative assignments may include creating a website, an interview, or various types of artwork.

Use multiple evaluation and performance techniques (e.g. low-stakes assignments; ungraded assignments, exams with questions in various formats rather than all essay or all multiple-choice; oral presentations).

Use scaffolding to foster inclusivity; this allows students to better understand what is expected of them throughout a course and increases student success.

Continuous Feedback

What students need is feedback, not grades. Clear, prompt, consistent, and actionable feedback is essential to the success of all students. Incorporate regular progress/feedback reports throughout the semester.

Process Feedback

Does the structure of the course build in opportunities to offer process-related feedback on meta-competencies? (For example, critical thinking skills is a meta-competency.)

Flexibility

Be flexible and offer opportunities to make up or redo assignments using reasonable/realistic timetables.

Let’s Co-create Change in Your College or University!

Faculty often want to teach more inclusively but struggle with how to embed inclusive teaching principles in their curricula and pedagogy. Please contact me if I can help you advance inclusive design and delivery practices at your institution.

Elisa Glick