Incorporating Diversity and Inclusion in
Your Course Design
http://www.cte.cornell.edu/teaching-ideas/designing-your-course/incorporating-diversity.html
Incorporating Diversity
Incorporating diversity involves designing your course with varied course materials, teaching methods and learning activities that accommodate a diverse group of students with a range of learning styles, abilities, experiences, and cultures. It may also mean that issues of diversity are part of the course learning outcomes and topics related to diversity are embedded within the course content.
Why Incorporate Diversity into a Course?
Incorporating diversity into a course allows you to:
· Create an inclusive course climate.
· Connect with and reach out to a wider range of students.
· Motivate students (Ginsberg & Wlodkowski 2009).
· Create more positive educational experiences for students.
· Help students gain an understanding of, and respect for, multiple perspectives and backgrounds.
How can you Incorporate Diversity into a Course?
Consider these questions while designing a course:
· What are your own cultural influences and personal ways of teaching and learning and how might these influence your choices in course design?
· What are your students’ cultural influences and personal ways of learning and how might these influence motivation and course expectations?
· Critically examine your course from multiple viewpoints and include materials that represent various perspectives accurately (consider gender, nationality, ethnicity, age, sexuality, political affiliation, socio-economic status, ability, linguistic background, etc.).
· Be inclusive of various learning styles and preferences; plan to utilize a variety of teaching techniques and when designing assignments, wherever possible, provide a choice in how students can demonstrate their learning. Refer to inclusive teaching strategies (below) for ideas.
· Include issues of diversity as part of the learning goals of your course and tie current events and local histories into classroom activities.
· Communicate your dedication to diversity by including diversity and disability statements in your syllabus; you might also include a classroom code of conduct to highlight expectations for classroom behavior.
· Whenever possible, incorporate universal design for learning principles into your instructional methods and materials in order to increase accessibility to students. A course that incorporates universal design principles for learning (UDL) is accessible to students of various abilities at the onset. For example, if you plan to present material both orally and visually, you accommodate both auditory and visual learners and students with sight and hearing disabilities.
Why Use Inclusive Teaching Strategies?
“Even though some of us might wish to conceptualize our classrooms as culturally neutral or might choose to ignore the cultural dimensions, students cannot check their sociocultural identities at the door, nor can they instantly transcend their current level of development… Therefore, it is important that the pedagogical strategies we employ in the classroom reflect an understanding of social identity development so that we can anticipate the tensions that might occur in the classroom and be proactive about them” (Ambrose et. al., 2010, p. 169-170).
Benefits of inclusive teaching:
· You can connect with and engage with a variety of students.
· You are prepared for “spark moments” or issues that arise when controversial material is discussed.
· Students connect with course materials that are relevant to them.
· Students feel comfortable in the classroom environment to voice their ideas/thoughts/questions.
· Students are more likely to experience success in your course through activities that support their learning styles, abilities, and backgrounds.
How can you teach Inclusively?
Be reflective by asking yourself the following:
· How might your own cultural-bound assumptions influence your interactions with students?
· How might the backgrounds and experiences of your students influence their motivation, engagement, and learning in your classroom?
· How can you modify course materials, activities, assignments, and/or exams to be more accessible to all students in your class?
· Incorporate diversity into your overall curriculum.
· Be intentional about creating a safe learning environment by utilizing ground rules.
Be proactive in connecting with and learning about your students.
· Utilize a variety of teaching strategies, activities, and assignments that will accommodate the needs of students with diverse learning styles, abilties, backgrounds, and experiences.
· Use universal design principles to create accessible classes. For example, present information both orally and visually to accommodate both students with visual or auditory impairments in addition to students with various learning preferences.
· When possible, provide flexibility in how students demonstrate their knowledge and how you assess student knowledge and development. Vary your assessments (for example, incorporate a blend of collaborative and individual assignments) or allow choice in assignments (for example, give students multiple project topics to choose from, or have students determine the weight of each assignment on their final grade at the beginning of the semester.)
Be clear about how students will be evaluated and graded. Provide justifications.
· Take time to assess the classroom climate by obtaining mid-semester feedback from students.
· Pass out index cards during class for anonymous feedback.
· Ask students to rate from 1-5 how comfortable they are in class. Also ask for 2 suggestions for how they could feel more comfortable.
· Conduct a Qualtrics survey.
· Discuss your findings in the next class and share any changes you will make regarding the feedback.
Universal Design
What is Universal Design for Learning?
Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is a teaching approach that works to accommodate the needs and abilities of all learners and eliminate unnecessary hurdles in the learning process. This means developing a flexible learning environment in which information is presented in multiple ways, students engage in learning in a variety of ways, and students are provided options when demonstrating their learning.
Universal design for learning is similar to ‘universal instructional design’ or UID, and ‘universal design for instruction’ or UDI. All three advocate for accessible and inclusive instructional approaches that meet the needs and abilities of all learners.
There are three main principles of UDL:
- Provide Options for Perception: Based on the premise that learners access information differently, this principle means providing flexible and multiple ways to present information. For example, using PowerPoint as a visual supplement to your lecture.
- Provide Options for Expression: Since learners vary in their abilities to demonstrate their learning in different ways, this principle means providing flexible and multiple ways to allow students to express their knowledge or demonstrate their skills. For example, providing students an option of writing a final exam or submitting a final assignment.
- Provide Options for Comprehension: Students are motivated to learn for different reasons and vary in the types of learning activities that keep them engaged. This third principle means providing multiple ways for engaging in course activities. For example, engaging students in both group work activities and individual work, as opposed to engaging students only in individual work.
Giving choices, however, does not mean changing expectations. For example, if your course learning outcomes includes being able to communicate in writing, it is not possible to offer students the option of demonstrating their learning through an oral presentation rather than through a written assignment.
Why Universal Design for Learning?
- Incorporating universal design principles enhances an inclusive learning environment.
- Designing a course to accommodate a wider variety of needs may eliminate potential learning barriers, or unnecessary learning obstacles. If a course can be designed at the onset to do this, then why not?
- Providing students with multiple means of perceiving, comprehending, and expressing their learning not only allows for students to engage with the material in a way that most benefits them, but also encourages students to engage with material in ways that would help them expand their competencies and improve in areas in which their skills are not as strong.
How can you Incorporate UDL in a course?
- If you have already designed a course, reflect on how it is going. What current course activities, methods of instruction, and assessments are working well? What is your teaching style and what are your students’ learning styles? Ask yourself which students would likely do well in your class and which students might struggle. For example, students who learn by listening would do well in my lecture course, but students who need to interact with concepts in a hands-on manner might not.
- Reflect upon whether or not you could offer more flexibility or choices in the way you present content, the way students engage in learning in your course, and the way they are assessed.
- Have students choose from a selected bank of assignment topics, or allow students (at the beginning of the semester) to determine what percentage of their grade can be dependent on certain assessment options.
- Check in with your students to see how things are going. Conduct a mid-semester evaluation, and/or evaluate how productive your classroom climate is.
- As with any teaching strategy, reflect on how it went. Did it work for you? For your students? Were students able to attain the course learning outcomes? Make necessary adjustments for your next semester.