Author: Dr. Eva M. George

Wrap-Up: Assessment

Looking back on my teaching career, I would implement changing my office hours to be more accessible. The likely place would be the library or the Student Union or both, in addition to my office.  The office can sometimes seem intimidating and the library and Student Union are more frequently visited. I definitely had some structure during my in-class activities, but I can think of group work where there were students who may have been left out or overshadowed by an outspoken peer. TPS works to keep all students engaged- having students think to themselves (and perhaps write things down), then share with their group, and finally, share with the class. In the past, I have not had the think-to-oneself portion and just have the pair and share. There are ways in which without that “think portion” in groups of more than 2 people, some students slip through the cracks. This is a clear example of “the more structure the more inclusive your classroom will be.”

Some of the things that I did implement was letting the students know I want them to succeed in the class. Actions included letting them know the format of the exam ahead of time and having practice questions or sample exam questions. There were also low-stakes assignments such as an “identity paper” at the start of class and quizzes along the way. Much of the course included presentations that matched the number of points of an exam so that there were equal stakes among assignments that tested their knowledge and presentations on topics that they chose and were interested in.

Inclusive Teaching: Strategies for Promoting Equity in the College Classroom was extremely useful in understanding what an inclusive classroom looked like and what inclusive teaching would be like. The carefully chosen subject headings, questions, lists, charts, and an Instructor Checklist at the end of every chapter made it extremely accessible. I walk away with not only an appreciation for access and belonging in the classroom, but tangible ways in which to create this.

I found It is easy to reflect upon Sathy and Hogan’s text and compare teaching practices to those they suggest. Even though they were in STEM fields, all points, theories, assertions, and suggestions are easily transferable to the Humanities and Social Sciences. A mantra that could be useful could be adopted and that is “structure, structure, structure.” In addition, being of the mindset that all should have access to performing well can create a culture in which equity can thrive. Along with the mantra of structure, you can take away what the authors encourage you to ask yourself. They say

“every pedagogical question should be countered with two questions: 1. Who might be left behind as a result of my practice? And 2. How can I invite them in?” (p. 11)

This book provides many examples where you can revisit your teaching style and criteria. I am certain everyone can find at least one thing they could change to be more inclusive. Having an inclusive mindset will help you reach your goals of equity and an opportunity for all students to succeed. Which inclusive methods can you implement in your teaching?

Reflection and refinement

How should we reflect on our teaching and look for opportunities for growth?  In Chapter 7: Reflecting and Documenting Your Inclusive Practices, the authors note that midterm and end-of-course evaluations give great opportunities for growth. Sathy and Hogan say end-of-course questions like the following allow for feedback on the level of inclusiveness in your class:

• In what ways has your instructor demonstrated they care about your learning?
• Is there content from the assignments or class discussion that has made you feel included or excluded? Explain.
• How did the diversity of your classmates contribute to your learning in the course?
• How might the class climate be made more inclusive? (p. 205)

In addition to the data you receive from students about the class, they both suggest getting peer faculty to assess your class based on your criteria of an inclusive class. This has to be carefully structured in order to get valuable feedback on the items required for an inclusive class, according to YOU—not the evaluating professor. This way you can see if you are meeting your own standards for an equitable and inclusive environment in the classroom.

 

Transparency, feedback, and “demystifying” office hours

What can we do outside of the classroom to create an inclusive experience? In Chapter 6/ Inclusive Practices Outside the Classroom, Sathy likes to “demystify” office hours by creating a welcoming environment. In addition to outfitting their office with items that create a welcoming environment, they both suggest using alternative sites for office hours in addition to the actual office. Examples would include the Student Union or a nearby coffeehouse. They want to create an atmosphere where it is not scary to visit your professor.

In addition to creating inclusive exams, Sathy and Hogan feel strongly about reducing bias in grading by grading blindly when possible. They talk about providing feedback inclusively and using a purple or blue pen (not red!) when grading. What that looks like is more thoughtful feedback instead of one-liners that may be degrading. As examples of what NOT to do, they used comments their friends have gotten in undergrad like “REWRITE this!!!” or “Do you even speak the English language???” (p. 176). Inclusive teachers will want to be affirming to students, not degrading. Moreover, giving thoughtful feedback may assist students in their next assignments to do better.

In creating inclusive exams, they ask questions like: Can you eliminate bias and jargon in your test writing? Can you incorporate elements that embrace diversity (like names from minoritized groups) in your question writing? Before the exam, you can indicate the format and length of the exam, you can post directions ahead of time and you can let them know that you want them to do well. All of these things reinforce the desire for students to have all the tools and resources they need to succeed.

Classroom culture

At the beginning of Chapter 5: Classroom Environment and Interactions, Hogan and Sathy ask the reader if they have been in a faculty meeting scenario where a presentation goes on so long there is hardly time for questions or where a few people dominate a conversation. In each scenario they want the reader to think about who is included and who is left out of sharing their opinions or having an opportunity to speak. What leads to this? No structure and poor planning. These are examples of what NOT to do when you want to create an inclusive atmosphere.

The purpose of these questions about the faculty meeting is to point out that planning for a class is paramount to how inclusive it will be. How much time are you spending on lecturing? Are we only allowing the outspoken students the chance to speak or offer their opinion? Are there other ways to include those who are more introverted? The authors give examples of facilitating thoughtful classroom interactions.

We must think about visual considerations as well for learners. You as the instructor may ask a question in class and expect all to remember it and answer the question. Sathy and Hogan suggest having it on a worksheet or presenting a slide for all to see. This assists students who maybe have ADD or those who are not auditory learners, but visual learners, and even those who cannot retain the information. They go on to talk about PowerPoint slide design as well as the use of microphones for all learners to see and hear clearly.

Inside the Classroom

In Chapter 4: Launching Your Course both Hogan and Sathy state that welcome videos or welcome messages by email before class begins promote an inclusive environment. They also suggest posting pictures of themselves on the learning management system that convey warmth and friendliness. If the welcome messages were sent, it then sets the tone for the first day of class. As far as creating community in the classroom, the authors note that getting-to-know-you questions create a sense of belonging. Sathy and Hogan help the students to engage with them as professors. They mention that to help students see them as approachable that may include “anecdotes about ourselves (on the first day), discuss likes and dislikes or give true/false quizzes about which characteristics they think describe us.”

Hogan and Sathy also discuss the very important issue of sharing pronouns. We can model this behavior by introducing ourselves and stating the pronouns we use. This can be a touchy topic, as some students may not feel comfortable sharing their pronouns. So, they say they

“invite students to share their pronouns, but never make it a requirement” (p. 94).

Names are also important to consider. There are names that may be difficult to pronounce. In that case, they may ask students to repeat it so they can write it down (many times to spell it phonetically). To learn names, Sathy for example has her students use place cards. So names that are difficult to pronounce can be to be spelled out phonetically on their name cards. All of these techniques help to create a climate in the classroom where all students feel like they are respected and that they belong.

 

How should I design my course and syllabus?

In Chapter 3: Designing Your Course and Syllabus with an Inclusive Mindset, Hogan and Sathy continuously assure us that inclusive teaching is about wanting all students to succeed, but they are clear about putting items of support in place to assist in that success. From verbally expressing the desire for all to succeed, the authors want to make sure the syllabus conveys that as well.  From using affirming language, and avoiding all CAPS (yelling), to accommodations statements and diversity affirming statements, faculty can create communicate the value of inclusivity.

Resources and content are important as well. Choosing diverse authors is one way to convey inclusivity. Also, choosing resources that everyone will use. (There is a common occurrence of faculty not utilizing a costly text and making it required for the course). Choose your resources carefully and be aware of costly texts for the course. Be sure to use all readings, and make those not required optional.

Another way to create an inclusive culture is by getting feedback from your students on their study habits. You may want to poll your student to see how much time they are preparing for class to get an understanding of how much time and effort is being put into the class. With grading, it is critical to have many forms of assessment, rather than the high-stakes 2 exams and a final. Being inclusive would involve low-stakes assignments like in-class writing and quizzes in addition to essays and exams. The practice of dropping the lowest exam grade or quiz grade would also even the playing field.

 

Prove it

Chapter Two: The Value of Structure is concerned with how Inclusive teaching strategies can get us closer to our goals around equity. Sathy and Hogan state,

“Pedagogies that are inclusive…reduce differences between minoritized and non-minoritized groups. This kind of teaching is an act of antiracism” (p. 13).

In addition to this, there have been achievement gaps closed or narrowed due to inclusive teaching. Proof of this comes from an example of Hogan’s study on the use of structure in inclusive classrooms.

Hogan collected survey and performance data on her students before and after she created a more structured course. With the use of a highly structured course, she found that “differences in performance between Black students and white students were halved and differences between first-generation college students and non-first-generation college students disappeared” (p. 7).

Another example comes from Hogan and co-researcher Sarah Eddy. They did a study on how a structured classroom found a disproportionate benefit for some student groups. “Gaps in performance closed for first-generation college students compared to their non-first-generation peers when more structure was added. The difference that existed between black and white students were halved” (p. 39).

They give more examples of what type of activities make an inclusive classroom. Examples include skeletal outlines to assist in taking notes has been proven to promote inclusive engagement (p. 21).  In class or out of class “practice for all” (p. 28) has been useful as well as techniques like group discussion, individual writing, and anonymous polling (p. 31). In the text, some of these activities are in a chart of low moderate, and highly structured courses. These include 1. Graded preparatory assignments (for example a reading quiz), 2. Student in-class engagement (for example clicker questions worksheets and case studies) and 3. Graded review assignments (for example practice exam problems) (p. 33).

 

When you think of an “inclusive” classroom, the first word that may not come to mind is “structure.” According to Kelly Hogan and Viji Sathy in Inclusive Teaching: Strategies for Promoting Equity in the College Classroom, this is one of the primary approaches to creating an inclusive classroom. Let me explain. In addition to discussing the importance of welcoming all types of students into the classroom and valuing their contributions, how you structure your class is paramount to inclusive teaching. What does this look like? It involves everything inside and outside of the classroom, from how the syllabus and online management are structured to how class time is structured.  As they state, “inclusive teaching is a mindset.” As professors who value inclusive classrooms, we want all students the equal ability to succeed in the class, no matter their background.

It is especially important for Hogan and Sathy to employ inclusive teaching. They both teach in STEM fields, where students who cannot compete are “weeded out” and historically that affected minoritized students and women. The authors want a classroom and a field where all students have the tools to succeed. Much of their findings are based on experiences they had in the classroom, research done by other STEM professionals as well as research done by those studying inclusive teaching. Even though many of their examples come from STEM classes, as someone who has taught in the humanities for over 20 years, I find the information extremely relevant.

What is meant by inclusive teaching?

In Chapter One: Inclusive Teaching as a Mind-Set, before they discuss what inclusive teaching is, Sathy and Hogan outline definitions of diversity, equity, and inclusion” (p. 4). In brief, diversity refers to the ways students are similar and different, equity is having access to the same opportunities and inclusion describes “a culture in which all learners feel welcome, valued and safe and it requires intentional and deliberate strategies” (p. 5). Therein lies the ultimate goal: equity. Equity allows an equal chance for students to do well in whatever field they choose.

A path to equity shows up in how we use structure in our class. So how do we achieve this structure in our classes and what does that look like? There are variations on structure, and it involves low structure and high structure. The authors explain that low-structure courses have traditional lectures with only a few high-stakes assessments, such as 2 midterms and a final exam. On the other hand, highly structured courses

“assign daily and weekly active-learning exercises with the goal of providing constant practice with the analytical skills required to do well on exams” (p. 6-7). Of course, what is privileged here is the significance of highly structured courses because “[w]hen learning environments are unstructured, they can lead to feelings of unfairness, feelings of exclusion, and collisions of students’ cultural backgrounds with the learning environment” (p. 11).

Historically in the classroom, teaching college involved faculty experts who come in and offer the knowledge they have attained through years of research. Oftentimes, those who have PhDs and become faculty do not often think too much about how a class will be structured. Structure is often thought about with regards to the syllabus, for example, how will the readings be broken up over time. What day or week will we discuss Shakespeare’s Hamlet?  Structure, writ large, involves the environment in and out of the classroom from the syllabus to where you offer office hours to what happens in class.

So, where does “diversity” come into play? Sathy and Hogan mention that inclusive teaching is not just adding readings from diverse scholars, although that is part of it. They say inclusive teaching does not need to be centered on the subject of diversity. Instead, “[i]nclusive teaching includes the intentional ways instructors interact with students, provide multiple opportunities to practice the work in the discipline and demonstrate care” (p. 13). In their text, diversity comes into play when we look at the multitude of learners that make up our classroom. For example, looking beyond gender, race, and ethnicity: “we often include discussions of students who are first-generation college students, multilingual, for low-resource contexts, introverts, immigrants, neurodiverse students, students with mental illness, students who hold unpopular political beliefs and all the intersections” (p. 16).

Both authors discuss the fact that identities notwithstanding, not all learners begin at the same starting line. This can be because of systemic barriers, but some also find obstacles along their path. An example of this in the classroom is the concept of the “hidden curriculum,” where there are unstated rules and norms in the classroom. As a remedy for this, it is paramount to structure and organize courses with the intention of making things transparent and accessible to all.

It is important to note that an active class (with assignments and group work in class) doesn’t equal an inclusive class. There must be structure! What this looks like is active learning time during the class, where students can practice problems (many times for credit- low stakes assignments), gather information in small groups, and prepare for exams and tests. The class time is active, but with structure.

Sathy and Hogan often reference backward design. Begin with the end in mind. What are the goals and objectives of the course? Are classroom interactions helping us to achieve our equity goals? One activity they both often use Think Pair Share (TPS) in the classroom where students think to themselves, pair with other students, and share their findings with the entire group. This way you allow those who are less vocal in a big class setting have the opportunity to have their voice heard in both the small group setting and in the big class setting when the sharing begins. This approach involves learning for all and no one is left out.