How-To Guide

Using Our Resources

Are you ready to get started with creating accessible courses and assignments?

Start with the Self

Every one of us as faculty brings into our classroom who we are -- as teachers, as learners, as citizens of the world. Recognizing our positions, our multiple identities, and the many ways our personal experiences have shaped the way we move in the world is critical to creating a welcoming learning environment. Faculty who aspire to use more inclusive, anti-racist classroom practices must think critically about their biases and actively work to overcome them. We invite you to consider these resources to help you uncover and reduce the unintended biases and practices you might bring to the classroom. This guide provides resources, questions, and a rubric that can be used in the context of ongoing interrogation of our syllabi and course design.

Move to your Course Design and Syllabus

It can be daunting to review the syllabus of an existing course or to create one from scratch! There is no one right way to design a new course or revise an existing course; it's not a linear process, but a circular, iterative one. We suggest that you just focus on one goal at a time, and over time it will add up to a more inclusive course design and syllabus.

All of the following areas are important to consider:

If you're not sure where to start, we recommend reviewing the "Tool for Interrogating Your Syllabus" and choosing an area of focus.
As you develop your learning outcomes, consider them through an equity lens, including how culturally relevant they are for students' lives, and write them in a way that makes them clear and useful to students.
Consider your choice of readings and course content. Include diverse perspectives and research from scholars of varying backgrounds, choosing a variety of readings that are culturally relevant to students. Rather than privileging readings, include resources from a variety of different modalities, e.g., sources that are videos, podcasts, etc.

We recommend considering the above first before worrying about the assignments and scheduling. The assignments will be related to your course goals and learning outcomes, so they'll be a natural progression from those.

The assignments, their learning outcomes, their ordering.
1. Select assignments that help students make relevant connections to their own lives.
2. Build in opportunities for students to be evaluated on assignments through multiple means of demonstrating learning.
The flow of topics – Don't just allocate one or two weeks for an "equity week"; incorporate a variety of scholars/topics/readings into your syllabus across the entire academic term.
Diversify the examples that you use to illustrate points; include representations of a variety of identities and life experiences. For example, to de-center whiteness, in your fictional examples, use names from a variety of cultural backgrounds, e.g., "Rodriguez" and "Tsang," versus "Jones" and "Smith."

As you're writing your syllabus and assignments, keep in mind the goal of aiming for a welcoming tone.

Consider your Pedagogies

Being inclusive means considering how you teach as well as what you teach. We all can benefit from thinking about how we manage a classroom environment, how we handle difficult conversations, how we evaluate learning, and how we provide students with feedback that facilitates their growth while honoring their identities. As lifelong learners, faculty can reflect on their practices and identify areas where they also can learn and grow.

You might evaluate your teaching practices and pedagogy.
You might assess how you evaluate learning in your course.
You might examine practices for creating an inclusive classroom environment.
You might join a conversation with the Inclusive Teaching and Learning Group to talk about your syllabus, assignments, and assessments.

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