• While culturally-relevant pedagogy can be about choices in content (e.g. centering perspectives and contributions made by scholars of color), if you don’t believe that you can change the content, you can design culturally relevant and affirming learning experiences for students. Rendon’s (2014) Sentipensante (Sensing/Thinking) Pedagogy contains strategies for integrative and contemplative learning so that students connect concepts with lived experiences and reflections, including specific examples from across disciplinary traditions, including chemistry, biology, English, and many others.

• Inclusive Teaching: Strategies for Promoting Equity in the College Classroom by Kelly A. Hogan and Viji Sathy is written by two STEM instructors and is loaded with helpful tips (both bite-sized and large-scale) that address equity gaps in STEM courses. A main takeaway: adding additional structure/accountability helps students who need a boost without harming high performers. A few tips from the book:

  • “Pre-class work such as readings or videos should include accountability for completing it. Keep the difficulty level lower as students are being introduced to concepts.” 

    1. Since the course includes a lab component, consider putting a pre-lab video or into PlayPosit to require students to watch it before the lab portion. From here, you can embed questions that require students to engage with material necessary to help them succeed in the lab.

    2. If there are pre-lab readings, include guided, low-stakes reading questions that students must answer before the lab. These could be submitted in a Canvas discussion forum or with a PlayPosit worksheet. 

  • “Teach students about learning to help them buy into high structure… frequently explain how what you are doing in your teaching aligns with how learning works.”

  • The authors' OneHE crash course: The Role of Structure in Inclusive Teaching

• Consider introducing some flexible assessments into the course, where students can select how they are assessed from a few options you provide. This gives students an opportunity to work with their learning style and personal needs without sacrificing rigor. Go through your existing assignments with a +1 mindset: “what is one additional way a student could show me they [insert existing assignment learning objective]?”

  • OneHe course: Working with Flexible Assessment (Sam Elkington)

• Clear and transparent grading criteria will communicate to students more clearly what it is they need to know and do in order to succeed on graded assignments, as well as what steps they need to take in order to complete them.

  • Canvas outcomes and Canvas rubrics for assignments 

  • Transparent Assignment Framework (Winkelmes, 2013) 

• Similar to the above recommendation on transparent grading and rubrics, providing examples of successful lab reports may help students who are unfamiliar with how to succeed in lab courses.

  • To add accountability for students to engage with this, consider adding guided reading questions asking students specific questions about where the example lab report did well and where it could be improved.

Resource

• Request a free copy of The Norton Guide to Equity-Minded Teaching, by Isis Artze-Vega, Flower Darby, Bryan Dewsbury, and Mays Imad