Culture & Environment

1) Students engage with transparent, high, and achievable curricular and classroom expectations. 

Students feel welcome and that they can succeed in the course. 

• Setting the Tone for Inclusive Classrooms University of Michigan Inclusive Teaching, ideas for creating an inclusive classroom.

• Making a First Impression: Exploring What Students Do and Say on the First Day of Introductory STEM Courses Article about how student impressions form during the first days of class to help instructors more effectively plan for the first day by providing messages that set students up for success.

Students experience active collaboration, and student-centered engagement as the norm in the course.

• Evidence-Based Teaching Guide: Inclusive Teaching, CBE Life Science Education based on Inclusive Teaching by Bryan Dewsbury and Cynthia Brame. Strategies and Resources related to inclusive teaching.

• Include welcome messages in multiple locations: Canvas, e-mail, syllabus.

Students engage in structured learning through frequent and low-stakes activities/assessments, feedback, and discussion.

• Share videos/ posts of former students sharing experiences with the course.

• The Social Justice Syllabus Design Tool: A First Step in Doing Social Justice Pedagogy Appendix A: Reflection questions to help analyze syllabi.

Students have a voice in decision-making about the course expectations (e.g. assignment/assessment choice, pacing, deadlines, evaluation criteria, etc.).

• Inclusive Teaching Strategies, Hogan & Sathy (2022) Teaching in Higher Ed August 2022 interview with Hogan & Sathy re: inclusive teaching.

• Require brief one-on-one meetings to connect and reinforce expectations, follow up with students who need reminders.

• Maintain a clear and consistent structure for how resources, assignments, and expectations are shared.

• Elicit student feedback on pacing and assignments.

• Backwards Design Understanding by Design, Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching. Overview of backwards design, stages in process, and lesson planning template.

• Student Voice in Higher Education April 2022 paper by K.E. Matthews and M. Dollinger distinguishing between student representation and student partnership