Examples:

Bring out the explorer-creator in students

One method to reach students where they are is to enlist them in creating course content. I first started enlisting students in describing the Student Learning Outcomes for the course in their own words. They came up with several amazing goals that far exceeded the official SLOs. Lately, I have students create more and more content as another path to creating an equitable learning community.

When students create the content they're learning, they bring their individual perspectives and experiences to bear: they start where they are. Because they're responsible for defining the concepts in ways that are meaningful to them, their understanding of what to do and how to proceed is stronger. There is less likelihood that they will be left behind like the child in the image who isn't quite tall enough to reach the apple.

In this example below, I ask students to assess the credibility of a claim and explain why they find the claim believable or not believable. I selected an example from Twitter published by the Stanford History Education Group's Civic Online Reasoning. This particular example is especially helpful because it focuses on a topic in popular media. This activity engages students' initial knowledge of what makes an idea believable, which makes it a more accessible activity for students regardless of their formal knowledge of assessing sources--reaching them where they are. In the context of a discussion, students can view their peers' responses and begin to think more deeply about applying what they know about assessing credibility. As a result of their assessments, each student contributes to a larger discussion of the criteria used to evaluate the credibility of a claim and a source, and the result of their contributions is turned into a credibility tool that they use for the remainder of the course and beyond.

This kind of exercise also builds students' confidence in navigating the digital world, especially social media, a platform in which many students initially feel too unprepared or intimidated to navigate well.

Foster courage and make room to practice

One way to make the environment less intimidating and more learning-friendly is to provide ample opportunities for practice without penalty, an effective approach to learning borne out by studies in neuroscience. See, for example, studies compiled by John Hattie in Visible Learning. In the example below, I ask students to write a brief summary about an article they just read. The students get credit if they submit a summary and full credit if they also reply to a peer's submission stating why they like it. This is a simple yet effective way to increase student participation in the course, get them practicing important skills and learning from each other, and to reduce the fear of failure--all factors that contribute to an equitable learning environment.

Make it easier to access content

Open Educational Resources is another way to support equity in the class. I have had several students each year who cannot afford textbooks. I've been aware of this issue for a while, so in the past I've used freely available resources in my classes for the most part, but I wasn't able to find alternatives for a couple of the textbooks I would like to use. This changed when I took the @ONE Digital Citizenship course, when I learned about several open educational resources, including writing handbooks and works of fiction that I now incorporate in my courses.

A few examples of these open educational resources include:

• Lumen Learning English Composition

• Lumen Writing Skills Lab and other Lumen publications

• Handouts from the UNC Writing Center.

• eBooks, such as those provided by the Internet Archive and the University of Adelaide

• Numerous video content through YouTube, such as the "How to Write a Summary" video used in the example above.

Connect coursework with the world

One activity that I recently developed is a group activity to contribute to Wikipedia, which is an idea that those of us in the Dynamic Online Teaching course discussed. This activity engages students in participating in the creation of an open educational resource, Wikipedia, and thereby creating a non-disposable and valuable contribution to learning both inside and outside the class. I haven't had a chance to assign this activity in class yet, but I plan to do so soon.

Draw on students' experience

The example shown below applies to both principles: Be Present and Practice Equity. There's probably no greater stressor for students than taking a test. It's like going to the dentist, only worse. Add to that the fact they're in a new class and many are working on a new platform, and the idea of taking a test is made even more stressful.

So I designed a quiz for my students in the first week of class as a kind of inoculation against the idea that all quizzes are stressful. Using brief quizzes as a way to perform formative assessment is supported in the @ONE courses I took. The quiz below follows a video on growth mindset, and I ask students which idea from that video is most important for college students to know. This quiz asks students to respond to the ideas of growth mindset from their own experience and knowledge, and it acquaints them with Canvas quizzes in a less stressful way.

Demystify student services

There are also obstacles outside the classroom that can make the difference between a student persisting and succeeding or dropping out. I used to ask representatives from different student services to come to my on-campus classes to provide brief overviews of services available to students, but my online courses had no information about student services. This is a problem for students who need assistance yet feel isolated or don't know that there are people available to help them.

After taking the Equity and other OEI courses, I learned how to incorporate information about student services in my online courses and to do so using student-friendly language and descriptions. Here is an example of incorporating student services information in a syllabus designed using Google Sites, a platform I learned about from @ONE.