6. Equity, Diversity and Inclusion

An equitable learning environment is about creating a virtual environment that works for all students. ‘Equity mindedness’ involves recognizing the barriers that disadvantage some students more than others and proactively addressing these limitations in the design and delivery of the online course.

This can be achieved by:

• Providing different levels and options for social engagement. Some examples are:

  • High quality asynchronous learning materials

  • Optional synchronous office hours

  • Facilitating student forums and study groups

• Providing the tools (rubrics, guidelines, or exemplars) students need to succeed and the necessary scaffolding (check-ins, collaborative note-taking, individualized support) required to meet learning outcomes.

• Providing learning resources and materials that are free from bias and represent the diversity of the student body at Seneca.

• Creating an environment that makes students comfortable to disagree

  • Many students might see the world differently than you as a result of differences in experience, culture and knowledge. Ensuring they feel comfortable disagreeing with yourself and other students (in a respectful way) ensures that everyone has an opportunity to be heard.

• Provide students with choice in how they want to engage in a synchronous setting (through video, audio, chat, Mentimeter, etc)

• Providing alternatives for students tuning in from different time-zones, places or spaces.

  • Record parts of lectures that are content driven. Consider stopping recording during discussions to encourage more participation.

• Use a lot of formative assessment, as this helps ensure that content and assessments align with student levels of understanding

• Consider low-bandwidth assessments, which can remove barriers to learning

  • Providing PDFs of slides and transcripts of videos

  • Open book tests do not require consistent internet connections

When it comes to inclusion there are two major rules: variety is key and make no assumptions.

Variety is Key

The basic premise of variety is about making sure that the various voices that make up our society are part of the classroom: different races, cultures, gender and sexual expressions, and neuro and physical abilities.

This means:

• Curating resources, readings and activities that take into account the diversity of the student body

  • For more information, see the Teaching & Learning Centre Nutshell, Exploring and Evaluating Open Educational Resources. See it here.

• Teaching topics and using case studies that apply to a wide range of experiences

Unsurprisingly, student feedback can be a great way to gauge whether you are successful at this. You can ask students about their opinions regarding inclusion and diversity.

Make no Assumptions

Our students are diverse and they come to us with varying levels of knowledge, different experiences, and from around the world. We should not assume that certain experiences are universal when trying to teach content. Of course, when it comes to knowledge, we might expect that students understand concepts from prerequisite courses (math especially comes to mind here). But, when it comes to teaching through anecdotes or relating content to experiences, it's important to not assume that certain experiences are universal.

While it can be hard to address our own bias and assumptions, this section is all about doing our best at just that. Taking an objective look at what we are teaching and how we achieve that can be helpful to address these issues.

And yet again, student feedback can be a great way to gauge whether you are successful at this.

Diagnostic assessments (assessments that gauge prior knowledge) can be a good way to introduce a topic. If students feel comfortable saying that they aren't aware of certain things, time can be taken to address this so that everyone can participate in the lecture content as much as possible.

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