Equitable & Inclusive Teaching

Equitable and inclusive teaching involves cultivating awareness of the dynamics that shape classroom experiences and impact learning. It also involves being responsive to these dynamics and intentional about using strategies, or inclusive moves, that foster a productive learning environment. Sometimes there will be difficulty; inclusive teaching empowers students and teachers to navigate this together. Ultimately, inclusive teaching is good teaching.

Inclusive Course Design

When designing a course, each move matters. From your selection of course materials, to your teaching methods, to the ways you ask students to demonstrate their learning, your course may privilege some students while disadvantaging others. There are moves you can make during the course design phase, though, that can help you create a more equitable and inclusive learning experience.

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Classroom Dynamics

As teachers or students we all walk into the classroom with expectations and norms that have been cultivated by the communities and cultures from which we come. Some identities, cultures, and backgrounds have more power and privilege than others in traditional college classrooms. Given this fact, questions emerge: How do different identities intersect to affect teaching and learning? How might implicit bias and stereotype threat show up in the classroom? What do manifestations of power and privilege look like in learning environments?

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Key Moves

Students should have equitable opportunities for learning, regardless of their race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, religion, linguistic or socioeconomic background, ability, and more. What concrete moves can we make to foster an optimal environment for learning, which encourages engagement, authenticity, and respect?

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Navigating Difficult Moments in the Classroom

You make a remark that instigates a strong emotional reaction in a student or group of students. A student offers a comment that marginalizes a range of people and perspectives. Someone is wearing a piece of clothing or taking up space in a way that surfaces ideological disagreement. Now what?

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Teaching and Mental Health

Faculty and Teaching Fellows often are in an excellent position to identify students and colleagues who are struggling, and to refer them to the right person or department for help. And yet, at the same time, many instructors understandably report that they feel uncomfortable and/or unprepared in reaching out to a student or colleague in distress. After all, most of us are trained to be teachers and scholars, not mental health professionals. Recognizing this challenge, the Bok Center collaborated with an expert in college students' mental health to compile some modest but effective measures that faculty and Teaching Fellows might employ in their teaching.

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Faculty-Led Projects

Building on the recommendations of Harvard’s Presidential Task Force on Inclusion and Belonging, the Bok Center works to identify those places where Harvard could do better by its students, to research and propose solutions, and to find ways both large and small to foster a culture of equitable and inclusive excellence within teaching and learning in the FAS. We do this, in part, through our own teaching and consulting, by sharing what we understand to be effective, well-tested practices and approaches with the faculty and students who participate in our programming. But we also do this by helping instructors and students who are already motivated to make progress on these challenges to find resources and build intergenerational coalitions equipped to make change on their own.

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