Perspective and worldview: Whose voices are centered, whose are “other”ed?
Is content, whenever possible, made relevant to the lives of the students?
The “hidden curriculum”?
Are multicultural issues addressed explicitly?
IV. Dimensions of Equitable Education in Practice
4. Pedagogy
Focus on critical, complex thinking and asking critical questions
Paying attention to inequity in classroom processes
Attending to sociopolitical relationships (power and privilege) in the classroom
Using authentic assessment techniques
V. How We Get There: Tips and Techniques for Practice
V. The Equitable Learning Environment
Part 1: What Your Students Bring to the Classroom
V. The Equitable Learning Environment
1. What Students Bring into the Classroom
A. Find ways to challenge stereotypes (both in society and your own field)
Example: Albert Einstein as a white, male scientist who wrote very progressive essays about racism, imperialism, etc.
V. The Equitable Learning Environment
1. What Students Bring into the Classroom
B. Watch for and challenge student behaviors and relationships that reflect stereotypical roles
Example: Men assuming the lead in lab activities, women being “note-taker” in small groups
V. The Equitable Learning Environment
1. What Students Bring into the Classroom
C. Be thoughtful about how you create cooperative teams or small groups
Example: Avoid temptation to “distribute” people from under-represented groups (tokenism)
V. The Equitable Learning Environment
1. What Students Bring into the Classroom
D. Understand students’ reactions to you and your social identities in context
Example: Even if you don’t think much about your whiteness (for example), it may mean something significant to students of color who may only rarely not have white professors
V. The Equitable Learning Environment
1. What Students Bring into the Classroom
E. Help students un-learn the ways of being and seeing that lend themselves to prejudice
Example: Dichotomous thinking, competitive nature of learning (NOTE: this also means WE have to un-learn)
A. Identify and work to eliminate your biases, prejudices, and assumptions (yes, you do have them) about various groups of students
Example: Race/ethnicity, gender, religion, sexual orientation, religion, socioeconomic status, (dis)ability, first language, etc.
V. The Equitable Learning Environment
2. What You Bring into the Classroom
B. Identify and work to broaden your teaching style (which, according to research, probably suits your learning style)
Note: Research shows that two elements most effect how somebody teaches: (1) their preferred learning style, and (2) how they were taught what they’re teaching
V. The Equitable Learning Environment
2. What You Bring into the Classroom
C. Identify and work on your “hot buttons”
Question: What are the issues that set you off to the point that you become an ineffective educator/facilitator?
V. The Equitable Learning Environment
2. What You Bring into the Classroom
D. Provide students with periodic opportunities to share anonymous feedback
Note: Students already feeling disempowered and disconnected are not likely to approach you about your teaching or curriculum
V. The Equitable Learning Environment
2. What You Bring into the Classroom
E. Share examples of when you’ve struggled to climb out of the box and to see the world and your field in their full complexity
Note: When we make ourselves vulnerable we make it easier for students to do the same
V. The Equitable Learning Environment
2. What You Bring into the Classroom
F. Consider the significance of the professor/student power relationship and what this means re: student learning
Question: What might it mean to be a white male computer science professor teaching a young African American woman in a field historically hostile to African American women?
V. The Equitable Learning Environment
2. What You Bring into the Classroom
G. Identify the gaps in your knowledge about equity issues and pursue the information to fill those gaps
Point: I cannot teach anti-classism if I’m unwilling to deal with my own classism
V. The Equitable Learning Environment
2. What You Bring into the Classroom
H. Build the skills necessary to intervene effectively when equity issues arise
Examples: Racist joke or comment, sexual harassment, men talking over women
V. The Equitable Learning Environment
2. What You Bring into the Classroom
I. Mind your compliments
Point: Research indicates that educators, regardless of gender, are most likely to compliment male students on their intelligence. Female students? On their appearance.
V. The Equitable Learning Environment
Part 3: Curriculum Content
V. The Equitable Learning Environment
3. Curriculum Content
A. Assign tasks that challenge traditional social roles
Example: Assign men to be note-takers, women to be group facilitators
V. The Equitable Learning Environment
3. Curriculum Content
B. Try centering the sources you previously may have used as supplements
Example: Slave narratives as central history texts instead of supplements to a more Eurocentric framing of history
V. The Equitable Learning Environment
3. Curriculum Content
C. Avoid other-ing; weave diverse voices and sources seamlessly together instead of having separate sections or units
Example: No units on “women poets” or “Latino voices,” etc.
V. The Equitable Learning Environment
3. Curriculum Content
D. Discuss ways people in your field have used (and continue to use) their scholarship and platforms to advocate for social justice
Examples: Leontyne Price, Howard Zinn, Stephen J. Gould, Ida B. Wells, Mark Twain
V. The Equitable Learning Environment
3. Curriculum Content
E. Discuss ways people in your field have used (and continue to use) their scholarship and platforms to support inequity and injustice
Examples: “Science”: eugenics; “journalists”: refusal to critique Bush foreign policy during war-time; etc.
V. The Equitable Learning Environment
3. Curriculum Content
F. Discuss the history of oppression and exclusion in your field and how this has affected knowledge bases in your field
Examples: Women and STEM fields (and law, business, etc.)
Suggestion: Consider visual, tactile, aural, and other dimensions of your instructional materials
Note: Doesn’t mean every lesson must include all of these, but that they’re distributed over the course of the semester
V. The Equitable Learning Environment
3. Curriculum Content
H. Encourage students to raise critical questions, not only about the content itself, but about how the content is presented in educational materials
Example: Use of male anatomy as “standard”; differentiation between “American literature” and “African American literature” (and misuse of the term “American”)
V. The Equitable Learning Environment
Part 4: Pedagogy
V. The Equitable Learning Environment
4. Pedagogy
A. Be very clear about how you expect students to participate (open discussion, raised hands, etc.)
Related suggestion: Avoid first-hand-up, first-called-on approach
V. The Equitable Learning Environment
4. Pedagogy
B. Never, under any circumstance, invalidate or allow other students to invalidate concerns of inequity raised by students from disenfranchised groups
V. The Equitable Learning Environment
4. Pedagogy
C. Avoid putting students from disenfranchised groups in positions to have to teach people from privileged groups about their privilege
V. The Equitable Learning Environment
4. Pedagogy
D. Develop your facilitation skills so that you can effectively facilitate “difficult dialogues” about racism, sexism, classism, heterosexism, etc.
