Frameworks for Evaluating Inclusive Teaching

Inclusive Teaching. The literature is clear: creating classroom spaces, virtual or in-person, where students feel like they belong is an important step to ensuring students are retained and progress to graduation. Amy Pate, Associate Director for Faculty Support within SOLS, and I ran a session recently, co-hosted by the RISE Center for Research in Inclusive STEM Education, that focused on the frameworks that educators use to evaluate whether a given course or curriculum is designed to create such inclusive spaces. The recording of that session can be found here. The session was well attended and interactive, but perhaps you were not able to attend or you are only now hearing about this topic. Below are the highlights of the ideas presented and the questions we grappled with.

We need to start with some definitions

• Inclusive Pedagogy: A student-centered approach to teaching where instructors create an inviting and engaging learning environment for ALL students with diverse backgrounds, learning preferences, and physical and cognitive abilities in a classroom.
• Culturally Responsive Pedagogy: Teachers that acknowledge, respond to, and celebrate the cultural identities of their students will provide a learning environment that is equitable and inclusive, and which promotes the learning of all students. Culturally responsive teaching is a process that recognizes the importance of including students' cultural references in all aspects of learning (Ladson-Billings,1994).

These two terms are useful when we attempt to think critically about the experience of our students in our courses and learning spaces. If we are trying to improve our own courses, make our courses more student-centered, or perhaps we are reviewing the course of a colleague, considering how to use inclusive and/or culturally responsive pedagogy is a valuable exercise.

We recommend examining some of the first chapters of the second edition of Stephen Brookfield’s 2017 book “Becoming a Critically Reflective Teacher.” In it, Brookfield argues that reflective teachers, like any good scholar, will actively question the assumptions that they are making. As scientists, we are expected to clearly explain the assumptions we are making if we hope to get our work published or land our next grant. How is teaching any different? To this end, Brookfield recommends both the questioning of assumptions (read the book to learn more) and to examine teaching through several different lenses: the eyes of our students, the perceptions of our colleagues, the personal experiences we have of our own teaching and learning, and anything we can learn from the literature on the theory and research of evidence-based teaching practices. While not explicitly a book about inclusive and equity, Brookfield nonetheless has powerful messages that are valuable to anyone looking to create inclusive environments that have the potential to transform our classrooms.

We also recommend an excellent article by Dewsbury and Brame (2019), "Inclusive Teaching", published by CBE-Life Sciences Education, that clearly articulates three major questions:

1. How can instructors develop self-awareness?
2. How can instructors develop empathy?
3. How can we cultivate an inclusive classroom climate?

In answering these questions, Dewsbury and Brame argue that teaching is most effective when it is based on relationships and dialogue. It is likely that much of our students’ educational experiences lack both relationship and dialogue, and it is our obligation, if we care about our students, to cultivate both.

These resources are helpful when we are attempting to examine our own instruction, and possibly the instruction or instructional materials of others. But if we are serious about this work, there are actually several tools that we might use to more thoroughly examine course materials, tools that have been developed or adapted to help us be objective, efficient, and provide valuable feedback should we be interested in doing so. Below we have described three specific frameworks for evaluating inclusive teaching practices:

Frameworks for Evaluating Inclusive Teaching

Quality Matters

The Quality Matters (or QM) review tool is designed for use by universities or colleges seeking to examine online courses. It is based on eight (8) key course design elements that include, in part: objectives, materials, activities, assessments, technology, and support.

Benefits of using Quality Matters include:

• Nationally known and supported
• Clearly defined standards
• Encourages review by small teams of trained individuals (but can be adapted for use by others)

You can examine some language pulled from the QM overview below.

Peralta Equity Rubric

The Peralta Equity Rubric is a research-based course (re)design evaluation instrument to make online course experiences more equitable for students. This rubric focuses on several different factors that can be improved by enhancing equity: Academic, Pedagogical, Psychological, Social, Technological.

Benefits of the Peralta Equity Rubric include:

• Nationally recognized
• Based on peer-reviewed literature
• Clear, explicit language
• Relatively easy to use
• Lots of resources linked from the rubric
• Please see examples of the Peralta Equity Rubric below.

School of Life Sciences Course Review Rubrics

In the Spring and Summer of 2019, the staff of the Teaching Innovation Center within the School of Life Sciences created a course review process to begin to review the quality of online courses offered by the unit. Our team worked to identify and articulate specific standards with which to evaluate online courses and wound up pulling from several different sources to help our review teams provide constructive feedback to our course authors. The standards developed a focus on three major criteria: 1) Course Design elements, 2) Course Content and 3) Evidence-based Teaching Practices. While not entirely focused on inclusive pedagogy, the ideas of inclusive teaching were embedded throughout the rubrics.

Benefits of the SOLS Course Review Rubrics:

• Drawn and adapted from several major frameworks
• Designed for rapid review by a small team of reviewers
• Relatively flexible and easy to use
• Results easily tabulated/compared

See an example of the SOLS Course Review Rubrics here. 

Summary

While not all of us will be looking for resources to help us do a formal review of courses or course materials, these frameworks are helpful guides if we are interested in pursuing questions related to equity and inclusion in higher education. The existence of these guidelines can help us in any part of the course design process: before a course is created, during the development process, or even after a course has been taught for many years and may be ready for a review or examination of the methods used in the course. Regardless of where you may be situated, we invite you to reach out to either of the session facilitators, Amy Pate or Joshua Caulkins, or any of the TIC staff, with any questions you may have about any elements of your course. You can contact us at TIC@asu.edu. 

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Post Author:

Joshua Caulkins is an Assistant Director of Undergraduate Programs in the School of Life Sciences. He is also the Director of the BioSpine Initiative within SOLS, a course and curriculum redesign project.