What is inclusive teaching?

Inclusive teaching cultivates an environment where students have equal access to learning regardless of their background or needs. It is:

• Welcoming: it makes students feel like they belong and have the support needed to succeed
• Intersectional: it recognizes that social identity categories like race, gender, and class are interconnected and overlapping, with different relationships to privilege and disadvantage 
• Equity-focused: it ensures all students have equal opportunities for success and that, over time, students from different backgrounds demonstrably achieve success
• Learning-centered: Like all good teaching, it works backward from what students should know or be able to do to determine what content needs to be taught, how students will demonstrate their learning, and what methods and policies underpin their experience

While all good teaching is also inclusive teaching, inclusive teaching isn’t just good teaching —it is a deliberate counterforce against institutional histories of segregation and exclusion. Inclusive teaching takes place in every facet of teaching—designing teaching encounters, delivering teaching in the classroom, and assessing the effectiveness of teaching. 

The Center for Teaching Excellence's approach to inclusive teaching builds on the five-part framework developed at the University of Michigan’s Center for Research on Learning and Teaching to highlight six areas of focus, adding accessibility: 

• Critical Engagement of Difference
• Academic Belonging
• Transparency
• Structured Interactions
• Flexibility
• Accessibility 

When examining your teaching from an inclusive and equity-focused perspective, please do not feel that you have to address everything all at once. Instead, try making one targeted modification in response to a particular challenge you have identified.

How can I get started with inclusive course design?

Consider an inclusive syllabus

Rather than focusing purely on content or logistical details, an inclusive syllabus is accessible and conveys that students are welcome in the course and can succeed. Our Reviewing Your Syllabus for Inclusive Teaching guide identifies key characteristics of friendly and welcoming syllabi, such as addressing students directly, selecting course materials that reflect the diversity of contributors to the discipline or interrogate issues of representation, and scaffolding major assessments with low-stakes opportunities for students to practice and refine their understanding. 

Be transparent

A simple but extremely powerful tool, the Transparent Assignment Design Template helps communicate to students about:

• The purpose of the work you are asking them to do 
• The tasks you want them to complete
• What successful work looks like

A decade of research spanning 25,000 students, 40 institutions, and 7 countries has demonstrated that transparency promotes learning, increases students’ academic confidence, and increases their sense of belonging. Discussing the rationale for assigned work, highlighting what challenges students might expect to encounter, and clarifying assessment criteria makes the implicit expectations you have for students’ work explicit. These strategies support all students, and they are especially helpful for those who are new to a discipline or new to college. 

What steps can I take when delivering class sessions?

Work with students to create a productive, respectful environment

Developing a set of collective agreements—often called “community norms” or “discussion guidelines”—ensures that all students are aware of what a positive, healthy classroom environment entails.

Working with students to generate a list of characteristics can be an effective way to increase buy-in. You might begin this conversation by asking students, “If you have been in a challenging discussion that went well, what helped it go well?” Or, “Describe a time when you felt like something was mishandled in the classroom. What would’ve helped in the moment?” Consider what actions students and the instructor can take if they hear a biased or hurtful comment as well as what actions they can take if they make a comment that they realize is biased or hurtful.

Once your group has established a set of effective practices, post them in a place where students can access them, such as on Blackboard. Visit them periodically, checking in with students about items they wish to add or revise, or reminding them of the agreements they made.

Give students time to gather their thoughts

Structuring interactions can help avoid uneven participation dynamics, such as long silences after posing questions or a pattern where only a handful of students consistently speak up. Not everyone is ready to share right away. Rather than posing a question and opening the floor to the first student who responds, consider building in processing time to encourage recall, consolidate learning, and help more students prepare to contribute. 

Check for understanding

Additionally, use strategies that allow you to gather a fuller range of responses. Polling can be an excellent tool to spark discussion or check understanding (“Which of these four thesis statements is most effective?” “Which solution to this equation is correct?”) as well as more general ones. For instance, instead of asking, “Is this clear?” and counting on a small number of volunteers, posing the question as an anonymous poll can more accurately flag potential issues before moving on. 

Structure discussions

There are many structured strategies for encouraging participation. For an excellent catalog that can be sorted according to criteria such as class size and time to implement, explore Griffith University’s Active Learning Design Tool. Our active learning page has several additional approaches to consider.

How can I gauge the effectiveness of inclusion efforts? 

Gather feedback

Create opportunities for students to tell you what is helping them learn and what would improve their learning. There might be very good reasons for not being able to change everything that students wish were different, but opening up the conversation signals your interest in student success. Adopting inclusive classroom practices are a signal that you care about well-being and an invitation for students to connect with you when they need further support.

Look to helpful resources

Here are some of the resources that have been most foundational in the Center for Teaching Excellence's inclusive teaching work:

• Tracie Addy, Inclusive Teaching Visualization Project: a video library of brief teaching vignettes from a STEM lab, first-year seminar, and social sciences. They demonstrate inclusive teaching techniques such as fostering a growth mindset and using diverse examples.
• Kelly A. Hogan and Viji Sathy, Inclusive Teaching: Strategies for Promoting Equity in the College Classroom (Morgantown: West Virginia University Press, 2022): A book-length guide that is particularly helpful in examining course structure and navigating the tension between structure and flexibility.
• University of Michigan Center for Research on Learning and Teaching, Reflecting On Your Practice: Equity-Focused Teaching Strategies. This inventory of over 50 strategies demonstrates how to put equity-focused teaching into practice. It can spark reflection about what you are already doing, what you might try, and what might not work for you.

Keep in mind that while there are many concrete ways to create an inclusive environment, the Center for Teaching Excellence does not approach inclusive teaching as a checklist of strategies. As educational developer Sarah Emily Silverman reminds us, inclusion is not something we achieve: it is something that we consistently work towards. That work involves experimentation and revision—testing strategies, gathering information to assess who is and is not well-served by a particular practice, determining what barriers exist, and thinking creatively to address them.

What additional inclusive and equity-focused teaching efforts are happening at GW?

All GW schools have efforts underway to improve inclusion, so be sure to check with your school for the latest discipline-specific approaches. Libraries and Academic Innovation (GWLAI) and other school-wide departments are here to help:

• Inclusive courses feature inclusive materials. GW Libraries offers customized assistance with making course material affordable and accessible and including course materials about marginalized people and by scholars from marginalized backgrounds. Consult our directory of librarians by expertise and disciplinary area.
• The Office of Diversity, Equity, and Community Engagement is GW’s center for diversity and inclusion, including bias-reporting and unconscious bias training. The Multicultural Student Services Center and the Center for Interfaith and Spiritual Life further support student identity and expression on campus.
• The GW REACH (Resilience by promoting Engagement with and Access to Campus Health) Program hosts virtual workshops for faculty and staff on student well-being trends, availability of services, and how to make appropriate referrals to those services.
• The Elliott School’s Gender Analysis Toolkit provides strategies for incorporating gender analysis and feminist theory in course curricula. 

Do you have an inclusive teaching resource or initiative you’d like to share here? Email educational developer Daphna Atias to tell us about it.