EOTP - Embracing Diversity in Your Classroom

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

Rationale

“Being mindful of diversity and inclusion in the online environment is equally important to or even more important than in the classroom environment. Online learning is so much more accessible to a wider variety of people, therefore students in our online courses tend to be more diverse than in our classrooms . . . this then requires a more intentional effort to ensure that all students in your course can learn, are engaged, and feel a sense of belonging.” —Marlo Goldstein Hode

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

To embrace diversity in online learning, we’ll discuss practices you can use to:

1. Examine how implicit bias affects your understanding, actions, and decisions

  • Become aware of your implicit biases
  • Consider how your implicit biases may impact students
  • Mitigate the impact of implicit bias in assessment and feedback practices
  • Use student feedback to reflect on your role as an inclusive educator

2. Create an inclusive online course and learning environment

  • Create an inclusive syllabus
  • Ensure your curriculum incorporates diverse perspectives and experiences
  • Ensure your course examples reflect a diverse society
  • Share resources that demonstrate attentiveness to students’ diverse needs
  • Foster respect for diverse student identities
  • Set expectations and manage for respectful dialogue
  • Explicitly invite diverse perspectives and viewpoints

3. Understand and mitigate the impact of stereotype threat and microaggressions

  • Understand the impact of stereotype threat and implement practices to reduce it
  • Recognize, avoid, and mitigate the impact of microaggressions
  • Teach students to recognize and address microaggressions
  • Use language to validate student identities

SKELETAL OUTLINE

Download a skeletal outline to take notes on the key practices included in this module.

Course Demonstration

Each of the videos below addresses a substantive topic connected to the work of ensuring our course design and the learning communities we form are inclusive— or, more specifically, welcoming and engaging for all students, which ensures all students feel they belong in our course and in college. Because this work is so very important, we are hopeful each course-taker might devote the time necessary to engage with all four videos and then choose one on which to focus for implementation. If you simply don’t have the time to engage with all four, please choose the objective you feel will be most beneficial to your students and come back when you can to view the others.

Examining the Impact of Implicit Bias 

Download the transcript for this video.

Creating an Inclusive Online Course

Download the transcript for this video.

Creating an Inclusive Online Learning Environment 

Download the transcript for this video.

Understanding and Mitigating the Impact of Stereotype Threat and Microaggressions

Download the transcript for this video.

Expert Insights

Both of these resources offer you important and different perspectives on creating an inclusive online course and learning community.  If you can, please consider engaging with both—you won’t regret it 🙂.

Video

In this video, you’ll hear from a number of scholars in inclusive pedagogy, diversity officers, and a college president. Each person brings their unique voice to this work, and we wanted to put into practice a theme common among them—the need to hear and honor the diversity of thoughts and ideas for building inclusive online courses and learning communities. In this video you will hear from José Antonio Bowen, PhD; Suzanne Walsh, MS, JD; Jennifer Imazeki, PhD; Santiba Campbell, PhD; Lilisa Williams, MBA; and Sharoni Little, PhD, EdD. You can view their full titles within the video and in the References.

Download the transcript for this video.

Common Challenges & Misconceptions

In this section, you’ll read about some common challenges and misconceptions associated with practices designed to embrace diversity in online learning.

Read each challenge or misconception and give a thumbs up  if it is a challenge or misconception you have encountered or thumbs down  if it’s not.

CHALLENGE : Since my course is fully online, diversity issues are irrelevant.

Have you encountered this misconception? Yes No

Clarification:

The number of students engaging in online education has rapidly increased in the last two decades in most colleges and universities across the United States (Allen & Seaman, 2017). Larger numbers of students bring more diversity to the online learning environment, with different cultural, educational, and social experiences that can enrich learning in all content areas. Addressing the diversity in online courses can promote student growth, help students begin to foster a sense of empathy for others, and bring about more open-mindedness (Hollister, 2020). Therefore, keeping diversity in mind while planning and facilitating coursework and working to create an inclusive and welcoming course benefits all students.

Suggestion:

To ensure all students feel welcome and to fully engage the diversity of students in your courses, share your commitment to supporting an inclusive environment by including a diversity statement in your syllabi. Review your course resources and consider the examples you use to ensure they represent a diverse society as well.

Watch this video of Kelly Hogan and Viji Sathy sharing their thoughts on creating a more inclusive syllabus.

Download the transcript for this video.

CHALLENGE : I would never engage in a microaggression or stereotype threat.

Have you encountered this misconception? Yes No

Clarification:

Unintentional microaggressions and stereotype threats are often the result of implicit bias. Implicit bias refers to the attitudes and assumptions that affect our understanding, actions, and decisions in an unconscious manner (De Houwer, 2019). These biases develop over the course of a lifetime, beginning at a very early age through exposure to direct and indirect messages (De Houwer, 2019).

Even those of us with the best of intentions have implicit biases and can create microaggressions (Clay, 2017). Microaggressions are brief statements or behaviors that—intentional or not—communicate a negative message about a non-dominant group, and they tend to happen quite frequently. For example, in a recent study, microaggressions were observed in almost a third of the 60 community college classrooms being studied, and most were committed by instructors (Clay, 2017).

Suggestion:

Ask students for anonymous feedback, including examples of where and how your course could be more inclusive and affirming of all students. Also ask for feedback on how you invite participation in the course and how your language and actions have affected them. Finally, ask them to share if they have experienced a microaggression during any aspect of your course.

CHALLENGE : I teach in STEM so diversity and inclusion really don’t matter as much.

Have you encountered this misconception? Yes No

Clarification:

Some courses lend themselves to exploring diversity more readily than others. However, it is important that every course is representative of diverse viewpoints whenever applicable. Furthermore, because students need to be prepared to work in diverse settings and will be expected to regularly interact with individuals from different backgrounds, it is important that their education equips them with a greater appreciation for a variety of perspectives (J. Williams, personal communication, February 4, 2016).

There are several reasons why science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) faculty seek to provide a more inclusive environment for all students. One of the most regularly cited reasons is the attrition gap between students from historically disenfranchised groups and White students. National data continue to show a disparity in STEM degree attainment of underrepresented minority (URM) students. While underrepresented minorities represent 29.3% of the U.S. population, only 14.7% of STEM bachelor’s degrees in 2010 were awarded to URM students. At the doctorate level, the percentage drops to 7.3% (Estrada et al., 2016). Feelings that they don’t belong in STEM courses, as opposed to their preparedness to handle college-level material, have been found to impact the departure of underrepresented students from STEM majors (Wilson et al., 2015).

Suggestion:

Watch this video of José Bowen discussing the importance of diversity in the STEM fields.

Download the transcript for this video.

CHALLENGE : I teach a launched, online, asynchronous course, and I am not sure how I can implement any of the module practices.

Have you encountered this misconception? Yes No

Many practices listed under learning objective #1 can be implemented at any time and do not require any changes to the course design. For example, reflecting on your implicit biases and how that bias might impact students is a reflective activity that can be done at any time. See below for additional ideas for implementing other practices from this module.

Things to Do When Class is in Session
  • Use the stop, start, continue feedback form to gather anonymous feedback at any point in the course.
  • If you have not already done so, share your own pronouns and invite your students to do the same. Review student names to be sure you are using their preferred names and that you are pronouncing them correctly.
  • Invite diverse viewpoints during asynchronous or synchronous discussions by asking if anyone has a different opinion they would like to share. Play “devil’s advocate” by asking, “What if…” questions.

Things to Do to Prepare for the Next Course
  • Follow the guidance in the implementation guide to make your syllabus more inclusive for the next time you teach the course.
  • Review your course resources now to prepare for the next time you teach this class.
  • Provide a resource list in your course for your students and draw their attention to resources that may be useful for them.
  • Learn more about microaggressions, stereotype threat, and imposter phenomenon so that you will be more prepared to address them with your students.

For additional suggestions on how to implement the practices highlighted in this course, please see the implementation resources.

OBSERVE & ANALYZE

In the Observe and Analyze (OA) section, you’ll view the video depicting developing practice where an instructor implements some of the module practices effectively, while other practices may need slight adjustments or improvements. Analyze how effectively Dr. Hirsch handles the challenges his students experience in the course discussion forums.

Watch

#Download the transcript for this video.

IMPLEMENTATION RESOURCES

  • Online Instructional Practices
  • F2F Instructional Practices
  • Additional Resources

This section includes resources to support your implementation of the practices presented in the module.

Download the online instructional practice implementation resources for this module.

Examine how implicit bias affects your understanding, actions, and decisions

Become aware of your implicit biases

In an online environment, there are fewer physical cues about students’ backgrounds and identities than in a face-to-face setting. However, research suggests that implicit or unconscious biases can still be triggered simply by seeing a name and can impact how students are evaluated and judged.

Download a resource to help you reflect on implicit biases.

Consider how your implicit biases may impact students

Implicit or unconscious biases often lead to microaggressions, which are the everyday verbal, nonverbal, and environmental slights, snubs, or insults (whether intentional or unintentional) that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative messages to target persons based upon their marginalized group membership (Sue, 2010).

Download a resource you can use to take steps to mitigate the impact of implicit bias on your students.

Mitigate the impact of implicit bias in assessment and feedback practices

The grading process can be impacted by implicit bias through your knowledge of students’ previous scores, work ethic, and race or ethnicity (Malouff, 2008; Malouff et al., 2013). Fortunately, there are grading practices, such as anonymous grading, that can be used to reduce the impact of implicit bias on student grades.

Download a resource you can use to mitigate the impact of implicit bias in your grading and feedback practices.

Use student feedback to reflect on your role as an inclusive educator

The goal of asking for student feedback is to gauge student perceptions of the impact of your use of inclusive practices. Seeking feedback early in your course can allow you to make adjustments for your current group of students.

Download a resource you can use to gain feedback on your role as an inclusive educator.

Create an inclusive online course and learning environment

Create an inclusive syllabus

Creating an inclusive classroom or online environment means making intentional and ongoing efforts to ensure that all students feel they belong and can thrive in the learning environment. One step you can take right at the beginning of your course is to set the tone for diversity and inclusion in your syllabus.

Download a resource to help you create an inclusive syllabus.

Download a resource on helping students overcome imposter syndrome.

Ensure your curriculum incorporates diverse perspectives and experiences

Critically examining your course from multiple viewpoints to ensure it includes materials that accurately represent various perspectives can help your students feel more motivated, with a greater sense of belonging.

Download a resource to help ensure your curriculum incorporates diverse perspectives and experiences.

Hold both individual and group virtual office hours

Since many online courses are asynchronous and can sometimes be isolating, virtual office hours are a good way to give students an opportunity to connect with you and their peers to create a supportive learning environment (Nilson & Goodson, 2018).

Download a resource on holding both individual and group office hours.

Ensure your course examples reflect a diverse society

Meaningful examples that are relevant to your students and reflect a diverse society can contribute to students’ sense of belonging and increase their motivation.

Download a resource to help ensure your examples reflect a diverse society.

Share resources that demonstrate attentiveness to students’ diverse needs

Including information in your syllabus or course shell that supports students from different identity groups communicates to them that you are aware and that you care.

Download a resource that will help you develop resources that support all students.

Foster respect for diverse student identities

Diverse campuses give college students the opportunity to learn from peers with different perspectives shaped by a variety of life experiences. Provide opportunities for students to engage with people of different backgrounds and help them develop an appreciation for people different from themselves.

Download a resource that will help you foster respect for diverse students.

Set expectations and manage for respectful dialogue

Working with your students to set clear expectations for how they should interact with each other early in the course helps to create a productive learning environment. Introduce a basic set of community norms for students and facilitate a discussion about them. Use them to address any offensive comments or other incidents that disrupt the learning environment.

Download a resource that will help you and your students create community norms that can be used should hot moments arise.

Explicitly invite diverse perspectives and viewpoints

Encouraging students to share their diverse viewpoints enriches discussions, encourages creative problem solving, and helps students develop critical thinking skills. Students also learn to respectfully listen and respond to various viewpoints, a key career-ready skill.

Download a resource that will help encourage your students to share diverse viewpoints.

Understand and mitigate the impact of stereotype threat and microaggressions

Understand the impact of stereotype threat and implement practices to reduce it

Stereotype threat is defined as a phenomenon in which a person’s concern about confirming a negative stereotype of one or more of the groups with which they personally identify can lead that person to underperform (Spencer, 2016).

Download a resource that will help you understand and mitigate the impact of stereotype threat in your course.

Recognize, avoid, and mitigate the impact of microaggressions

Microaggressions are the everyday verbal, nonverbal, and environmental slights, snubs, or insults, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative messages to target persons based solely upon their marginalized group membership (Sue, 2010). Microaggressions can have a negative impact on students. However, there are steps we can take to mitigate their impact.

Download a resource that will help you understand and mitigate the impact of microaggressions.

Teach students to recognize and address microaggressions

It is important that as instructors we do not ignore microaggressions as they happen, which can further marginalize students from underrepresented groups. In doing so, we can also miss an opportunity to promote understanding of the impact of microaggressions (Sue et al., 2009).

Download a resource that will help you teach students to recognize and address microaggressions.

Use language to validate student identities

As instructors, the language we use can work toward or against building an inclusive learning environment. For example, research has shown that using “he” to indicate “he or she” in professional settings affects women’s sense of belonging and lowers motivation (Sczensy, Formanowicz & Moser, 2016).

Download a resource that will help you use language to validate student identities.

This section includes additional resources to support your implementation of these and similar practices in a face-to-face course.

Implementation Resources

Download or print the following resources to practice our techniques for embracing diversity in your classroom:

Below are additional resources to further explore the module topics.

Video Resource

Resources for Further Reading

  • Brookfield, S. D. (2015). The skillful teacher: On technique, trust, and responsiveness in the classroom (3rd ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Consult a comprehensive list of references for this module..

Community Connections

References

INSTRUCTOR CREDENTIALS

Dana Autry, PhD, MCHES
Director of Adjunct Faculty Engagement
Academic Affairs Department
Park University

Tracy Burt, EdM, Instructor
Child Development and Family Studies Department
City College of San Francisco

Darvelle Hutchins, MBA, MA
Doctoral Candidate
Department of Communication
University of Missouri

Kevin Kelly, EdD
Lecturer, Department of Equity, Leadership Studies, & Instructional Technologies
San Francisco State University

Kate Kelley, PhD
Visiting Assistant Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies
Department of Religious Studies
University of Missouri

EXPERT

José Antonio Bowen, PhD
Former President, Goucher College
Former Dean, Miami University and Southern Methodist University
Author, Teaching Naked

Santiba D. Campbell, PhD
Associate Professor, Psychology
Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences
Bennett College

Marlo Goldstein Hode, PhD
Senior Manager, Strategic Diversity Initiatives
University of Missouri—Saint Louis

Jennifer Imazeki, PhD
Associate Chief Diversity Officer for Faculty and Staff
Professor of Economics
San Diego State University

Sharoni Denise Little, PhD, EdD
Vice Dean/Senior Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Officer
Professor, Business Communication
University of Southern California
Marshall School of Business 
CEO, The Strategist Company, LLC

Suzanne Elise Walsh, JD
President
Bennett College

Lilisa J. Williams, MBA
Director of Faculty and Staff Development
Hudson County Community College

MODULE REFERENCES

Allen, I. E., & Seaman, J. (2017)
Digital learning compass: Distance education enrollment report 2017. Babson Survey Research Group. https://onlinelearningsurvey.com/reports/digtiallearningcompassenrollment2017.pdf

Baker, R., Dee, T., Evans, B., & John, J. (2018)
Bias in online classes: Evidence from a field experiment (CEPA Working Paper No. 18-03). Stanford Center for Education Policy Analysis. https://cepa.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/wp18-03-201803.pdf

Blackburn Center. (2020, March 4). 
Why sharing your gender pronouns is important. https://www.blackburncenter.org/post/2020/03/04/why-sharing-your-gender-pronouns-is-important#:~:text=When%20cisgender%20people%20take%20the,this%20into%20practice%20is%20easy

Cullen, M. (2008)
35 dumb things well-intended people say: Surprising things we say that widen the diversity gap. Morgan James.

Elsesser, K. (2020, July 8)
How to use gender-neutral language, and why it’s important to try. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/kimelsesser/2020/07/08/how-to-use-gender-neutral-language-and-why-its-important-to-try/#1b50f95f26ba

Estrada, M., Burnett, M., Campbell, A. G., Campbell, P. B., Denetclaw, W. F., Gutiérrez, C. G., … & Okpodu, C. M. (2016)
 Improving underrepresented minority student persistence in STEM. CBE—Life Sciences Education, 15(3), es5. https://doi.org/10.1187/cbe.16-01-0038

Kerby, S. (2012, October 9)
10 reasons why we need diversity on college campuses. Center for American Progress. https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/race/news/2012/10/09/41004/10-reasons-why-we-need-diversity-on-college-campuses/

Johns, M., & Schmader, T. (2004, January 29–31)
Knowing is half the battle [Paper presentation]. Society for Personality and Social Psychology Fifth Annual Meeting, Austin, TX, United States.

Malouff, J. M., Emmerton, A. J., & Schutte, N. S. (2013)
The risk of a halo bias as a reason to keep students anonymous during grading. Teaching of Psychology, 40(3): 233–237.

Moss-Racusin, C. A., Dovidio, J. F., Brescoll, V. L., Graham, M. J., & Handelsman, J. (2012)
Science faculty’s subtle gender biases favor male students. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 109(41), 16474–16479.

Nilson, L. B., & Goodson, L. A. (2018)
Online teaching at its best: Merging instructional design with teaching and learning research. Jossey-Bass.

Sczesny, S., Formanowicz, M., & Moser, F. (2016)
Can gender-fair language reduce gender stereotyping and discrimination? Frontiers in Psychology, 7, Article 25.

Reeves, A. N. (2015)
Colored by race: Bias in the evaluation of candidates of color by law firm hiring committees. Nextions. https://nextions.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/colored-by-race-yellow-paper-series.pdf

Riley, T., & Ungerleider, C. (2012)
Self-fulfilling prophecy: How teachers’ attributions, expectations, and stereotypes influence the learning opportunities afforded Aboriginal students. Canadian Journal of Education, 35(2), 303–333.

Spencer, S. J., Logel, C., & Davies, P. G. (2016)
Stereotype threat. Annual Review of Psychology, 67, 415–437.

Steele, C. M. (1997)
A threat in the air: How stereotypes shape intellectual identity and performance. American Psychologist, 52(6), 613–629.

Steele, C. M., & Aronson, J. (1995).
Stereotype threat and the intellectual test performance of African Americans. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69(5), 797–811.

Sue, D. W. (2010)
Microaggressions in everyday life: Race, gender, and sexual orientation. John Wiley & Sons.

Sue, D. W., Bucceri, J., Lin, A. I., Nadal, K. L., & Torino, G. C. (2009).
Racial microaggressions and the Asian American experience. Asian American Journal of Psychology, S(1), 88–101.

Tatum, B. D. (2011)
Talking about race, learning about racism: The application of racial identity development theory in the classroom. In S. R. Harper & S. Hurtado (Eds.), Racial and ethnic diversity in higher education (3rd ed., pp. 438–456). Pearson Learning Solutions.

Uhlmann, E. L., & Cohen, G. L. (2005)
Constructed criteria: Redefining merit to justify discrimination. Psychological Science, 16(6), 474–480.

University of Washington Center for Teaching and Learning. (n.d.). Addressing microaggressions in the classroom.https://www.washington.edu/teaching/topics/inclusive-teaching/addressing-microaggressions-in-the-classroom/

Walton, G. M., & Cohen, G. L. (2011)
A brief social-belonging intervention improves academic and health outcomes of minority students. Science, 331(6023), 1447–1451.

Wilson, D., Jones, D., Bocell, F., Crawford, J., Kim, M. J., Veilleux, N., … & Plett, M. (2015)
Belonging and academic engagement among undergraduate STEM students: A multi-institutional study. Research in Higher Education, 56(7), 750-776. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11162-015-9367-x

Yeager, D. S., Purdie-Vaughns, V., Garcia, J., Apfel, N., Brzustoski, P., Master, A., Hessert, W. T., Williams, M. E., & Cohen, G. L. (2014)
Breaking the cycle of mistrust: Wise interventions to provide critical feedback across the racial divide. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 143(2), 804–824.

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