By Amy Buddie

“The first question is: Can learning take place if in fact it silences the voices of the people it is supposed to teach? And the answer is: Yes. People learn that they don’t count.”--Henry Giroux (1992, p. 15)

Introduction

In 2015, a faculty member at the University of Kansas was investigated after students in her class complained about comments she made regarding racial tensions at her university. According to an open letter from the students, the faculty member dismissed institutionalized racism as an explanation for Black students leaving school: “Those students are not leaving school because they are physically threatened everyday but because of academic performance.” The students also wrote that she said, “As a white woman I just never have seen the racism. … It’s not like I see (the n-word) spray painted on walls….”

Stories like this are unfortunately not rare – college students have reported feeling marginalized because of their race, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, social class, and more. It is our job as instructors to make our classrooms a space where all students feel valued and able to learn.

What is Classroom Climate and Why Does it Matter?

Classroom climate refers to “the intellectual, social, emotional, and physical environment in which our students learn” (Ambrose et al., 2010, p. 170). Climate can be conceptualized on a continuum: explicitly marginalizing (intentionally hostile), implicitly marginalizing (unintentionally hostile), implicitly centralizing (unintentionally inclusive), and explicitly centralizing (intentionally inclusive; DeSurra & Church, 1994).

An example of explicit marginalization:

I’m in this psychology class this semester, and our teacher told us that he believes that homosexuality is a curable, psychological illness, even though it was taken off the books in 1974. He still thinks gays and lesbians are very sick and need treatment (DeSurra & Church, 1994, p. 23).

And an example of implicit marginalization:

I took a class in woman's studies which was interesting because you know, a lot of the woman's studies departments are criticized for being the lesbian department and blah blah blah and when I took the class it was real interesting because not a thing was covered on lesbianism or anything. It was women in cross-cultural perspectives. There were a couple of times when it would have been appropriate to mention something, like when we were talking about love in different societies and it could have been brought in but the professor treated it like such a taboo thing to talk about, it made me feel weird, like guilt by association (DeSurra & Church, 1994, p. 25).

Although the instructor in the first example is more overt in hostility, both examples have the effect of marginalizing LGBT students. Most of the examples of a chilly class climate are less obvious than the first example, but they have the effect of making a group of students feel alienated in the classroom. For example (Hall & Sandler, 1984; Sandler & Hall, 1986):

• Does the teacher call on underrepresented students less often and generally give them less attention in class?
• Does the teacher interrupt underrepresented students more often?
• Are the experiences of underrepresented students absent from the course (e.g., a literature course with no writers of color, a history class with no mention of important female figures)?

The research on the effects of a chilly class climate is clear – student learning is compromised (e.g., Pascarella et al., 1997; Whitt et al., 1999):

• Students experience negative emotions (e.g., anger, helplessness) that make them disengage from the class
• Students spend cognitive energy thinking about or dealing with the chilly climate, which is cognitive energy not spent on learning
• Students who feel marginalized may change their major
• Students who feel marginalized may drop out of college entirely

Even more insidious is the research on stereotype threat (Steele & Aronson, 1995), which suggests that when stereotypes about the students’ identities are activated, students can be anxious about confirming the stereotype, which paradoxically produces a decrease in performance. Hundreds of studies on stereotype threat over the last 20 years show the power of stereotypes to produce a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Why Do Some Teachers Resist Becoming Inclusive Teachers?

• Many individuals are unable or unwilling to acknowledge the ways in which they experience privilege (McIntosh, 1989; Wise & Case, 2013). They become defensive, as though acknowledging privilege means that they are being accused of being racist/sexist/etc. (Wise & Case, 2013).

• If teachers have a strong belief in a just world (i.e., that people get what they deserve and deserve what they get; Lerner, 1980), then they might not see that some students have unearned privileges that help them get ahead in their courses.

• Many teachers are likely unaware that their current teaching methods are not inclusive (e.g., no students have complained, they aren’t aware of the literature on inclusive teaching).

• Many teachers might be willing to change but feel anxiety about issues related to diversity; they fear saying the wrong thing or not being able to answer students’ questions in a sensitive way.

What Can We Do To Become Inclusive Teachers?

• Inclusivity starts with the relationships you develop with your students. Getting to know your students as individuals can help you overcome any assumptions you might have about students based on aspects of their identity and can help them feel more comfortable in the class, especially if they are a member of an underrepresented group. Consider coming to class a little early and staying late to chat with your students. Learn students’ names. Some faculty have short mandatory visits to office hours in an effort to engage with students one-on-one (Svinicki & McKeachie, 2014).

• Students need to see that the class is a safe space for everyone to speak. Consider setting up ground rules for discussions at the beginning of the class, or have the students come up with ground rules themselves.

• Frequent opportunities for students to provide anonymous feedback about the course can help students feel valued and give them an opportunity to discuss issues they might not be comfortable discussing otherwise (Sorcinelli, 1994). 

• Active learning strategies engage students and lead to more student learning compared to passive learning strategies (e.g., listening to a lecture). In addition, active learning strategies outperform passive learning strategies in leveling the playing field for underrepresented students (Eddy & Hogan, 2014). Check out our article on active learning here.

• Frequent testing has been shown to be effective in student learning, a phenomenon known as the testing effect (McDaniel, Roediger, & McDermott, 2007). It also has been shown to reduce achievement gaps between low- and high-income college students (Pennebaker, Gosling, & Ferrell, 2013). Check out our article on formative assessment here. 

• The research on flipped classrooms suggests improved student engagement and learning outcomes (Gross et al., 2015). Flipped classrooms can also reduce achievement gaps between men and women (Gross et al., 2015). Read more about how to flip your classroom here.

• There are strategies that you can use to reduce stereotype threat in your students.

• Students in your class may occasionally make comments that are perceived by others as insensitive or hostile (e.g., demeaning jokes, stereotypical statements about groups of people). How you handle these “hot moments” in the classroom can determine the degree to which the class as a whole perceives the climate as inclusive (e.g., Dunn, Gurung, Naufel, & Wilson, 2013; Warren, 2006). First, think about issues that may be triggers for you and have a plan for how you will manage your emotions in the moment and what you might say in response. When such incidents occur, remember to stay calm and not take the statement personally. Ask for clarification from the student; perhaps he or she misspoke and/or can clarify the comments in such a way as to defuse the offensiveness. It can be helpful to depersonalize the comments (e.g., “Many people believe that. Can anyone think of any criticisms of that viewpoint?”). You can even validate that they spoke up without endorsing the view (e.g., “Thanks for raising that perspective; it’s widely held, and now we have an opportunity to talk about it.”). Allowing students the opportunity to write before speaking can give everyone a chance to cool off and collect their thoughts. It is important to address the issue in some way, though, because if the teacher ignores an offensive statement, students get the message that such comments are permissible and perhaps even endorsed by the instructor. 

• Consider spending some class time on activities designed to help students better understand issues related to diversity, inclusiveness, and privilege. For example, in the “privilege walk,” students are asked to form a line and take a step forward (e.g., “If there were more than 50 books in your house growing up”) or backward (e.g., “If your parents did not grow up in the United States”) after a series of statements designed to reflect privilege. At the end of the activity, students reflect on the various positions of students in the class. Be careful though; sometimes this activity can raise more defensiveness in students (see, for example, this article in The College Fix). It can be helpful to start with a non-threatening type of privilege to reduce resistance. For example, students should readily acknowledge that right-handed people have privileges that left-handed people do not, and they should understand that these privileges are often invisible to right-handed people (Gilbert, 2008).  

Taking a Look Inward: Critical Self-Reflection

According to bell hooks (1994), “teachers must be actively committed to a process of self-actualization that promotes their own well-being if they are to teach in a manner that empowers students” (p. 15).  To what extent are we as teachers self-aware regarding diversity in the classroom? Marchesani and Adams (1992) suggest that instructors go through a critical reflection exercise for determining the extent to which they are inclusive in their teaching. Consider the following questions:

(1) What assumptions or stereotypes do you hold about certain students? Even if you consciously think that you treat all students equally, there might be unconscious biases affecting the way you interact with students (Greenwald & Banaji, 1995). Students can pick up on subtle, unintended differences in treatment, and their performance in the class can become a self-fulfilling prophecy in which students who were expected by their teachers to do well in fact do better than expected (and vice versa; Rosenthal & Jacobsen, 1968). A good place to start examining your own potential biases is to take a version of the Implicit Association Test (IAT) or rate yourself according to Michele DiPietro’s Checklist of Assumptions. It is difficult for most people to acknowledge their own prejudices, but we as teachers have an ethical obligation to understand ourselves to create a safe space for all students to learn.

(2) What do you know about race/gender/sexual orientation/social class/culture/etc. and how these dimensions of diversity affect classroom dynamics? For example, are you educated about the ways in which institutionalized racism affects the experiences of students of color (Karkouti, 2016)? Do you know about the research on the ways that women’s contributions to class discussions are ignored or minimized (Hall & Sandler, 1984)? Are you familiar with the literature on how stereotype threat affects the performance of underrepresented students (Steele & Aronson, 1995)? 

(3) What can you do when you teach to address diversity of experience, values, and learning? Henry Giroux (1992) argued, “You can’t deny that students have experiences and you can’t deny that these experiences are relevant to the learning process… Students have memories, families, religions, feelings, languages and cultures that give them a distinctive voice. We can critically engage that experience…But we can’t deny it” (p. 17). To what extent are students permitted or even encouraged to connect the material to their lived experiences? Are your teaching methods connecting with the students in your course, or are they reproducing hierarchical systems of domination and oppression (hooks, 1994)?

(4) How can you represent diverse groups and perspectives in the courses you teach? Is the perspective primarily coming from a White, western, male lens? Would it be appropriate to talk about aspects of diversity that may be ignored in your textbook or in the traditional way of teaching the course (e.g., race, ethnicity, gender, disability, culture, sexual orientation, gender identity)?

There are other ways to reflect on the extent to which your teaching is inclusive. For example, a checklist from the University of Michigan Center for Research on Learning and Teaching can help you self-assess the degree to which interactions between you and the students, interactions between the students themselves, the content, and the instructional practices exhibit best practices.

Conclusion

Learning is compromised when students feel marginalized in the classroom. We owe it to our students to create learning spaces where everyone is able to contribute and feel heard.

References 

Ambrose, S. A., Bridges, M. W., DiPietro, M., Lovett, M. C., & Norman, M. K. (2010). How learning works: Seven research-based principles for smart teaching. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

DeSurra, C. J., & Church, K. A. (1994, November). Unlocking the classroom closet: Privileging the marginalized voices of gay/lesbian college students. Paper presented at the 80th annual meeting of the Speech Communication Association, New Orleans, LA. Retrieved from http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED379697.pdf

Dunn, D. S., Gurung, R. A. R., Naufel, K. Z., & Wilson, J. H. (Eds.) (2013). Controversy in the psychology classroom: Using hot topics to foster critical thinking. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Eddy, S. L., & Hogan, K. A. (2014). Getting under the hood: How and for whom does increasing course structure work? CBE—Life Sciences Education, 13, 453–468.

Gilbert, R. (2008). Raising awareness of class privilege among students. Diversity & Democracy, 11(3), 7-9. Retrieved from http://www.diversityweb.org/DiversityDemocracy/vol11no3/gilbert.cfm

Giroux, H. A. (1992). Border crossings: Cultural workers and the politics of education. New  York: Routledge.

Greenwald, A. G., & Banaji, M. R. (1995). Implicit social cognition: Attitudes, self-esteem, and stereotypes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 102, 4-27.

Gross, D., Pietri, E. S., Anderson, G., Moyano-Camihort,  K., & Graham, M. J. (2015). Increased preclass preparation underlies student outcome improvement in the flipped classroom. CBE—Life Sciences Education, 14, 1-8.

Hall, R. M., & Sandler, B. R. (1984). Out of the classroom: A chilly campus climate for women? Washington, D.C.: Project on the Status and Education of Women, The Association of American Colleges.

hooks, b. (1994). Teaching to transgress: Education as the practice of freedom. New York: Routledge.

Karkouti, I. M. (2016). Black students’ educational experiences in predominantly White universities: A review of the related literature. College Student Journal, 50(1), 59-70.

Lerner, M. J. (1980). The belief in a just world: A fundamental delusion. New York: Plenum Press.

Marchesani, L. S., & Adams, M. (1992). Dynamics of diversity in the teaching–learning process: A faculty development model for analysis and action. In M. Adams (Ed.), Promoting diversity in college classrooms: Innovative responses for the curriculum, faculty, and institutions (pp. 9-20). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

McDaniel, M. A., Roediger, H. L., III, & McDermott, K. B. (2007). Generalizing test-enhanced learning from the laboratory to the classroom. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 14, 200–206.

McIntosh, P. (1989). White privilege: Unpacking the invisible knapsack. Peace and Freedom. July/August.

Pascarella, E. T., Whitt, E. J., Edison, M. I., Amaury, N., et al. (1997). Women's perceptions of a 'chilly climate' and their cognitive outcomes during the first year of college. Journal of College Student Development, 38, 109-124.

Pennebaker, J.W., Gosling, S.D., & Ferrell, J.D. (2013). Daily online testing in large classes: Boosting college performance while reducing achievement gaps. PLoS One, 8(11), e79774. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0079774

Rosenthal, R., & Jacobsen, L. (1968). Pygmalion in the classroom. New York: Holt, Rinehart, & Winston.

Sandler, B. R., & Hall, R. M. (1986). Campus climate revisited : Chilly for women faculty administrators and graduate students. Washington D.C.: Association of American Colleges.

Sorcinelli, M. D.  (1994).  Dealing with troublesome behaviors in the classroom.  In K. W. Prichard & R. McLaren Sawyer (Eds.), Handbook of college teaching:  Theory and applications (pp. 365-374). Westport, CT:  Greenwood Press.

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

Svinicki, M., & McKeachie, W. J. (2014). McKeachie’s teaching tips: Strategies, research, and theory for college and university teachers (14th ed.). Belmont, CA: Cengage.

Warren, L. (2006). Managing hot moments in the classroom. Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning, Harvard University. Retrieved from http://isites.harvard.edu/fs/html/icb.topic58474/hotmoments.html  

Whitt, E. J., Edison, M. I., Pascarella, E. T., Nora, A., & Terenzini, P. T. (1999). Women’s perceptions of a ‘chilly climate’ and cognitive outcomes in college: Additional evidence. Journal of College Student Development, 40, 163-177.

Wise, T, & Case, K. A. (2013). Pedagogy for the privileged: Addressing inequality and injustice without shame or blame. In K. A. Case (Ed.), Deconstructing privilege: Teaching and learning as allies in the classroom (pp. 17-33). New York: Routledge.

By Tris Utschig

Facilitation sits at the nexus between course design and the learning tasks students are asked to perform within that design. It embodies the concept of the “guide on the side” (as opposed to the sage on the stage) who is managing learning activity within a course as students strive to achieve the intended course learning outcomes. Thus, the facilitator helps students navigate various learning processes occurring within a learning environment as they complete learning tasks built into the course design. At the same time, a facilitator uses their knowledge of learning principles (Ambrose et al, 2010) to monitor how students are engaging with the course content and to adapt as needed for optimal learning performance. In sum, “facilitation involves a mindset of helping others perform better by creating growth opportunities and by providing coaching that allows others to take on more ownership and control of their performance” (Smith, 2007).

Goals of facilitation

Effective facilitation is driven by the goal of helping students actively perform the work needed to achieve intended learning outcomes. It is a process oriented approach where the facilitator orchestrates the alignment of three major pedagogical considerations underpinning student learning outcomes: instructional design, learner culture, and assessment (Jain and Utschig, 2016). First, the facilitator manages the implementation of learning activities or tasks that students do. These learning tasks are defined during the instructional design phase of a course, and they serve as the primary means by which students engage with the course content to achieve the learning outcomes. Second, facilitators utilize a mindful approach to learner culture so as to capitalize on assets of the culture in helping students to achieve the intended learning outcomes. Third, facilitators conduct ongoing formative assessment to continuously measure the degree to which learners are meeting the intended learning outcomes and then adapt the learning process as needed.

Principles of facilitation

Smith (2007) outlines 13 principles an effective facilitator should follow in order to optimize learner performance. Some of these principles can be grouped together.

First, several of the principles describe the facilitator-student relationship. Facilitation is a community-level activity involving contributions to the dialogue from both the facilitator and student. Four principles of facilitation fall into this category:

• Establish shared expectations – outcomes agree upon by both participants and facilitator
• Shift ownership of process to learners – outcomes valued by the participants produce results
• Connect with each participant – ensure participants know they are valued in the learning process
• Make the process rewarding – balance support and challenge to keep learning process enjoyable

The next set of facilitation principles relate to the role the facilitator plays in managing learning activities, from the planning stage through to the end of a learning task.  These principles are:

• Use a facilitation plan
• Intervene on process rather than content
• Foster documentation of learning
• Bring closure to activities

Finally, a third set of facilitation principles relates to collecting data about where students are in the learning process. Two principles reside in this category:

• Avoid assumptions
• Continuously assess

By keeping these principles in mind, facilitators naturally begin to foster a learning environment that is growth oriented and learning centered, is focused on achieving student learning outcomes, and revolves around what students are doing as learners to engage with the content rather than simply ensuring content is covered.

How to facilitate

Facilitation is a purposeful, structured process involving continuous, careful observation and reflection about the learning process students are experiencing. Smith and Apple (2007) have produced a methodology for facilitation that describes the complete process and can be practiced to improve one’s skills as a facilitator. In particular, the methodology incorporates important steps for three major components of the learning process which arise from the process of course design advocated by Wiggins and McTighe in their well-known book Understanding by Design (2005). These three components of facilitation include conducting formative assessment of student performance, constructively intervening with a focus on student learning process rather than on content, and on providing feedback on how to improve performance after learning activities are completed. These components of the facilitation methodology highlight the fact that facilitation a process that requires thinking well beyond traditional lecture and PowerPoint presentations.

The Facilitation methodology

The purpose of the facilitation methodology is to help you create a facilitation plan (see Minderhout, 2007), carry out the facilitation process, and then follow-up on what occurred during the facilitation.

Pre-class preparation - The first steps in the facilitation methodology are preparatory and are completed prior to class. This work is addressed in more detail in the course design article, but the basic steps in this part of the methodology are:

• Select Intended outcomes
• Choose and design activities to best address outcomes
• Create materials needed and ensure access to any tools needed

A note on logistics/timing – for those who have traditionally taught in the “sage on the stage” modality, the shift to facilitating learning as a “guide on the side” can be challenging. Implementing learning activities often takes significantly longer than expected, and physically setting up the activity with clear instructions for students often requires a surprising amount of pre-planning. For short activities or learning tasks it may be wise to make an initial plan and then be prepared to accommodate nearly double that amount of time when actually implementing the activity. If it goes as planned, you can always spend additional time extending what has been learned.

Conducting the facilitation – when planning for a learning activity during class, it is easy to be surprised at how quickly one runs out of time in guiding students through to completion of the activity. One reason for this is that three major parts of conducting the learning activity need to be planned for. These are the setup, the activity itself, and the closing. The tendency to rigorously plan the activity itself while forgetting to adequately plan for the setup and closure is a common pitfall when facilitating active learning during a class. Carrying out each of the following steps in the complete facilitation methodology help facilitators guide students towards maximum achievement in learning.

• Setting up the learning activity – are your students ready?
  • Pre-assess – determine the extent of students’ prior knowledge from student preparatory work, a short quiz, or other methods, and then help them activate that knowledge while they learn about what they will do during the activity.
  • Logistics – ensure that students know why they are doing the activity, what they are expected to do during the activity, what outcomes they are expected to achieve, and what resources they should be using to help them complete the activity. Depending on the activity, arrangement of physical space, setting up of roles students will be playing as part of a team, and distribution of materials may also be important.
  • Engaging in the learning activity – are your students learning? 
    • Monitoring performance – gather information about student performance in the learning process by listening, observing dynamics between individuals, and any written documentation students may be producing.
    • Constructively intervening – when (and only when) students need help, or when they are straying too far from the goals of the learning activity, intervene to help students be able to move ahead to next level and most effective direction in the learning process. Be careful to avoid simply providing answers, and also avoid doing things that participants could do themselves.
    • Bringing closure to the learning activity – gather teams or individuals attention as one large group again.

Following up after the learning activity – what have students learned?

• In-class debrief - allow a few students or groups to share with the rest of the class what important learning discoveries they have made. Direct this sharing to include information others can benefit from rather than simply summarizing what the students as a whole now already know. Challenge students to share information that is beyond simple facts and information.
• Assess the session – determine how well the learning activity went by extracting strengths that made the session as good as it was, areas for improvement that could make it work even better, and insights about learning related to the content of the activity. Asking yourself questions like these can help with this process: what critical learning was neglected or missed? How well did students employ the proper skills and resources necessary to learn effectively during the activity? What was the hardest thing for the students during the session?
• Follow-up communication or documentation – during the next class period, or after an appropriate amount of time, share the most important results of the session with students. You might post exemplary work online for students to review, or you might correct any lingering content-related misconceptions you noted, or you might address with students how to use particular learning skills or learning resources more effectively if you will be doing another similar learning activity using those skills or resources at a later data.

Issues to Consider When Facilitating

Facilitation is a process oriented approach to helping students learn. Although learning itself will always be focused on particular content, the process by which that content is addressed becomes equally important when learning is appropriately facilitated. Important instructional issues that arise from a facilitator’s mindset include the role of formative assessment, addressing common challenges arising in the learning environment, and inclusion or equity for all students in the learning process. Formative Assessment informs facilitation. The more data you have about how students are learning, the more effectively you can facilitate that learning. In terms of addressing common challenges we face in the classroom such as incivility and lack of student preparation, facilitation skills help keep students engaged, on task, and motivated, thus helping to prevent some of these situations from arising. In addition, when these challenges do arise, the facilitation methodology provides opportunities to deal with them while students are engaging in the learning activity without disrupting the rest of the class. Finally, opportunities for fostering inclusion arise quite naturally when applying the facilitation methodology. Well designed and well facilitated learning activities create great opportunity to ensure that all students voices can be heard.

In conclusion, it is important to note that facilitation skills fit well within many different Instructional models. Some instructional models naturally lend themselves to a facilitated learning approach. These include Process Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning (POGIL), Team-Based Learning, and the SCALE-UP learning model, to name a few. In addition, many high impact practices (HIPs) such as collaborative learning, service learning, capstone experiences, etc. by their very nature require a facilitated learning process using the steps outlined here. Finally, many of these instructional models come with example materials easily available on the web to help instructors create quality facilitation plans.

References

S.A. Ambrose, M.W. Bridges, M. DiPietro, M.C. Lovett, and M.K. Norman, How Learning Works: 7 Research-Based Principles for Smart Teaching, Jossey-Bass, 2010.

C.R. Jain and T.T. Utschig, Leveraging Elements of Process Education to Extend Biggs’ Model of Constructive Alignment for Increasing Learning Achievement, International Journal of Process Education, Vol 8 (2), September 2016.

V. Minderhout, Creating a Facilitation Plan, in Faculty Guidebook: A Comprehensive Tool for Faculty Performance, 4th ed., Pacific Crest, 2007.

P. Smith and D. Apple, Facilitation Methodology, in Faculty Guidebook: A Comprehensive Tool for Faculty Performance, 4th ed., Pacific Crest, 2007.

P. Smith, Overview of Facilitation, in Faculty Guidebook: A Comprehensive Tool for Faculty Performance, 4th ed., Pacific Crest, 2007.

G. Wiggins and J. McTighe, Understanding by Design, 2nd Ed., Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 2005.

by Kadian Callahan and Josie Baudier

This article shares ideas for how to accommodate a variety of students’ learning needs in a university classroom. Some students come to the classroom with defined and diagnosed learning needs, but some students have learning needs that have not been defined or diagnosed. Instructors committed to fostering all students’ learning may consider designing their courses based on fundamental and effective, research-based practices. This article will provide information about Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and Backwards Course Design and share some instructional considerations to support student learning and positive student outcomes. KSU resources will also be provided. 

Today’s college students bring a diversity of experiences and perspectives that can enhance teaching and learning in university classrooms. Although there are still many obstacles, a sizable variety of students are pursuing higher education. At the university level there are greater efforts to increase student retention, progression, and graduation rates (e.g., Complete College Georgia; however, instructors also need to work to identify and implement innovative ways to bolster student learning and knowledge retention in the classroom.  In today’s university environment, instructors’ responsibility is not to just pass along knowledge to students, but to promote learning and critical thinking that is generative and career-relevant.  To do this well, it is helpful to be aware of the diversity of students’ learning needs and be equipped with ideas for how to best teach and serve all of our students.

 Designing a course

One way to design a course is to rely on the research from Universal Design for Learning (UDL). According to the website for the Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST), “UDL is a framework to improve and optimize teaching and learning for all people based on scientific insights into how humans learn.” Creating a course with UDL in mind allows us to focus on teaching all students in the best way possible. UDL guidelines are based on three main principles of representation, expression, and engagement in the classroom. According to udlcenter.org , the following is how the principles support UDL:

Principle 1: Representation refers to presenting and delivering what we teach in different ways. For example, instructors should offer alternatives formats for content.

Principle 2: Action & Expression refers to providing options for how students learn and how students express what they know. For example, instructors should provide options and multiple tools for communication, assignments, and monitoring progress.

Principle 3: Engagement refers to motivation and why students are of learning what they are learning in your class. For example, explain or point to the goals of the course so students know what to expect and what they are going to learn. Also, provide times for students to reflect on their learning, give students choices in their assignments, and find ways to show relevance and value to the work students are doing.

Adapted from www.udlcenter.org 

 Backward Course Design Process

The design of a course from beginning to end creates a plan for successful learning and course outcomes. This process of planning a course should be completed before the course is taught, however, evaluation and reflection of the course during and after it is taught may warrant changes. Backward Course Design or Understanding by Design (Wiggins and McTighe, 2006) created a framework that has been utilized by many in the field. This process guides instructors through planning and organizing their course by first thinking about and building toward the end-goals of the course. First, the learning outcomes are developed based on the course goals.  Then the instructor identifies what evidence a student will provide to show mastery of an outcome. This includes the assessments students will complete to demonstrate their learning as they make progress toward meeting the course goals. Learning activities are provided to allow students to develop their skills to be able to demonstrate mastery on the assessments. Finally, instructors identify or design resources that they can use to foster students’ learning.  Below is a graphic model adapted from Fink (2003) that shows the progression of the Backward Course Design framework (Esther Jordan, 2016, personal communication). 

In addition to considering the principles of UDL, here are some tips to keep in mind as you create your course with the Backward Design model.

1. Provide information about or stimulate background knowledge prior to introducing new content to help students make connections across different content topics
2. Highlight critical concepts to help students to identify what is important for them to know and understand
3. Repeat critical concepts, using multiple means to reinforce learning and to foster knowledge retention and integration of old and new concepts
4. Avoid unnecessary jargon, complex terms as it can be a hindrance for students – consider providing resources to help students learn important vocabulary in meaningful contexts
5. Provide lots of examples that communicate both important concepts and processes that you expect students to learn (e.g., analyzing and synthesizing information, communicating ideas to others in writing)

Activity

The following activity is designed to encourage faculty to consider the complexity involved in planning instruction that supports and accommodates a variety of student learning needs during course meetings.  As you watch each video (links below), consider:

1. What are some challenges that a student might have with learning the course content?
2. What are some suggestions for what the professor might do to accommodate some of the challenges that students might experience?

Classroom 1    

                                    (Introduction to Philosophy Course – Watch from beginning to 4:16)

Classroom 2    

(English Language Course - Watch from beginning to 4:53)

Reflecting on the Videos

Below are some thoughts about what is happening in the videos.  You may have different ideas than those listed here.

Classroom 1:

• There is a lot of noise in the class. It might be difficult for someone who needs a low distraction environment to focus in on particular conversations.
• Explaining your thinking to someone else and making sense of others’ explanations can help to reinforce learning.
• The lecture is broken up so that students are actively engaged in learning the material throughout the lesson.
• The physical movement integrated into explanations can help to reinforce students’ understanding of the content.
• There is a lot of listening and speaking, but not a lot of writing.  Different modes of communicating can deepen students’ understanding of the content.
• Perhaps the instructor can ask one student to speak at a time or have students go to different parts of the classroom to have conversations with their partner.  This might help to reduce some of the distraction.
• Following this lesson, it might be helpful for the instructor to have students summarize the main points of the lesson on paper.  Writing down what they have said and heard can help them to synthesize the ideas in a meaningful way.
• It appears that the students in this class are learning English.
• The initial questions asked about the picture are very open.  It may be difficult for students to figure out what sort of response to give.
• It is not initially clear what the students are supposed to gain from discussing the picture.  Later it appears that they are learning to use context clues to determine what is happening in a situation – something that is important for second language learners.
• There are opportunities for students to discuss their ideas in pairs before sharing with the entire class.
• The teacher seems to be listening closely to pair discussions and taking notes from time to time about what she is hearing.  She listens also to individuals as they pronounce words and tries to help them (and the class) with pronunciations.
• When pairs are sharing what they discussed, they direct their comments to the teacher and other students are quiet.  Still, it is not clear that the other students are listening or making sense of their peers’ ideas.  Perhaps the instructor can encourage students to add or respond to their peers’ ideas by asking them to do so.
• Perhaps the instructor can also share the purpose and goal of the lesson with the students at the beginning of the lesson to help them to know what is important pay attention to and take away from the lesson.

Classroom 2: 

We encourage you to share information about what you do to accommodate a variety of students’ learning needs in your courses – both those that succeeded and those that need to be further refinement.  If you have a video to share, please do!  We can all learn from each other.

Resources at KSU

The Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL) offers a variety of teaching enhancement services including individual and group consultations, classroom observations, small-group instructional diagnoses (SGIDs), and syllabus review.  We also offer workshops on teaching and learning as well as tailored workshops to meet specific departmental needs. 

Model Universal Design Laboratory Classroom the Universal Design Laboratory is an assistive technology model classroom brought to you by the Department of Inclusive Education and the Department of Instructional Technology in cooperation with

Tools for Life Georgia Institute of Technology. The lab is located on the second floor of the new Education Building. See the possibilities technology can bring to you and your students!

Student Disability Services is to assure equal access to all educational experiences by students with identified, legally defined disabilities, and to promote the University's knowledge of and compliance with all applicable federal and state laws. 

Student Success Services works with students who’s needs are associated with veteran’s issues, addiction recovery, disabled student services, women’s support, interpersonal violence prevention, homeless student intervention, student athlete success, student health promotion and wellness and personal and career counseling.

Academic Support Services includes assistance for student through Academic Tutoring Services, Academic Planning and Advising, Cultural Awareness Resource Center (CARC), Global Village, GLBTIQ Resource Center, International Student Retention Services, and Adult Learning Programs

Other Academic Tutoring Resources include the Writing Center and SMART Center

References

Fink, L. D. (2003). Creating Significant Learning Experiences. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Wiggins, G. McTighe, J. (2006). Understanding by Design. New Jersey: Person Education,Inc.