3.10 Inclusive Teaching across Modalities

Inclusive Teaching during COVID

Our students may be facing a wide array of challenges and living in very different circumstances. It is important to consider the needs of your students not only in the way your remote or blended course is designed, but in the way that you facilitate it. Below are four tips for creating an inclusive, welcoming environment in which your students can learn at a time of unrest and uncertainty.

Tip #1: Make no (or very few) assumptions about student behavior

When you don't see your students face to face, it can be tempting to make assumptions about students and their behavior. For example, a student who hasn't logged into Canvas in the past week (despite multiple activities being due) might easily be mis-labeled a procrastinator or a lazy student when in fact, there may be bigger issues in that student's life that are preventing them from engaging in the course. Our students may be facing:

- - Lack of a quiet, personal space from which to engage in coursework
  - Lack of internet bandwidth, or sharing internet bandwidth and computers with other members of the household
  - Lack of access to mental health or other medical care
  - Lack of access to child care so that they can focus on school and/or work
  - Financial, housing, and/or food insecurity
  - Unemployment
  - Complex family dynamics from moving home (e.g., an LGBTQ student who was "in the closet" at home)
  - Uncertainty about being able to return to school or about finishing their degree
  - Uncertainty about their future after OSU
  - Illness or death of a loved one from COVID-19, its complications, or other medical issues
  - Anger, frustration, or other strong feelings about systemic racism and other injustices
  - Displacement from their home if they are in a place affected by inclement weather (e.g., hurricane season in the south and east)

And these are just a few of the many challenges our students may be facing!

As a general rule of good online/remote teaching, but especially during this time, make an effort to check in with your students, and genuinely ask them how they are doing. As demonstrated or expressed needs arise, be prepared to refer students to OSU resources that can help them.

Tip #2: Remember that changing learning modalities can be challenging for students

Students who typically take on-campus courses may not feel that they are prepared to succeed in courses with a significant remote or online component. Online courses typically demand better time management and better executive functioning skills (Artino & Stephens, 2009 Links to an external site.; Dabbagh & Kitsantas, 2004 Links to an external site.), and so you may discover that your students are struggling to keep up, to effectively manage their time, and to stay motivated.

In these cases, remember that your students perhaps couldn't choose a fully F2F version of the course. Provide as much transparent structure and routine in the course as possible, and consider nudging students gently that might be struggling with changes to their learning modalities.

Tip #3: Be generous, flexible, and patient

While we may always have students who do their best to "work the system" to their advantage, being generous and flexible with your students about deadlines and accommodations upfront during this time will help to minimize anxiety and may help students to finish the course when they might have otherwise withdrawn.

Patience is especially key. There may be very good reasons why students do not respond to you right away if you reach out, or if they cannot notify you in advance that they will miss a deadline. Assume the best of your students and that they are making a good effort -- then act in that spirit.

Tip #4: Facilitate inclusive dialogues

The OSU Office of Institutional Diversity, in collaboration with Student Affairs, created a helpful resource on online dialogue facilitation Download online dialogue facilitation

. This resource illuminates best practices that could be employed in email communications with students, discussion forums, and -- most especially -- synchronous sessions in Zoom.

The purpose of this guide is to inspire confidence and motivation in the possibilities of advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion learning online to provide concrete examples of facilitation strategies to empower OSU faculty. Faculty teaching DPD courses may find this guidance particularly helpful.

Reflection Point: How will you implement each of these strategies in your fall courses? You might consider revisiting your course policies in documents like your syllabus to ensure that your course is welcoming and inclusive for students, and also adding language as necessary so that students understand that you are invested in supporting their success.

Navigating bias in the virtual classroom

Conflict - whether overt or covert - is something no one enjoys dealing with in the classroom. Some of your students may also be unfamiliar with the conventions of communication in this new virtual environment, whether it be in synchronous Zoom meetings or in asynchronous discussion forums in Canvas. Making sure that you have a structure in place to help set expectations and frame how to converse, discuss, and even debate in a virtual environment will help your students to be successful, and also provides a foundation that you can return to with individuals or with the whole class if problems arise. You will likely feel more prepared to facilitate various forms of discussion and student interaction if you also have a plan for how to handle any bias incidents that you observe or that students report to you.

Our Office of Institutional Diversity has prepared a helpful guide called "Guidance on Navigating Bias Incidents in Remote Learning Environments" Download "Guidance on Navigating Bias Incidents in Remote Learning Environments"

to help faculty prepare for, evaluate, respond to, refer, and reflect on instances of bias that may arise. Take a look, and download it and print it for reference!

Bias guidance: prepare, evaluate, respond, refer, reflect

Finished here?

Select "Next" to go to the next page to complete the final activity related to developing your teaching plans for fall 2020.