Pre-course Connections: Creating an Equitable & Inclusive Learning Community
Creating an inclusive cohort and accessible learning experiences are key to the success of any course, both because individual students feel more invested and a community of learners is fostered. Part II of this series points to tools for creating an inclusive community by connecting with students before the first day of class with surveys or questionnaires to help build equity and accessibility.
Part II: Building Equitable & Inclusive Community with Pre-course Connections
Grounding Prompt: Revisit the responses to our Part I reflection, in which we shared methods that could be used to build community in the hybrid and remote classroom. Give a thumbs up to shared methods that could be implemented or adapted to build an equitable and inclusive community before the first day of class. Also, feel free to add another response. Revisit your response and/or thumbs up others via PollEverywhere.
Three potential objectives for creating equitable and inclusive pre-course connections (and accessible tools to achieve them):
1. Learn more about your students
- Dr. Irina Popescu’s Welcome Questionnaire developed with her Bowdoin College colleagues
- Dr. Bryan Dewsbury (who conducted class visits and an Inclusive Pedagogy workshop at Bates College in 2020 ) discusses his use of pre-course interest and background survey and institutional data on Vanderbilt University’s Leading Lines podcast
2. Ask students to plan and set goals
Dr. Denise Rousseau of Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Business shares outcomes from a Teaching Innovation study using a student learning goals survey
3. Confirm that students understand course information
Dr. Rob Branch shares a readiness activity that quizzes students on their understanding of the course syllabus, from an April 2020 AAC&U webinar
Reflection Prompt: What pre-course activities or connections have you found successful in building an equitable and inclusive community in your classes? Share your response via shared Google Doc crowdsourced by Bates College participants.
Accessibility Considerations
In creating the interactive components of this series, we’ve used PollEverywhere (a tool for gathering and visualizing participant responses) and Google Docs (an interactive platform already familiar to many of us at Bates). We considered Padlet, another tool offering social-media style interactions between users. Ultimately, we decided not to use Padlet due to accessibility concerns, instead choosing tools that allow for keyboard accessibility and better low-vision color contrast. While a variety of tools are available for creating active learning in online environments, accessibility (central to equitable and inclusive education) is one of many considerations in selecting appropriate applications.
Citation
“File:Noun Project Community icon 627732.svg” by Gregor Cresnar is licensed under CC BY 3.0