From the very beginning of your course design, consider how you will actively work to create an equitable, accessible, and inclusive environment for your students and instructional team. Duke’s own Commitment to Diversity and Inclusion notes, “Every student, faculty, and staff member —whatever their race, gender, age, ethnicity, cultural heritage or nationality; religious or political beliefs; sexual orientation or gender identity; or socioeconomic, veteran or ability status—has the right to inclusion, respect, agency and voice in the Duke community. Further, all members of the University community have a responsibility to uphold these values and actively foster full participation in university life.”(1) Creating equitable and accessible classrooms helps all students.

A learner-centered classroom, indeed, cannot exist without equity and accessibility minded design. At LILE, we partner with Duke instructors and staff to support learner-centered, active learning for more equitable, accessible, and inclusive experiences that help all learners achieve learning outcomes. This guide provides you with a broad overview of what you can do to keep diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) in mind while designing your course.

Table of Contents:

Planning your course

Create a learner-centered course. The first step in designing or redesigning a course to be inclusive, equitable, and accessible is to approach the course through the eyes of your learners. What will the learning experience be like through the semester? Are there clear goals and expectations? Will the instructor treat everyone fairly? Will my instructor support my learning in the course, including providing accommodations? Will my voice be heard? Do I feel welcome? 

The Stanford Learning Commons has an overview of learner-centered course design and you can review our page on how to Plan and Refine Your Course. Universal Design for Learning principles can also help you design your course to be more inclusive for everyone from day one.

Be aware of equity. When planning your course, ask yourself if the activities or homework presents any barriers to some of your learners. Are there materials that might be unavailable to some learners due to cost? Are there activities that might place inappropriate attention on some students because of their nationality, race, gender, or sexuality or ask them to make broad assumptions about groups? Are their barriers to carrying out an activity due to a disability?

Consider the state of diversity and inclusion in your discipline. Our disciplines and professions are constantly changing due to evolving views on diversity and inclusion. This can be reflected in how the discipline conducts research; deals with research subjects or members of the public; the nature of questions being asked in the discipline; the diversity of instructors or professionals that make up the field; and the overall issues of equity specific to the discipline.

When designing your course, consider recent discussions, trends, and the general history of your field. Do some of these changes directly impact the subject matter of your course? Even if these issues aren’t directly related to your specific course material, look for ways to acknowledge these larger disciplinary issues and discussions in your class so learners are aware and have a deeper understanding of the evolution of your field. 

You may also want to ask learners to think critically about their own role in knowledge production. Associate Professor Eugenia Zuroski at McMaster University has developed a course exercise called “Where Do You Know From?” meant to be used on the first day of class. Through a series of prompts, learners are asked to reflect on where their knowledge is situated, where it comes from. This exercise, in Zuroski’s words, works to make “the university classroom a space that overtly and persistently recognises multiple ways of knowing and sites of learning,” which is crucial, “if we intend to use it as a site to counter histories of misogyny, heteronormativity, racism, classism, and colonialism.”(2) 

When looking for examples, readings, or guest speakers in your course, can you find diverse voices to provide models for minoritized and non-traditional students that may be interested in pursuing your field? How are you centering these voices within the context of your course? 

Support your teaching assistants. Teaching assistants at Duke have a wide-range of instructional experiences and training. This blog post discusses general strategies for successfully working with your teaching assistants. Think about how you can directly mentor your teaching assistants, so that they can not only be assets to your course, but also strong instructors and professionals. Speaking with teaching assistants about your choices about how you integrated DEIA in the classroom can ensure that the whole of the instructional staff is on the same page. Your teaching assistants may also have different perspectives and can make recommendations about how you might improve your teaching, so developing a relationship where they are empowered to provide feedback will improve your course. For a guide on inclusive teaching developed specifically for teaching assistants, see Fostering Inclusive Practices Among Teaching Assistants.

Rethinking your assumptions. What has the Duke community learned about diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility? How does it impact you and your work with students? How can you help Duke move forward?

Duke has many resources (see the Resources section at the end of this page) available to explore issues around diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility in the context of teaching and learning, research, and professional development. There are links to offices and centers at Duke that provide workshops, materials, and guidance for you and your students. One starting entry point into this topic may be to explore the topic of microaggressions in the classroom.

Survey your learners before the course begins. You can survey your learners before your course begins or at the very beginning of the semester to learn more about their specific needs and interests. You might ask learners if they have accessibility requests, for example. You may also ask them questions that will give you information to help your learners meet learning outcomes such as: How can I help you be successful in this course? What helps you learn? What are your expectations for this course? 

Syllabus, course policies and materials

Create an inclusive syllabus. A syllabus isn’t just an outline of your course and class policies. It’s an invitation to engage in a learning community you will be creating in the class. As Franciso Ramos, PhD, notes, “The syllabus is not a ‘learning contract.’ … The syllabus is an evolving document and learning framework that reflects our beliefs and values about learning.”(3)

More broadly, a learner-centered syllabus gives students a clear idea of what will happen in the class, what they will be learning in the course, and how they will practice and demonstrate that learning. The learner-centered syllabus should also set an overall tone for the course, promote your role in mentoring and supporting learning during the class, and create a sense of a shared learning community.

Overall, the syllabus should have a welcoming tone, addressing the learner directly as an individual and member of the Duke community. When writing about yourself, use a first-person narrative explaining to the students why you are interested in your field and the topic of the class. Include your preferred pronouns and use bias-free language to encourage and model their use by learners in the class.

Making your syllabus inclusive means that it acknowledges and respects the diversity of your learners and their experiences. You should include language about expectations for mutual respect and commitment to hearing all voices in the class. The syllabus might acknowledge systemic issues, such as racism or biased language, that might be connected with the subject matter, readings, or materials that students will be using, or even the building where the class will be meeting. The syllabus should also include content warnings on difficult material that students may find disturbing and guidelines for students who need to step away or have issues working with the material. We recommend looking at resources on Trauma Informed Teaching to find strategies to help students navigate these stressors.

LILE has prepared a learner-centered syllabus template (.docx) as an example. It is not required to be used at Duke, but can give you ideas and tips on some language and information that can be included in your own syllabus.

Make course materials accessible. Design your course to be accessible from the beginning. As the Duke Accessible Syllabus Project states, “It is our society, not the individual or student, that has the ethical obligation to create the conditions for inclusivity – extending to the educational institution, the instructor, and the curricula.”(4) Creating options for learners with disabilities or specific needs can assist learners more broadly. Captions in videos, for example, might be used by some students who speak English as a second language to better understand the material. Creating a rotating schedule of student note-takers or recording lectures may immediately help some students, but being able to review course material benefits all students. Universal Design for Learning principles can help you here as well by designing your course in a way that works for all learners, rather than meeting student needs on a case- by-case basis.

Look for opportunities for inclusion. When preparing your syllabus, look for opportunities to include diverse voices in your course content. If you will be having guest speakers or professionals in the field that will be working with students on a project, look for diversity in the people that will be working with your learners. Your subject librarian can help locate books and articles by diverse authors in your field that can provide a range of experiences to your learners. Consider how you are teaching your content. What are you focusing on and what issues are being addressed? Who is being given authority and expertise? What perspectives are you missing? 

Have clear and flexible course policies. Be aware of factors that might influence learner participation as your course runs. Are there cultural celebrations or holidays commemorated by students in your class that you should accommodate? Does your class fall on an election day? If your class includes live online sessions, will some students need to leave their camera off due to circumstances in their surroundings? Planning for common student requests and including information about these situations in your syllabus, as well as generally discussing your willingness to be open and flexible to student needs during the course, demonstrates to students your flexibility. This lets students know that you want them to be open and communicative with you and an active participant in their learning.

Conducting the class

Use discussion guidelines. Many faculty start off their first class session with a set of discussion guidelines that will be used throughout the course, then reinforce these guidelines at the start of subsequent class meetings. The guidelines encourage allowing everyone to have opportunities to be heard, discussing ideas, and treating each other with respect. Discussion guidelines can be useful in courses that do not follow a small seminar, discussion-based format, to set a tone for interactions in the course and to build a sense of support, learning, and community. This blog post explains the use of discussion guidelines and provides examples you can adapt to your own course.

Set a tone for discourse. Besides using discussion guidelines, you may want to point students to resources or develop pointers for students on the use of terminology, phrasing, or general principles that deal with specific topics the class may be exploring. This document, for example, was crowdsourced by faculty as guidance for teaching or writing about slavery.(5) The American Psychological Association has a style guide for using bias-free language that covers sexual orientation, gender, disability, age, and other areas.

Use student-centered active learning techniques. Research has shown that cooperative active learning techniques can help students improve performance in classes and creates an equitable experience for all. Some of the techniques were originally designed to help with integrating classrooms in the 1970s. For example, one popular technique, a Jigsaw, encourages learners in groups to become experts to encourage collaboration to solve a problem. Even less elaborate active learning techniques, such as Think-Pair-Share or Brainwriting can elevate all voices and foster listening and engagement by all students in your class. You can explore techniques that fit your learning objectives on our website, workshops, and by speaking with a LILE consultant.

Be aware of issues and respond. During class sessions, when you are leading discussions or monitoring group work, look for issues that may arise as learners interact with each other. Is there a learner using stereotypical or derogatory language that may be disturbing to some learners? Are there students stating or promoting unsupported stereotypes as facts or using biased language? Are some learners “shut out” of discussions or group work?

How you respond depends on the situation – it may be something as simple as correcting misconceptions and emphasizing appropriate terms or language, looking for ways to encourage participation in a discussion or group by all learners. Consider exploring the idea of calling in or out as an approach to difficult conversations. In some cases, you may wish to talk individually with a learner about their behavior. Your department chair or Dean can give you advice on students that may be showing more serious problems that are disruptive to the course. You might also want to discuss the issue with your departmental colleagues to consider appropriate responses.

Check in with your learners. Frequent feedback is important from your learners, not only for fine-tuning your course and helping students with their learning, but to ensure that minoritized and non-traditional learners have an opportunity to express concerns they see with the course that might not be apparent to you. One active learning technique you can use is a Minute Paper at the end of each class to solicit anonymous feedback from learners. You can also perform a more detailed mid-semester survey to surface larger issues about the course.

Support your learners. Learners appreciate it when you let them know that you’re there if they need to talk about any issues they see with the course and the community of learning you and the learners are building. As an instructor, you don’t have to solve all the students’ issues or be a counselor – just showing respect, concern, and empathy demonstrates your commitment to their success as students in your class and as individuals in Duke’s larger, diverse community. Duke Reach is a service that can help you in cases where a student may need counseling, health services, or other assistance. Duke’s Academic Resource Center can help learners that need tutoring or help with developing study and organizational skills. The Duke Academic Guides program is another resource for your learners to discuss their in and out of classroom concerns.

Prepare for the unexpected. External events can impact your course. Because of an event on campus, in the Durham community, nationally, or around the world, students may be distracted or emotionally involved and have difficulty focusing on your class session or coursework during a period of time. Instructors have found that starting off class informally to spend a few minutes to talk about the external event, even if it has nothing to do with the course subject matter, can help learners understand you care about their well-being and understand and empathize with issues they may be facing. This can give an opportunity for everyone to take a “time out” before refocusing on the task at hand.

If your students are experiencing stress because of external conditions or events, there are many helpful tips – giving students more choices, journaling, etc. – in this blog post, prepared during the COVID-19 epidemic. 

Design your assessments toward equity and accessibility. As Erick Montenegro and Natasha A. Jankowski state, “Assessment, if not done with equity in mind, privileges and validates certain types of learning and evidence of learning over others, can hinder the validation of multiple means of demonstration, and can reinforce within students the false notion that they do not belong in higher education.” (6) When crafting an assessment strategy, keep student-centered principles in mind. Think about how your course’s assessments fit together: Are you scaffolding your assessments? Are you giving learners the opportunity to practice before high stakes assignments? Are you giving learners feedback that can impact their performance? You may also consider allowing learners to choose how to demonstrate what they have learned in your course, either by working with you to design their own projects or by providing multiple options.

Remain flexible, think in advance if your assessment design might provide barriers to learners. For example, “Avoid references in your assessment questions which would be unclear or unknown to students of different cultures. (See examples of questions that might be biased against international students, first generation college students and students from less wealthy backgrounds.) Avoid complex vocabulary unless you are testing vocabulary.”(7)

Think about accessibility considerations in advance, such as ensuring you are not requiring the use of inaccessible technology to complete an assignment and being prepared to make adjustments based on learner needs. If a learner asks for an accommodation on an assignment, provide one. Read more about Culturally Responsive Teaching and Universal Design for Learning to learn further about equitable assessment design.

In addition to the design of assessments, think about how you plan to grade your learners, keeping equity in mind. Our guidance on alternative assessments provides several strategies for rethinking grading practices for both small and large courses.

Evaluating inclusive practices

LILE consultants offer two different mid-semester feedback programs for faculty wishing to collect learner feedback and reflect on their teaching. Small Group Instructional Feedback (SGIF) sessions involve a consultant visiting your classroom and facilitating small group discussions with your students. Our Mid-Semester Feedback Survey involves a consultant administering an anonymous survey to your learners asynchronously. As part of both programs, you can work with a consultant to design a custom question related to your course. Contact us at learninginnovation@duke.edu for more information.

In addition to self-evaluation and receiving feedback from your learners, receiving feedback from your instructional peers can improve your teaching. If you are interested in working specifically within your department or field, you might self-organize a faculty learning community or contact us for more help. Learning Innovation’s Visit a Classroom program provides Duke instructors with an opportunity to gain new teaching perspectives by observing their colleagues teaching in their classrooms. Three faculty participants observe at least one class taught by each instructor in the group to get ideas to enhance their own teaching and classroom experience.

Learn more 

There are many resources available to instructors at Duke related to topics of inclusivity, equity, and accessibility. 

The Office of Faculty Advancement has multiple resources for faculty, including hosting a workshop series.

The Center for Sexual and Gender Diversity schedules educational programming, including faculty-specific workshops on pronouns.

The Mary Lou Williams Center for Black Culture offers a variety of pre-scheduled training opportunities as well as personalized training for specific groups.

There are multiple training opportunities at Duke for teaching assistants. For instance, Duke’s Office of the Provost and LILE developed the five-module Canvas training called Responsible Conduct for Duke Community Engagement (RCE), that provides learners with basic training on student privacy, accessibility, protections against harassment and discrimination, as well as resources available to students through DukeReach. The Graduate School’s Certificate in College Teaching Program has a course specifically focused on College Teaching, Diverse Learners, and Contentious Issues. The Graduate School also hosts College Teaching Workshops and TA Trainings with sessions that speak to diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility. The College Teaching Workshops and TA Trainings are not limited to graduate students.

LILE also hosts and cross-promotes events related to DEIA in teaching and learning. You can check our Events Calendar for current offerings. 

In addition to Duke-supported workshops, there are many workshops being offered by professional organizations, Centers for Teaching and Learning at other universities, and other institutions that focus on these topics. The Professional and Organizational Developmental Network in Higher Education has a Google Group open to its members and other interested parties where some of these events are advertised. Conferences in your discipline may also offer individual sessions related to these topics, geared toward your field.

If you are active on social media, following these conversations through hashtags or following experts in the field offers another way to learn and share ideas. 

Below, we have also included more resources where you can read more about DEIA in higher education.

Resources & Further Reading

Academic Integrity

Accessibility

Anti-Racism

General Inclusivity

LGBTQ+

Pedagogies of Care

Trauma-Informed Practices

Universal Design for Learning (UDL)

Other

References

  1. Duke’s Commitment to Diversity and Inclusion
  2. Eugenia Zuroski, “Where Do You Know From?” MAI: Feminism and Visual Culture
  3. Francisco Ramos, “How to Teach Contentious Issues in the Classroom: A Practical Guide for Educators.”
  4. Duke Accessible Syllabus Project, General Principles 
  5.  P. Gabrielle Foreman, et al. “Writing about Slavery/Teaching About Slavery: This Might Help” community-sourced document, 08 July 2021, 1:38 p.m. EDT, https://docs.google.com/document/d/1A4TEdDgYslX-hlKezLodMIM71My3KTN0zxRv0IQTOQs/mobilebasic.
  6. Erick Montenegro and Natasha A. Jankowski, “Equity and Assessment: Moving Towards Culturally Responsive Assessment,” https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED574461.pdf
  7. Amy Kenyon, Best Practices for Inclusive Assessment, Duke Learning Innovation Blog