Inclusive pedagogy deals with creating a supportive and inclusive classroom that ensures all students have equal access to learning, and both professor and student participate in this environment with mutual respect to differences among groups. Inclusive pedagogy is crucial to student’s learning because social identities of both student and teacher have a direct impact on the learning experience. Also, when students feel they socially belong to the academic community, they increase their probabilities of both academic success and well-being.
Creating an inclusive environment in the classroom, involves thinking about six main aspects of your teaching philosophy: content, pedagogy, assessment climate and power (check out more details about this topic in this link).
- Content: What material have you chosen? In what ways is your curricular design accessible and relevant to your students? Are there any barriers to inclusion?
- Pedagogy: How are you promoting student engagement in ways that are meaningful and relevant to students?
- Assessment: How are you asking students to practice and perform what they’re learning? How can we diversify the ways that students demonstrate their growing proficiencies?
- Climate: In what ways are you creating an atmosphere for learning that is accessible and meaningful for all?
- Power: How can you craft a learning environment that empowers students and helps to bring attention to or disrupt traditional power dynamics between teacher and student and among students?
Just pay attention in the following images and you will understand what I am talking about:
Exclusion:
Segregation:
Integration:
Diversity:
But what is implicit bias?
According to the Ohio State University implicit bias, also known as implicit social cognition, refers to the attitudes or stereotypes that affect our understanding, actions, and decisions in an unconscious manner.
I always thought of myself as being conscious, intentional and deliberate about my actions and behavior. I never thought I was a biased person regarding religion, sex or age. However, when I took an implicit association test, I got shocked! Look at my results:
- Automatic preference for Judaism over Islam.
- A moderate automatic association for Male with Career and Female with Family.
- A slight automatic preference for Young people over Old people.
How about you?
- Have you taken the implicit association test? Did you get shocked with your results?
- What have you done to promote inclusiveness in your classroom?
- How do you deal with implicit bias?
Nayara, amazing post! The diagrams you included were especially demonstrative. I think the diagrams on integration are especially important, because they demonstrate while the subgroup(s) is(are) accepted, it is still separate. We have to work to break that barrier. Your post also reminded me of the most influential TED talk I ever saw. Here is the link: https://www.ted.com/talks/yassmin_abdel_magied_what_does_my_headscarf_mean_to_you?language=en
ReplyDeleteThis is my favorite demonstration and description of implicit bias, but it also includes my favorite tips for how to overcome it--my seeking out people to mentor who are different from us.
Hi! I really enjoyed the TED talk. Thank you for sharing it!
DeleteGreat post. I really enjoyed reading it. I was also shocked after taking the implicit association test. I never thought I was biased but I guess I am. I have seen the pyramid of hate before and the interesting thing is the lower most tier is the bias. It is true that we sometimes unconsciously become biased.
ReplyDeleteThe pyramid of hate makes me think so much about daily issues that I see all time in a diverse society!
DeleteReally interesting post Nayara! Specially the fine but very important distinction that you pointed out between diversity and inclusion, and how just creating a diverse environment is not good enough. It doesn't automatically imply inclusivity, since therein comes our implicit biasses which causes actually more harm in a diverse society. I am definitely going to look up if there are more social dynamics studies done on this, how to find the right balance of diversity and inclusion. Thanks for the post!
ReplyDeleteWelcome ! :)
DeleteThanks for your post Nayara-- I really appreciated the ways you unpacked diversity and inclusion and the ways they depend on one another in order to succeed in fostering an empowering environment. Furthermore, seeing the ways the pyramid of hate starts with a base of bias and being able to question our own biases in how we approach our role as educators. It really helped me think about ways I too may have relied on these biases when in my TA position was first beginning to assess the students in that class.
ReplyDeleteHi Nayara,
ReplyDeleteYou set up the diversity & inclusion topic really well in this post, providing good definitions and addressing the component parts of what it means to be inclusive. I have done many of the implicit bias tests and I am always surprised at (and humbled by) the result. They are sharp reminders that we all hold biases, even if we don't mean to. The challenge is to acknowledge them and to seek knowledge to disrupt those biases. As a future professor, how do you think your pedagogy will change given this understanding of implicit bias and the imperative to create inclusive classroom environments?
Hi Nayara,
ReplyDeleteReally engaging post! I loved all of the graphics you included. It seems like a lot of the post from this week elected to use graphics and I think they are a good way to demonstrate some of these concepts.
I especially think it was important that you highlighted the difference between integration and diversity. Taking the step from integration to diversity is very challenging and I think that it is a struggle that we sometimes see here at Tech. There are many 'diversity' initiatives but some of those initiatives are actually seeking integration instead of real diversity. Would you agree with that?
Thank you for your post! I really enjoyed your concise explanation of inclusivity, and appreciated the graphics you provided. I think they really help to visually explain what these words mean and how they manifest themselves in our daily interactions.
ReplyDeleteReally enjoyed your posts. I think the self-reflexivity and self-awareness necessary to confront these issues is often, sadly, lacking in society and education. I think as educators we have to be really aware of our own short comings and recognize when we might be sensitive to particular subjects and plan accordingly to make sure the full view is given.
ReplyDeleteSorry, name is not coming up. This is Ray Thomas posting.
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