Inclusive Teaching Online
Fostering and maintaining inclusive learning environments is essential to enabling full participation, engagement, and learning for all students. Northwestern adheres to these principles of inclusive teaching. Both face-to-face and online learning environments should be inclusive, warm, and welcoming.
In preparation for online instructional delivery, all Northwestern instructors should review the following materials and incorporate inclusive strategies into their course plans. The strategies below are tailored specifically for online teaching.
Cultivate a Welcoming and Inclusive Climate
A welcoming and inclusive class culture is one that both recognizes diversity and fosters student engagement and belonging. These elements are critical for student learning and can be encouraged through creating social presence—the connections among and between students and instructors—in the online learning environment. Remember to clearly articulate your expectations for interactions and engagement to facilitate appropriate and thoughtful student interactions and comments.
Set ground rules for courses collectively
- Shared rules and expectations can help avoid miscommunication, disrespectful language, and hurt feelings and foster a constructive exchange of perspectives, opinions, approaches, and viewpoints.
- Students can help co-create shared rules and expectations on the first day of the course.
- These rules and expectations should apply to all synchronous and asynchronous sessions, virtual chats, group work, and discussion boards.
- Post and remind students about the agreed-upon ground rules.
- An example of a simple baseline shared expectation is: “Be respectful of the words and opinions of others, even if they differ from your own.”
Recognize challenging circumstances
Students may be experiencing a range of emotions related to their current circumstances.
Foster social presence
- Use icebreaker activities at the beginning and throughout your course to foster social presence. Be careful not to pose questions that will require students to disclose potentially sensitive information about themselves. For example, start class by posting a broad question in the chat function or on the whiteboard, such as your favorite music, video, or ice cream flavor. The question should not require students to reveal personal circumstances (for example, do not ask, "Where did you go on break?"). Also, introduce yourself and share your background and interests. During discussions, ask students to introduce themselves when they speak (“Hi, I am . . .”).
- Check-in with students via email and establish online office hours. Consider holding required one-to-one office hour chats early in the term. Reach out to students who struggle during the quarter. Clearly communicate the best way for students to contact you, your available hours, and your usual email or other communications response time.
- For synchronous sessions, invite students to log in 5–10 minutes before the class starts. This can help foster casual conversation and allow students to raise questions. If time permits, you can also let students know you will remain online for 10 minutes after the class ends to answer their questions.
- View this 23-minute video, “Translating In-Person Teaching Online,” from the Searle Center for Advancing Learning and Teaching. You will learn how to navigate Zoom and implement whiteboards, annotations, breakouts, and other techniques to create community among your students, build social presence, and ease student discomfort. The section on creating a social presence begins at the 10:53 mark.
Foster equitable participation in class
Give students multiple ways to participate, such as using the virtual hand-raising icon in Zoom, calling on students who visually raise their hands, and opening a discussion in chat for students who are more comfortable sharing their ideas in written form. Many best practices for active learning and discussion in person can be replicated or adapted in online courses, including, for example, announcing you will allow time to think before calling on anyone and think-pair-share (individual writing followed by a small group breakout room discussion and report to the full class via chat, whiteboard, a shared Google doc, or full class discussion). You can also use an asynchronous discussion board to promote contributions from all students.
Monitor student interaction
Monitor small group discussions, breakout rooms, and chats to ensure adherence to ground rules for respectful discourse. These types of engagement can help build student community, but they should be held to the same discussion standards as full-class sessions. Be prepared to intervene if students engage in inappropriate or harassing behavior. A helpful strategy can be consistently reminding students about the shared ground rules and expectations for respectful discourse throughout the term.
Respect and affirm names and identity
Use NameCoach to ensure you know how to pronounce names correctly. Ask students to use their full name in Zoom (although they could use a nickname in parentheses if they prefer). Invite students to use Zoom's function to add their pronouns to their names if they so choose. Model this same best practice for yourself, both in Zoom and on your syllabus and other course materials. Create a syllabus statement
Provide a diversity, equity, and inclusion statement in your syllabus. This can help establish a welcoming tone and demonstrate your values for the learning environment. The statement can address how your teaching philosophy engages with diversity, equity, and inclusion and your expectations for valuing and respecting differences in your class.
Provide Students with Clear Guidance on Course Expectations
It is important to clearly share your course standards and expectations in an online class, as there are fewer opportunities for informal communication, reminders, and impromptu explanations that often occur in in-person settings. Instructors should clearly communicate three fundamental course elements:
Course Goals
The broad course goals—what are the intended outcomes of the course?
Learning Objectives
The course learning objectives—what learning will students demonstrate when they have completed the course?
Overall Course Expectations
The overall course expectations—how should students expect to participate and engage to achieve the course goals and learning objectives?
Use These Suggested Strategies to Provide Clear Expectations
Clearly include your expectations on the syllabus
Update often
To help students stay on track, provide an update on each week’s learning objectives, meetings, and assignments.
Provide clear instructions about assignments
For example, how frequently should students post to group discussion boards? What length of post is expected? Augment written instructions for assignments by including a brief video explanation, using an assignment/grading rubric, or posting models of exemplary work.
Ensure that all students can access course materials
Adhere to guidelines on using online course materials to ensure that all students can access
course materials. Apply the
Universal Design for Learning framework, which provides principles for designing and communicating curricula, course materials, and assessments that allow opportunities for all students to learn.
Establish protocols for online communication during the course
- Use synchronous dialogue/communication, virtual hand-raising, and muted microphones. Because students will encounter different protocols across their classes, it is important to communicate your expectations at the beginning of the course and throughout the term.
- During synchronous sessions, ask students to use audio and, if possible, video. However, remember that while appearing on video can increase social presence for many, it can be intrusive, uncomfortable, and/or inaccessible for others.