Course Overview

A

Teamwork puzzle imageThe Inclusive STEM Teaching Project is designed to advance the awareness, self-efficacy, and ability of STEM faculty, postdocs, graduate students, and staff to cultivate inclusive learning environments for all their students and to develop themselves as reflective, inclusive practitioners. In addition, these ideas and concepts are valuable to individuals in all aspects of education, such as high school teachers, instructors in the arts, humanities, law, medicine, social sciences, and other fields, as well as administrators and faculty developers.Team standing side-by-side imageOur modules cover the following themes designed to help instructors construct classroom environments that support the complexities that contribute to student persistence: social identity and its impact on learning; power, positionality, and privilege; inclusive course design; interruption of oppression and microaggressions; and evidence-based teaching. Click on the module title below to learn more:

In this introductory module, participants will be introduced to the concepts, ideas, and terms that relate to fostering inclusive classrooms and learning environments in higher education. Participants will be provided guidance on course flow, activities, and engagement. The concepts reviewed in this session will be reinforced in the content throughout the rest of the course.
Participants will examine aspects of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), especially around identity, power, privilege, and positionality, in both their local institutional context (e.g., classroom, laboratory, research group) as well as at regional and national levels. Participants will explore the importance and impact of inclusivity in learning, reflect on common challenges instructors report about incorporating inclusive practices into their teaching and explore the research and evidence basis for inclusive teaching.
This module will guide participants from a range of backgrounds to reflect upon their individual identities and the ways in which those identities influence their experience as instructors and impact their students’ learning.
In this module, participants will review social identity frameworks introduced in module 2 and explore how students’ social identities impact teaching practices, student learning, and classroom experience. Using embodied case studies developed in collaboration with the CRLT Players from the University of Michigan, participants will explore key concepts related to student experiences including discrimination, historical trauma, microaggressions, and imposter phenomenon.
In this module, participants will explore and apply strategies for designing an inclusive course. Participants will explore typical strategies to course design and instruction, and how these approaches eliminate or create barriers to student learning. Such approaches include backward design, active-learning strategies, universal design, and formative and summative assessments.
In this module, participants will become aware of, reflect on, and explore how to develop and implement inclusive and evidence-based teaching practices that create and sustain more inclusive classroom climates using embodied case studies developed in collaboration with the CRLT Players from the University of Michigan. Participants will also explore ways to measure their classroom climate to more clearly understand how students are experiencing their class.

A