“Hot moments” may come up during class due to controversial course content or simply due to interpersonal dynamics in a classroom filled with unique individuals. Before opting to simply ignore unpleasant classroom interactions, faculty might want to consider how they can help equip students to be  engaged global citizens capable of interacting with people who are different from one another or those holding conflicting views.

Among others, Lee Warren of Harvard’s Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning offers some tips for handling these tricky moments, including:

• Probe more deeply, but keep the focus on learning and understanding, not winning an argument.
• Help students tolerate discomfort and expect that they won’t always be able to come to consensus.
• If they can’t figure out a way to deal with the issue in that moment, the professor might tell students this seems like an important issue she or he would like to take up at a later time. That lets students know s/he has noticed and takes the issue seriously but also provides time to plan strategies, perhaps ones that include providing resources that frame the controversy. Continue reading »

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The goals of an inclusive classroom should not be creating a comfortable space, making students feel good about themselves, or ending each class meeting with a group hug.

In fact, learning and applying new ideas and skills, thinking deeply, grappling with complex issues and situations should be challenging, which doesn’t necessarily make students feel comfortable or good. The main goal of an inclusive classroom, like all others, should be about increasing student learning – the learning of all students.

Most of the practices that are seen as promoting “inclusive classrooms” are simply what are known to be good teaching practices. Students are more likely to take intellectual risks when there are clear goals and expectations, supportive and well-designed instruction, and a respectful learning environment. Faculty can be more effective when they recognize what students bring (and don’t bring) to the classroom in terms of background skills and knowledge in a content area and also the ways their culture and identities may affect them.

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Although any faculty member can be attentive to pedagogy and how to set up an inclusive classroom environment, some courses can make their course content more explicitly multicultural. Ideally, this means more than just a one-day “add-on” or token “nod to diversity” so that diversity is “infused” into the course at its foundation.

As you are redesigning a course, keep in mind that you can:

• Share with students how recent scholarship – perhaps about gender, race, sexual identity, global perspectives, etc. – may have changed your field of study in recent years.
• Think about the opportunities your course content offers in terms of topics to be covered, types of case studies or examples used, application of theories, evidence, readings and authors, and the types of thinking you want to encourage.
• Investigate what leaders in your discipline/field are doing to infuse diversity into their curriculum. If you’re serious about redesigning your course, check out the Diversity Infusion Project. Continue reading »

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