Welcome to this course which has been developed with Kelly Hogan and Viji Sathy from the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill, USA and focuses on the role of structure in inclusive teaching. Our students come to us with a variety of backgrounds, experiences, and knowledge. We know that diversity is an asset in the classroom. However, without adequate structure, instructors can perpetuate educational inequity. In this course, we will discuss how course design and interactions in and out of the classroom that lack structure are a problem. We feel it is empowering to think about inclusive teaching in this way, because as educators, we are the ones who design the course and facilitate interactions.
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My name is Kelly Hogan and I’m a Professor of biology at the University of North Carolina in the US. I’m also the Associate Dean of Instructional Innovation. And I get paid to do what I love to do, which is teach biology students hundreds of them per semester. And as I teach I am really in tune with the way that my teaching helps all students learn and when I say all students, I really mean all students not just the ones that come in experienced and ready to go and this is a real area of interest for me and my colleague Viji Sathy, who want to make sure that our teaching is inclusive.
My name is Viji Sathy. I’m a Professor in the department of Psychology and Neuroscience and the Associate Dean for Evaluation and Assessment at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the United States. I’m a quantitative psychologist by training and my area of expertise is in research, evaluation and assessment. I teach research methods courses and statistics classes. And one of the things I really love about teaching these courses is having students explore these ideas and appreciate how valuable research can be.
“Structuring practice into a course can help all students achieve and importantly, it can reduce the educational opportunity gaps between different student groups.”
“Some people think structure means more rigidity, but actually it’s a form of organisation. It allows students to understand how we have designed the course for their success.”
Get Involved And Share Your Learning
- Share your perspective. Throughout this course, you will see discussion prompts at the end of each lesson inviting you to share your thoughts and experience. We encourage you to respond to these discussion questions and read those of other educators to benefit from theirs. When you see a comment you agree with or find helpful, hit the ‘Like’ button to help other educators find it. You can also reply to any comments from other members that you find interesting.
- Ask a question. You can ask questions of experts and other educators in the discussion threads in courses. If your question is more general, use Ask, Answer and Share in the community to reach more people.
- Pick up your course badges. To earn your Course Completion Badges make sure you mark all lessons as ‘Mark Complete’ once you have completed a lesson. At the end of the course, click ‘Mark Complete’ and you will be asked a few multiple-choice questions to earn a Course Completion badge. Once you’ve had a chance to apply your learning, come back to complete an Impact Badges by applying what you have learned in the courses and answering a short survey.
If you have any questions or issues, please email us [email protected].