Centering Inclusion and Equity: A Rubric for Faculty Development and Course Design

Abstract: Higher education is undergoing a transformation as educators seek to support the success of an increasingly diverse student body and to address injustices in our broader society. Because the literature on inclusive and equitable teaching is proliferating and overwhelming, all educators can benefit from a tool that distills principles and practices in this arena. The session facilitators have developed, through peer feedback, an accessible, user-friendly rubric that synthesizes and operationalizes many promising teaching practices of equity and inclusion as well as community engagement. Through interactive dialogue, participants will have the opportunity to apply and adapt the rubric for their contexts.

Narrative: In the session, the participants will 1) develop an understanding of ways to synthesize the literature on inclusive and equitable teaching, 2) explore how to approach inclusive teaching via critical, co-creative, and community engagement pedagogies, and 3) refine and apply the rubric as a resource in consultations, workshops, and communities of practice in their home institutions.

The interactive session will begin with introduction to the facilitators and an introductory exercise with the participants to understand their experience and interests in the session. The facilitators will then introduce the rubric and summarize the contributions of key bodies of literature. This introduction will entail a discussion of the organization of the rubric into several domains (Instructor Learning, Values and Core Commitments, Learning Goals, Learning Experiences and Interaction, and Learning Assessment), each with between four and six dimensions, including, for example, Reflection on my own biases and Orientation toward expertise and learning (under the domain of Instructor Learning). For each of these dimensions, which generally correspond to an inclusive or equitable teaching practice, the rubric has six levels of engaging in that practice: Novice, Emergent, Deliberate, Integrated, Engaged with Educational Systems, and Engaged with Community and Society.

Then, participants will all read two pre-selected dimensions of the rubric (one from Instructor Learning and one from Values and Core Commitments) in order to familiarize themselves with its nature and structure. After a debrief, participants will identify one of the five domains of particular interest to them and form small groups to apply the corresponding rubric dimensions to their own contexts and to provide constructive critique to improve its content and accessibility. After a period of collaborative discussion, participants will rotate to a second domain-based small group and repeat the process. Having applied and evaluated two domains of the rubric from the user’s perspective, participants will come together as a whole group to co-generate and explore potential areas of inquiry that can be examined using the rubric. They will leave the session with the current version of the rubric that they can adapt for their own uses and a set of related research questions and strategies.

The session will honor values of collaboration, equity, and evidence in several ways. First, on evidence, the rubric is a rigorous synthesis of SOTL research that has been subject to peer review and application in faculty development practice. Second, the guiding ethos of the scholarship of the facilitators, the structure and process of the rubric, and the session organization will be one of collaborative co-creation designed to have future versions of the rubric be shaped and use-able by the participants. Third, the furtherance of equity, justice, and inclusion in higher education, and our broader society, is the impetus and guiding principle of the rubric’s design and development.

We as facilitators believe that the session itself should mirror our scholarship’s commitment to principles of equity, inclusion, and justice. Therefore, we intend to use a variety of strategies of inclusion, and we both have significant experience leading difficult conversations on inclusion, equity, and justice in ways that are respectful, authentic, and productive. We will be sure that any representation of scholarship as well as our facilitation of participant views will capture a wide diversity of perspectives and voices. Further, all materials and content will be accessible in a variety of formats, and we will encourage engagement with them in a variety of forms. We also will be highly intentional and attentive to the needs of historically underrepresented or marginalized participants in the facilitation of the session, being sure to support everyone’s productive use of the session for their own purposes.

Addy, T. M., Dube, D., Mitchell, K. A., & SoRelle, M. E. (2021). What inclusive instructors do: Principles and practices for excellence in college teaching. Stylus.
Artze-Vega, I., Darby, F., Dewsbury, B., & Mays, I. (2023). Norton guide to equity-minded teaching.
Sathy, V., & Hogan, K. (2021). How to make your teaching more inclusive: Advice guide. The Chronicle of Higher Education. Downloaded 10/1/21.

Tuitt, F., Haynes, C., & Stewart, S. (Eds.) (2016). Race, equity, and the learning environment: The global relevance of critical and inclusive pedagogies in higher education. Stylus.

University of California. (2022, January). Advancing inclusion and anti-racism in the college classroom: A rubric and resource guide for instructors. Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management. University of California, Berkeley.