Do course materials represent a people with a range of experiences and backgrounds?
- In voices of authors, guest speakers, etc.?
- In subjects of readings, studies?
- In examples/case studies presented?
28Feb’22
This review encourages instructors to consider how the intellectual substance and design of their courses may or may not contribute to students' understanding of difference and its impact on their communities and around the world. This guide can help instructors think about how they address any dimension of different experiences and backgrounds in their classes. In using it, though, it is valuable to name specific areas of focus and to keep those aspects in mind, rather than considering differences simply in the abstract.
The questions in this document are intended to invite you to reflect on your teaching and stimulate our ongoing thinking about the ways our classes explore varied experiences and people, not to offer prescriptions.
The six questions below encourage you to reflect on your course – its content and materials, the questions it raises, and how you want students to engage with those questions.
Not all of the questions here will be relevant for all courses. Consider which themes and questions most resonate with your teaching and how you want to address particular categories of difference in your classes.
Course Materials
How course
materials are
being
integrated
How the
integration of
course
materials
changes the
substance of
the course
How the
changes
impact the
ways students
engage with
the course
01
02
How does the course handle authors or subjects that are part of the literature or canon of the field but that may be outdated in their understanding of particular groups or experiences? How does the course treat materials and practices of the field that may be hostile to difference?
- Does the course include such materials?
- If so, does the course raise questions about those materials and/or use them to ask questions about the field?
- Does the course interrogate the norms/history of the field?
- Does the course consider the field’s research practices, including who is or has been studied and the power dynamics research may involve?
03
In what ways are considerations of varied groups and experiences integrated into the organization and intellectual focus of the class?
- Do those distinct experiences come in during a separate unit or are they woven throughout many or all weeks?
- Does consideration of different experiences shape the essential questions and substance the course explores?
04
How does the course ask students to understand the intellectual value of different experiences and/or to consider relevant structures or assumptions of uniform experiences?
- Are there readings or activities that encourage students to see how thinking about a range of groups and experiences enhances their understanding of the subject and/or the field?
- Are there readings or activities that encourage students to consider sources of unequal experiences?
- Are there readings or activities that encourage students to examine assumptions about different groups? to consider how stereotypes operate? to challenge essentialist notions of who particular people are? to question what we consider the norm?
05
How does the course emphasize the value of various lived experiences?
- How does the course acknowledge students’ varied experiential knowledge, backgrounds, and perspectives that come from that?
- How are students’ lived experiences valued without a) asking students to be representatives of their communities, and b) devaluing the ideas of students who may come from complex communities?
- Does the course ask students to investigate real-world problems in diverse communities?
- Does the course prepare students to value and engage with multi-faceted populations?
06
How does the course facilitate student reflection on difference and their own learning about it?
- Is this done explicitly, though assignments, or is it assumed?
- Does the course help students to reflect on their own backgrounds and how those may influence their interpretations?
- Does the course help students to reflect on power differentials based different backgrounds and experiences?
This course review process targets the intellectual substance, focus, and materials of a course. How we run the class, regardless of substance, invites additional questions that are explored in other CETLI programs:
- Pedagogies that enable every student to thrive – e.g. activities that emphasize student connection, highly structured class time and assignments, intentionally designed collaborative work, clear expectations, making the process and relevance of the learning clear, and/or assignments that emphasize student growth and convey high expectations for all.
- Discussing difference – e.g. making your classroom a place where students can talk about difference and, as relevant, other challenging topics.