This section is full of timely and evidence-based practices to apply in your teaching.
- UDL, Student Learning, & Retention: As UDL suggests, providing options for learning keeps students engaged, which often positively impacts both student learning and retention. Take a look at the A11Y Corner’s inaugural post to learn more about UDL’s impact on student learning and retention.
- Inclusive Teaching | Setting Ground Rules: Ground rules or Community Guidelines are essential to develop in order to establish how your students should interact with one another in your classroom/learning space so that everyone feels included and safe and has a voice. It is an activity that needs to be well planned and handled sensitively and can be done in a number of different ways synchronously or asynchronously. A discussion board or visual whiteboard like Google Jamboard or Zoom Whiteboards can help facilitate full and anonymous participation. A good opening question is “What can we agree upon now that will create an environment in which we can ask each other anything?” from Claude Steele (author of Whistling Vivaldi).
- Tips for Group Work: Group Work is often met with resistance from students but it is important to remind them it is a “necessary evil” they need to master as they need those skills when they go out into the workforce and in life generally…group work does not go away once you leave college! Explaining the benefits of learning how to navigate group work is a good starting point along with the aims and objectives and how students will be assessed. Building group dynamics first can also aid effectiveness as will debriefing at the end.