Welcome to the Tuesday Teaching Tip. Each week, the Faculty Collaborative for Teaching will bring you an easy-to-implement tool that you can use immediately in your classroom teaching. The goals of these tips will be to add to your teaching toolbox, share resources on teaching, and alert you to upcoming teaching and learning opportunities from the Faculty Collaborative.

TUESDAY TEACHING TIP: INCLUSIVE TEACHING

Every faculty member aspires to create an inclusive classroom. How do we do this effectively? This week’s Tuesday Teaching Tip will point toward specific and tangible strategies for creating inclusive courses. 

One of our favorite resources is Lisa Nunn’s thoughtful book 33 Strategies for Faculty: A Week-by-Week Resource for Teaching First-Year and First-Generation students. Every new faculty member has received this book and there’s an e-book version from the SCU library available. (We also created a one-page summary document.)

This book is rooted in the author’s interviews with first-year and first-generation students at two universities in California. Dr. Nunn found that there is huge potential in increasing students’ sense of belonging through simple steps that demonstrate care: “As I asked students questions about their courses, their favorite and least favorite professors, whether they attend office hours, and whether they are interested in building relationships with faculty [...] I was delighted to be privy to so many classroom habits of the faculty members at these two schools. Before long, I had a growing list of do’s and don’ts [...]”.

This week, we challenge you to try one of the (often very simple) strategies from the 33 Strategies for Faculty book. You’ll see that they include things like:

• Encourage students to attend office hours in your class.
• As you are grading, write one short, friendly note in the margin of students’ essays/problem sets/exams.
• Rehearse and share a two- to three-minute description about how you discovered your passion for your field.
• Share a story in class of some college woe that you experienced as an undergraduate student.

Here’s one way to do it 

• Pick one strategy above that you’re not currently doing and would like to try.
• Implement it sometime this week.
• Reflect on how it went.
• Share your experience with a colleague and encourage them to try one of the strategies.
• Try another strategy next week! You can skim the 33 Strategies for Faculty book or summary Doc (below) for additional easy-to-implement strategies.

DID YOU DO IT?

Let us know how it went? We would love to hear your feedback about how you implemented today’s Tuesday Teaching Tip in your classroom. Click here to fill out our 3-question survey.

UPCOMING EVENT

WANT TO READ A LITTLE MORE?

• Faculty Collaborative DRT page on Inclusive Teaching
• Nunn, L. (2019) 33 Strategies for Faculty: A Week-by-Week Resource for Teaching First-Year and First-Generation students (ebook from our library)
  • Summary of the 33 Strategies
• Norton Guide To Equity-Minded Teaching (free digital copy)

This week’s Tuesday Teaching Tip was prepared by C.J. Gabbe, Associate Professor of Environmental Studies and Sciences on behalf of the Faculty Collaborative.

Missed a teaching tip? Read them all here:

• Teaching Tip #1 - Reflection (January 30, 2024)
• Teaching Tip #2 - Mid-Course Evaluation (February 6, 2024)
• Teaching Tip #3 - Beyond Think-Pair-Share (February 13, 2024)
• Teaching Tip #4 - Grading–Good for them and good for you? (February 20, 2024)

And check out our full calendar of CAFEs and other Faculty Development and Faculty Collaborative events, including this Friday's Writing Retreat.