Inclusive Teaching: Resources

Over the past two decades, science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) faculty have been striving to make their teaching practices more inclusive and welcoming to the variety of students who enter college. However, many STEM faculty, even those at teaching-focused institutions, have been educated in a traditional environment that emphasizes research and may not include classroom teaching. This can produce a deficit in training that leaves many STEM faculty feeling uncertain about inclusive teaching practices and their essential undergirding principles. This essay describes an online, evidence-based teaching guide intended to help fill this gap, serving as a resource for science faculty as they work to become more inclusive, particular with regard to differences in race, ethnicity, and gender.

A host of simple teaching strategies—referred to as “equitable teaching strategies” and rooted in research on learning—can support biology instructors in striving for classroom equity and in teaching all their students, not just those who are already engaged, already participating, and perhaps already know the biology being taught.

In this study, student data was disaggregated by racial/ethnic groups and first-generation status to identify whether a particular intervention—increased course structure—works better for particular populations of students.