Inclusive Course Design

Universal Design

Create a learning environment where everyone can learn without special concessions or treatment, where accessibility and flexibility is built into the course structure and design

Course Materials

• Accessible
  • Closed captioning (useful tool: Otter.ai)
  • Consider accessible format for screen readers
  • Consider the cost of textbook/materials
• Clear
  • Clarify vocabulary, acronyms, symbols
  • Explicit connect new information to background knowledge
• Multimodal
  • Provide multiple modalities for students to learn (visual, auditory, active)
    • Visual: Readings (printed and online reading), class notes, projected images/illustrations
    • Auditory: Discussions, short tutorials/lectures (recorded and/or live)
    • Active: Summarize context, coding, writing

Engagement

• Authentic
  • Activities should be meaningful & appropriate (not feel like “busy work”)
  • Should use and apply knowledge, not just recall it
  • Value of activity extends beyond the classroom
• Intentional
  • Provide collaborative structure to help encourage engagement
  • Integrate self-reflection about barriers to engagement
• Multimodal
  • Allow students to participate in multiple ways (e.g. code, discuss, describe)
  • Provide multiple ways to ask questions

Assessment

• Consider flexibility in time to accommodate extended time
• Use rubrics to communicate expectations and provide consistent feedback
• Reflect on your goals for the assessment and consider alternative formats (consider alternatives to time exams)

Real Data

As Rouncefield (1995) asserts, “[S]tudents can ask real questions about real-life situations. These in turn raise ethical and moral questions, which motivate students’ learning, making the subject matter more relevant and interesting.”

• If possible, choose data that does not reinforce negative stereotypes about or systematically exclude/erase marginalized groups (e.g. binary gender, race and violence, etc.)
  • If not, discuss issues with social identity categories, how data can perpetuate social injustices, and data justice (see Data Feminism)
• Rethink what is “common knowledge” (cultural) in terms of data context
  • Provide the necessary data context when presenting a new data set
• Along with real data, discuss data ethics and the societal consequences of data and modeling
  • Resources: Movie: Coded Bias (currently on Netflix), Book: Weapons of Math Destruction, Book: Hello World: Being Human in the Age of Algorithms,, Book: Algorithms of Oppression

Chance recently had three special issues on human rights, climate change, and modern slavery that are ripe for examples to use in class.

Active Learning

Active learning strategies

• “involve students in doing things and thinking about the things they are doing” (Bonwell & Eisen, 1991, p. 2).

• require “students to do meaningful learning activities and think about what they are doing” (Prince, 2004, p. 1).

• “cognitively engage students in building understanding at the highest levels of Bloom’s taxonomy” i.e., critical thinking skills (National Academies, 2017, p. 3-3).

Active learning provides multiple modes of engagement to support all students’ learning

Active Learning Strategies

• Entry/exit tickets or minute papers

• Think-Pair-Share

• Case studies or problem-based learning (guided problem-solving activity)

• Interactive demonstration

• Gallery walk stations to engage in topic

• Jigsaw discussions

• Team-based inquiry-based (data analysis or simulation) activity

Collaboration & Group Structure

If collaboration is a learning outcome for your class, I recommend frequent structured small (3-4 person) group work.

• Working in a group is not trivial and is a skill that requires practice.
• Provide structure to prepare students to be part of a team

Intentional group creation

• I use random shuffling for short-term groups
• I am more intention when creating or helping to create long-term groups
  • Avoid isolating minoritized folks in long-term groups
• In any case, I provide a way to “avoid” another student if they feel unsafe (a barrier to learning)

Group Roles

Explain (and maybe assign) roles that facilitate collaboration

• Process Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning (POGIL) group roles
  • Facilitator/Project Manager
  • Recorder
  • Presenter/Spokesperson
  • Reflector
  • Resource Manager
  • Encourager

Assess Process and Product

• If focus is only on the product, then it is much more efficient to divide labor and not collaborate.
• Student assessments should incorporate the how well they strengthen and stretch the knowledge of the entire group.

Diverse Representation

• Highlight diverse Past and Present Statisticians

• Talk about the history of white supremacy in Statistics

  • Eugenics
  • RA Fisher

Guides & Research

Universal Design of Instruction Resources (curated by U of Washington)

LBGT+ resources for statisticians and data scientists

Brown University Inclusive & Active Teaching Resources.)

Freeman, S. et al. (2014) “Active learning boosts performance in STEM courses” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111 (23) 8410-8415. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1319030111

Wieman, C.E. (2014) “Large-scale comparison of STEM teaching methods” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111 (23) 8319-8320; https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1407304111

Snyder, J.J. et al. (2016) “Peer-Led Team Learning Helps Minority Students Succeed.” PLoS Biol 14(3): e1002398. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1002398

Johnson, D.W., Johnson, R.T., and Smith, K.A. (2014). Cooperative learning: Improving university instruction by basing practice on validated theory. Journal on Excellence in College Teaching 25, 85-118.

Kogan, M. & Laursen, S.L. (2014) “Assessing Long-Term Effects of Inquiry-Based Learning: A Case Study from College Mathematics” Innovative Higher Education 39: 183. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10755-013-9269-9