Planning for Equitable Classrooms

Planning for Equitable Classrooms

An equitable classroom environment starts with course and syllabus design, reaches through day-to-day interactions, and extends all the way to assessment practices for student work. Below is a range of resources that will assist you in fostering equity at every step of the way.

The following resources guides provide materials, readings, and strategies to further one’s knowledge and practice regarding equity in the classroom. These resources represent the entire catalogue of resource guides found on our website and it is recommended that you use the different categories under the Planning Menu to find resources relating to a specific component of your classroom. Under the Planning Menu, found at the top of the page, you can find the following categories:

Set the Tone. The resources designed to help you create a foundation for equity in your classroom by creating guidelines for discussion, welcoming the use of inclusive social identity terms, or engaging some of the other best practices sourced here.

Instructor Preparations. Guides for instructors to better ground themselves in key concepts likely to have an impact on students' experience of the learning environment; as well as resources to prepare equity-focused materials and discussions.

Syllabus: Language and Design. Resources offering strategies that may be useful practices into the syllabus, plan course content, and structure classroom interactions.

Discussion Facilitation. Resource guides to demystify discussions by helping instructors to prepare the classroom for productive engagement and to employ charged moments as opportunities to inquire and learn.

Glossary of Terminology. While navigating through our website, you may come across new terms and/or ideas. This glossary provides definitions for terms that may be new or unfamiliar.

We are grateful to our colleagues in the Center for Research on Learning and Teaching, the Program on Intergroup Relations, the Comprehensive Studies Program, and many others for generously sharing equitable teaching materials they have developed over years of practice for use on this website.

Reuse Permissions

We appreciate your interest in our site. Generally, we are very happy to have our resources widely used in educational settings of all kinds. Reuse in a classroom, webinar/ professional development, or for individual reflection are all appropriate, so long as it is not for commercial purposes. If you share our resources, we ask that you please include an acknowledgement of our website or specific page reference, as suggested in our Reuse Permissions Guide in APA or MLA format, in addition to any acknowledgement of the original authors.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us via the Contact Form.