First Day of Class: High-impact Practices to Promote Inclusivity
August 31, 2022
By The Learning Design Team
Various approaches and teaching principles can foster inclusivity in our most diverse higher education classrooms. At its core, inclusive teaching highlights the importance of developing positive experiences and conditions for all students to feel included and valued. Inclusive teaching also places emphasis on eliminating barriers and creating welcoming spaces for all learners to feel that they belong. While inclusive teaching is an ongoing process, recent research noted that the learners’ impressions formed during the first day of class can impact course satisfaction and performance. Therefore, the Learning Design Team invite educators to start setting the inclusive tone on the first day of classes (or even sooner).
While there are several practices and approaches to promote inclusivity, the Learning Design Team selected three high-impact practices to share with you for the start of the semester: (1) Foster a positive and welcoming classroom climate; (2) learn how to pronounce the students’ names, and (3) create a sense of community.
1. Foster a positive and welcoming classroom climate: Even though our focus is on the first day of class, educators can and should start fostering an inclusive and welcoming classroom climate before the first day of classes. It is a good practice to send a welcoming video or email before day 1. Besides introducing yourself, the email should highlight to all learners that they are not alone in their educational journeys. For educators teaching an online or a hybrid class, the concept of a Liquid Syllabus has been gaining momentum in Higher Education, and it may be another good starting point to foster a positive and welcoming classroom climate. Pacansky-Brock (2021) introduced the idea of a “liquid syllabus” as a way to “version a syllabus in a flexible way to be inclusive of all learners in their respective identities, to increase their belonging and being recognized and respected.” Please reach out to the learning design team at Bentley if you’d like help building a liquid syllabus.
2. Learn how to pronounce the students' names. Explain to your students that you are committed to building an inclusive and welcoming space for learning and that you would like to start by learning their names. Consider introducing your students to NameCoach , an easy-to-use audio recording tool integrated with Blackboard that allows students to record their name's pronunciation and listen to and learn how to pronounce their peers’ names in the Blackboard course. If possible, you may want to start the class by giving your learners a few minutes to locate and explore the tool.
3. Create a sense of community by connecting with all learners. The Learning Design Team invites you to consider making efforts to start building a caring learning community on your first day of classes. To create a caring learning community, consider empathizing and connecting with your learners. After introducing yourself and welcoming all learners, consider incorporating a simple icebreaker, team building, or an introductory activity. We encourage you to select one of the linked activities abovementioned. We also would like to empower you to modify one or more linked activities or be inspired to create a new one. The goal is to incorporate an engagement activity that you feel most comfortable facilitating and best matches your teaching style, context, subject, and class size.
The Learning Design Team hopes that every day is Day 1 in your classroom, where all learners can be their authentic selves in a caring, safe and welcoming space, just like on the first day of classes.
Workshops, Guidance, Help and Resources
Please reach out to LearningDesign@bentley.edu or to a specific instructional designer for ideas and help.
For more resources, our website is: https://www.bentley.edu/academics/offices/learning-design
Referenced in Blog
Asynchronous & Synchronous Introductions – OneHE. (n.d.). Onehe.org.
Brené Brown on Empathy vs. Sympathy. (2016). [YouTube Video]. In YouTube.
Icebreakers & Team Builders. (n.d.). In William & Mary University.
Inclusive Teaching Guide | Columbia CTL. (n.d.). Ctl.columbia.edu.
Inclusive Teaching Practices Toolkit. (n.d.).
Lang, J. (2016). Small Changes in Teaching: The First 5 Minutes of Class. Chronicle.com.
NameCoach | Bentley University. (n.d.).
Pacansky-Brock, M. (2022). Liquid Syllabus.
Workshops, Guidance, Help and Resources
The Instructional Design team is here to help you create rubrics in your course. Please reach out to LearningDesign@bentley.edu or to a specific instructional designer for ideas and help.
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