Module 2 - Dimensions of Equity and Inclusion
The purpose of this module was to help teachers understand the difference between equality and equity in education. Essentially, equality is treating all students the same. Equity means adjusting expectations, teaching, and assessment so that all students are provided with what they need in order to access the same curriculum. This means they are given what they need to be successful, even if that may look different from what their classmates receive.
Teaching with equity in mind is called intercultural teaching competence. Intercultural teaching competence is “the ability of instructors to interact with students in a way that supports the learning of students who are linguistically, culturally, socially or in other ways different from the instructor or from each other, across a very wide definition of perceived difference and group identity” (Dimitrov et. al., 2014, p. 89).
What is a culturally responsive teacher? What are some of the characteristics of a culturally responsive teacher? That is, what do these teachers do? You can:
- Hold high expectations for all students and help all students learn. Believe your students are capable of academic success.
- Teach the importance of respecting everyone
- Use diverse resources to plan and structure engaging learning opportunities, monitor student progress formatively, adapt instruction as needed, and evaluate learning using multiple sources of evidence. That is, use curricular and instructional practices related to the cultures of your students.
- Enrich your classroom library with culturally diverse reading material
- Explain academic integrity and how it relates to your content area
- Collaborate with colleagues, administrators, parents, and education professionals to ensure student success, particularly the success of high-risk students or those with special needs
- Give students effective and specific oral and written feedback
- Use multiple approaches to assess students' understanding of instructions, directions, procedures, process, questions and content
- Provide opportunities for students to use teacher feedback in order to revise and resubmit work for evaluation
- Ensure students know when you are available for help and encourage them to take advantage of this. Communicate this with parents and other school support staff as well.
Sources:
Centre for Teaching and Learning. "Intercultural Teaching Competence: A Multidisciplinary Framework for Instructor Reflection". https://teaching.uwo.ca/teaching/itc.html
Dimitrov, N. & Haque, A. (2016). "Promoting Intercultural Communication Competencies in Higher Education". (pp. 89-119). https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/ctlpub/16/
Pattel, Vivek. (2018). "How to Grow Cultural Competence in Classroom: A Guide for Teachers". https://edtechreview.in/trends-insights/insights/3413-cultural-competence-in-classroom-guide-for-teachers