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3.5 Notes: Inclusive teaching and learning environments [± 70 minutes]

5. Conclusion

In this set of notes, you looked at how you, as a teacher, can create and maintain inclusive teaching and learning environments. As you discovered, this can be done through utilizing the inclusive teaching approach, applying the universal design for learning (UDL) framework to your teaching context, and meeting students where they are. 

Put simply, the notion of inclusive teaching means ensuring that none of your students are (or feel) excluded from the culture, curricula, and communities of the learning environment. The notion is facilitated and supported by the universal design for learning framework, which is characterized by the three principles of multiple means of representation, expression, and engagement. Through these principles, UDL ensures that all students have access to learning materials and pedagogy. This notion of inclusive teaching encourages teachers to meet students where they are, by allowing them to draw on their prior knowledge and individual contexts in their learning journeys.


6. Bibliography

 

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Crosling, G., Heagney, M. & Thomas, L. 2009. Improving student retention in higher education: Improving teaching and learning. Australian Universities Review. 51(2):9-18.

Department for Education and Science. 1978. Special education needs: Report of the committee of enquiry into the education of handicapped children and young people. London: HMSO.

Freire, P. 1998. Teachers as cultural workers: Letters to those who dare teach. Translated by Donaldo Macedo, Dale Koike, and Alexandre Oliveira. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

Freire, P. 2000. Pedagogy of the oppressed. Translated by Myra Bergman Ramos. New York: Continuum.

Giroux, Henry A. 2011. On critical pedagogy. New York: Continuum.

Grutter v. Bollinger, 2003 (599) US 244.

Hockings, C. 2010. Inclusive learning and teaching in higher education: A synthesis of research. Available: https://www.heacademy.ac.uk/system/files/inclusive_teaching_and_learning_in_he_synthesis_200410_0.pdf. [2017, July 26].

hooks, bell. 1994. Teaching to transgress: Education as the practice of freedom. New York: Routledge.

Jayakumar, U.M. 2008. Can higher education meet the needs of an increasingly diverse and global society? Campus diversity and cross-cultural workforce competencies. Harvard Educational Review. 78(4):615-651.

Johnson, D. & Fox, J. 2003. Creating curb cuts in the classroom: Adapting Universal Design principles to education. In Curriculum transformation and disability: Implementing universal design in higher education. J. Higbee, Ed. Minnesota: Center for Research on Developmental Education and Urban Literacy, University of Minnesota.

Klein-Collins, R. & Baylor, E. 2013. Meeting students where they are: Profiles of students in competency-based degree programs. Available: https://www.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/CAEL-student-report-corrected.pdf [2017, July 26].

Rendon, L.I. 1994. Validating culturally diverse students: Toward a new model of learning and student development. Innovative Higher Education. 19(1):33-51.

Rose, D., Harbour, W., Johnston, C.S., Daley, S. & Abarbanell, L. 2006. Universal design for learning in postsecondary education: Reflections on principles and their application. Journal of Postsecondary Education and Disability. 19(2):1-27.

The Center for Universal Design. 1997. The principles of universal design (version 2.0). Raleigh: North Carolina State University.

The Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning. 2017. Classroom dynamics & diversity. Available: https://bokcenter.harvard.edu/inclusive-teaching [2017, July 26].