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Inclusive and Equitable Teaching Resources

Looking for start-of-semester resources such as Syllabus templates, Canvas templates, engagement strategies, and more?

Explore 'Course Preparation' tools & resources

1. Prepare for critical and difficult classroom conversations (UPDATED)

Take a moment to ensure your learning environment is safe! Do you have the skills and resources to respond to planned and unanticipated critical or difficult conversations in the classroom?

For a quick checklist of items to consider try this 1 page handout or review this workshop on “Navigating Hot Moments and Other Barriers to Conversation”.

For more detailed resources on teaching during turbulent times, navigating hot moments in the classroom, or handling traumatic events explore the following resource Padlet.

Fostering Constructive Dialog This is a useful online curriculum. Directed at helping students have these conversations and not just for faculty trying to facilitate them

Recognize, Allow, Inquiry, Nurture (RAIN) A Practice of Radical Compassion

Resources for Supporting Our Campuses in Politically Fraught Times

(compiled by Tasha Souza, Cynthia Ganote, Libby Roderick, & Floyd Cheung after 2016 election)

Resources to frame conversations both in and outside of the classroom.

Teaching after Charlottesville by Derek Bruff

  • A review of best-practices for faculty-student interactions after a traumatic event
  • Resources specific to teaching in the wake of violence at Charlottesville in 2017

Discussing Traumatic Events from UC Berkeley

  • Guidelines on how to prepare for and structure a discussion, if you should choose to do so

Video by Brené Brown on Empathy

  • 3-minute video on distinction between empathy and sympathy
  • Strategies about how to listen to and connect with someone who is suffering

Calling In: A Quick Guide on When and How​ by Sian Ferguson

  • Distinction between calling out and calling in as ways to get someone to stop an oppressive behavior
  • Calling in attempts to do this in the most loving, self-respecting way possible
The Faculty Focus Special Report on ​Diversity and Inclusion in the College Classroom​
  • ​”Managing Hot Moments in the Classroom: Concrete Strategies for Cooling Down Tension” (p. 4)
  • “Seven Bricks to Lay the Foundation for Productive Difficult Dialogues” (p. 6)
  • ​”Overcoming Racial Tension: Using Student Voices to Create Safe Spaces​ in the Classroom” (p.9)
  • “​Managing Microaggressions in the College Classroom” (p. 10).
Responding to Everyday Bigotry from Southern Poverty Law Center
  • Strategies for responding to bigotry at work, home, in public, and in yourself
Responding to Microaggressions with Microresistance: A Framework for Consideration by Cynthia Ganote, Floyd Cheung, and Tasha Souza (pp. 3-7)
  • Theory of how microresistance can be an effective response to microaggression
Self-Care Resources for Days When the World Is Terrible compiled by Miriam Zoila Pérez
  • Ideas for how to maintain health, sanity, and integrity
  • Includes resources for everyone but especially for people of color and LGBTQ individuals

Books:

Start Talking: A Handbook for Engaging Difficult Dialogues in Higher Education, ed. Kay Landis, University of Alaska Anchorage

  • Field manual of strategies for engaging controversial topics in the classroom.
Stop Talking: Indigenous Ways of Teaching and Learning and Difficult Dialogues in Higher Education by Libby Roderick and Ilarion Merculieff

2. Set up a safe and equitable classroom

Who can help?

Keep checking back often for additional links to more help; and remember you can always just call 916.278.5945 or email ctl@csus.edu if you need someone to talk to about our efforts to provide you with continuity in Teaching and Learning.

More Strategies, Tools, and Help:

Resource Links and Handouts

The following is a list of resources to help you teach online. Use what you need (don't try to read everything!) and seek help whenever possible.

Online Equity and Inclusion: