Inclusive Courses, Diverse Perspectives: Expanding Students' Worldview In Online Courses

All of us in the independent school community redoubled our DEIB efforts during and after the summer of 2020. We did the same in the Academic Program at One Schoolhouse. Now, four years in, we can clearly see the results of our efforts. 

One of our core competencies, embedded in each one of our courses, is to expand each student’s worldview. This means honoring identity, building belonging, and providing an accurate perspective of the complexity and diversity in our world. We measure this in our quarterly student surveys. After significant DEIB work with our faculty and in our courses, the number of students who expanded their worldview in an Academic Program course has skyrocketed to 97% this spring, up from 63% at the end of the 2019-2020 school year.

How did we make it happen? We started with our expectations for teachers. During the 2020-2021 school year, the Academic Program asked teachers to identify activities, conversations, and educational experiences that can affirm students’ cultural and racial identities and develop their abilities to connect across cultures.

In Summer 2021, we revised our teacher competencies to reflect our expectations. The Academic Program has two levels of standards for teachers: baseline expectations and exemplary implementations. Our standards were–and still are–clear: creating diverse, equitable, and inclusive courses are a baseline expectation, just like course mapping, assessment, and real-world application are.

Our standards expect teachers to develop identity awareness by examining how their own views, biases, and values influence their teaching. Teachers must understand the roles of marginalization, oppression, Eurocentrism, and bias in their subjects. Courses are required to incorporate diverse perspectives from BIPOC individuals in their historical explanations, analytical frameworks, and discussions of contemporary events. Throughout, teachers are expected to use inclusive language and imagery, ensuring diverse identities were represented in all media used in the course. 

We committed to making every course in the Academic Program at One Schoolhouse inclusive and identity-affirming, and we worked to ensure our course content accurately reflected the diversity and complexity of our students and the world around them. And it made a difference. 

When you make a commitment to change, you also need explicit expectations, coaching, and accountability. We implemented all of these elements. We set clear and measurable standards for our teachers, provided the necessary training and support, and held ourselves accountable to the results. This comprehensive approach has made us better educators. Our courses are more inclusive and enriching, and our students can see the difference.