Inclusive Teaching @ UBC

A website for UBC instructors, graduate students and staff who want to learn more about inclusive teaching practices. Find resources, discover opportunities for professional development, and learn about work happening across UBC.

Supporting inclusive teaching during the COVID-19 outbreak

We recognize that the current COVID-19 situation has been a difficult time, with multiple challenges, including a profound shift to online teaching.

Now more than ever, we encourage you to continue to be mindful of your students’ differing backgrounds and needs. Many are likely to be experiencing challenges, including family responsibilities and limited or no access to digital devices and the internet. While you may not be able to resolve all these difficulties, you can still apply inclusive and equitable considerations to your online teaching so as not to unintentionally reproduce or exacerbate inequities.

Learn more about integrating equity and inclusion into your teaching:

For technical and pedagogical support on how to design online courses for summer sessions, please refer to UBC’s Keep Teaching website.

Additional resources

Here are further resources to help you design online courses with inclusive and equitable online teaching practices:

Dr. Jessica Calarco’s webinar Bridging the digital divide: teaching for equity and empathy in the wake of COVID-19
- View the webinar recording
- Download the webinar resources and questions (Word | PDF)
Inclusion, equity, and access while teaching remotely (Rice University)
Maintaining equity and inclusion in virtual learning environments (San Diego State University)
Open education resource accessibility toolkit (UBC)
Final exam and assessment strategies from the University of Michigan (Dearborn) and Rutgers University

What is Inclusive Teaching?

There are many working definitions of inclusive teaching. We find the following definition informative:

Inclusive teaching refers to intentional approaches to curriculum, course design, teaching practice, and assessment that create a learning environment where all students feel that their differences are valued and respected, have equitable access to learning and other educational opportunities, and are supported to learn to their full potential. Rather than being a static checklist, inclusive teaching can change depending on context. It is a lens that guides instructors to consider and address the ways historical and systemic inequities continue to shape students’ learning experiences.

Adapted from University of Michigan’s Centre for Research on Teaching and Learning