Inclusive Teaching Strategies Card Set
Designed for a workshop to teach instructors inclusive teaching strategies, the Center for Teaching Excellence & Innovation created a deck of cards to facilitate discussion. This game-like approach leverages a deck of cards that lists various inclusive teaching strategies that instructors might consider using when developing or refining their course.
Each card describes a specific strategy faculty can use in their classrooms and references the science of learning literature that provides evidence for why the strategies work. Game design often has to express a large amount of information to players in a way that is both engaging and clear. The strategies selected for the card set were grouped into distinct categories so that viewers could remember their characteristics at a glance. These categories are represented as icons that estimate the time to implement that strategy along with relevant course design elements that are targeted (e.g., group-work, assessments, communications). The card deck also includes blank cards to allow participants to capture ideas described by their peers to reflect the principle that we learn from all participants in a class and not just the instructor. An added benefit of the inclusive teaching card deck is that participants who attend a workshop can keep the cards in a convenient location to use as a reference as they plan their lessons.
Getting the cards
If you are interested in purchasing professionally printed card sets in bulk, please contact us (ctei@jhu.edu) and we will connect you with the printing service that we use. Each card set will come in a paper-based tab-locking box, an informational sheet, 17 strategy cards, and 1 blank card.
You also have the option to download a PDF of the card set below, to print on your own card sets. The PDF is shared under the following Creative Commons License: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
Ideas for use
When used during a workshop, the presenters should provide some initial framing about the power of learning through diversity (Freeman, Anderman, & Jensen, 2007; Learning Through Diversity, 2022). The purpose of this work is to motivate attendees by explaining why this issue is important. The game cards are then distributed to participants.
There are various activities that could be implemented with the cards, but the presenters have relied on a think-pair-share approach (Kaddoura, 2013). Participants are instructed to review the cards to learn more about inclusive teaching strategies they may not be familiar with. They are asked to reflect on their own teaching and identify 2-3 strategies that could be relevant to their teaching. As noted above, faculty can use the blank cards to document inclusive teaching strategies they have already implemented or are familiar with and are considering using in the future. Instructors can also use the blank cards to brainstorm new strategies. After about 5 minutes, participants are asked to partner in groups of 2-3 people to share the strategies they are considering and why. They are encouraged to ask questions and discuss the pros and cons of implementing these strategies. It is important for participants to think deeply about what it will take to implement a new strategy. After 10-15 minutes, the group reconvenes in total. Depending on the size of the group and time available, each person introduced their partner and the strategy they are considering using. If time is more limited, then the facilitator can call on volunteers to share the strategies that are planning to implement and why.
Facilitators using this activity can also consider using an exit ticket activity. Participants are asked to write down the strategy they plan to use. The facilitator can then email or contact participants after an extended period (e.g., 4-8 weeks later, the next semester) to remind them of what they wrote on the exit ticket and ask if they implemented that specific idea or something else they learned in the workshop. This a can serve as a formative assessment strategy to identify if the workshop is having a direct impact on participants teaching practices as aligned with level 3 – behavior change – in Kirkpatrick’s Four Levels of Evaluation of Training (Kirkpatrick, 2014). This follow-up prompt also serves to encourage participants to adopt strategies if they have not.