Culturally Inclusive Learning and Teaching

Overview

In July 2023, BEL+T hosted an event to share practices related to 'Culturally Inclusive and Responsive Learning and Teaching Approaches'. This hour-long seminar focused on sharing ideas and tactics about how ABP academics are integrating culturally diverse perspectives and voices in their learning and teaching resources. The discussion also focused on tips and strategies for overcoming barriers around culturally inclusive and responsive teaching, and how to better support diverse students through ethical and meaningful ways of engagement with content. Following the seminar, participants were invited to engage in an hour of synchronous activities to explore cultural inclusivity and responsivity ideas in their teaching practices.

The following resources have been developed from these discussions and complementary research.

“Culturally responsive teaching occurs when there is respect for the backgrounds and circumstances of students regardless of individual status and power, and when there is a design for learning that embraces the range of needs, interests, and orientations in a classroom.” - Ginsberg and Wlodowski (2009).

Providing students with culturally inclusive and responsive learning experiences is a responsibility of all key stakeholders in the University. ABP is committed to diversifying the ABP student cohort, and to supporting all students through our teaching practices, as outlined in the Designing Futures Strategy. The University has also made a commitment to an inclusive community in which students thrive, in which students from all backgrounds are nurtured, through Advancing Students and Education. This section of the BEL+T site introduces some central themes to inform and support cultural inclusivity and responsivity in learning and teaching.

Figure 1 – Adapted from ‘Culturally Inclusive University Experience for University Students', Hoekje and Stevens (2017)

Faculty staff play a vital role in creating an inclusive learning community in which all learners have a recognised and valued identity (Hoekje and Stevens 2017). All of our students bring prior experiences of ways of learning, how and/or what to learn, as well as expectations for a teacher’s role in their learning. Students may find that once-familiar classroom dynamics shift or transform in built environment pedagogies that involve problem and project-based learning in studios and other classrooms.

For education to be equitable and inclusive, accepted Western perspectives on learning and how it should be facilitated in classrooms needs to be questioned. There are several approaches to decolonise and to develop equitable learning experiences for all. Assumed deficit discourses and mindsets for international students, including perceived challenges for facilitating their learning, need to be challenged. By contrast, students from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, including both domestic and international students, form a rich reserve of cultural knowledge. While these learners will not be experts in their cultural contexts, and cannot be expected to wholly represent those perspectives in classrooms, they may instead be considered valuable stakeholders whose lived experiences can inform better understanding of cultural contexts and nuance. Like any other context, Built Environment education is challenged to create learning experiences that are culturally inclusive and responsive for diverse cohorts of learners, and for the variety of place-based cultural settings.

Ginsberg and Woldowskwi (2009) propose that teachers, at a minimum, acknowledge that each learner possesses their own distinct reality, particularly regarding what motivates them to learn. This constructivist perspective does not negate the existence of an external reality; rather, it asserts that each individual constructs their own reality by interpreting their perceptual experiences of the external world, influenced by their unique set of life experiences and personal cultural beliefs/values.

Fostering culturally inclusive and responsive teaching can be supported by teaching that incorporates the following approaches:

Reflective Teaching

Our cultural identities have a profound influence on what and how we teach, and on our expectations of learners, yet this impact is often implicit and understated. One useful way to understand this relationship is to explore and question the values we hold that are consistent with the dominant culture. In doing so, we become aware of dominant-culture values but also of the other values we hold as members of other groups in society. As Ginsberg and Wlodowski note,

“Culture is a dynamic and changing concept for each of us, regardless of the country of our geographical origin. Our cultural identities are constantly evolving or changing, and consequently values, customs, and orientations are fluid. Because we as educators exert a powerful influence over classroom norms, it is important to make explicit those values that are most often implicit and profoundly affect students in our classrooms” (2009, p.13).

When we clarify our own cultural values and biases, we are better able to consider how they might subtly but profoundly influence the degree to which learners in our classrooms can feel included, respected, at ease, and motivated to learn.

It is important that we Reflect on assumptions, biases and expectations that shape our approaches to teaching students from diverse backgrounds, and on content from cultures different to our own. Each of us holds beliefs about learning and teaching, derived from our experiences as both learners and educators. These inform our individual philosophies and strategies for teaching and learning. However, approaches that might work well for one type of student, cohort, or environment may not be as effective for others. For this reason, it is important to build awareness and agility around one’s teaching and learning philosophy and its application in practice. To facilitate Reflection on personal beliefs and perceptions, consider the following thought-provoking questions:

• How do students from diverse backgrounds learn (methods and/or activities)?
• How is ‘teaching expertise’ defined within a particular professional/discipline?
• How is power distributed or withheld within the learning environment?
• What assumptions do we make about our students that shape our expectations of their understanding or their effectiveness as learners in our class?

It is our responsibility as members of the academic and teaching community to model social and ethical responsibility for our learners as much as we can. As individuals, we must explore how we can build our own capacity to consider, to critically reflect, and to ethically respond to these challenges. In addition to ensuring responsible and respectful engagement with content and resources, and to supporting learner participation in intercultural interactions, academic teachers may explore professional learning as part of our own continued growth.  This can prompt our own culturally inclusive and responsive perspectives.

The learning environment provides a meaningful context for identifying, addressing and redressing the ways in which bias influences our thinking and decisions. Learning about our cultural identities, as individuals and as educators, can create a consciousness that is personally, professionally, and socially empowering. Martin Johnson and Melissa Mouthaan of Cambridge University suggest some challenges and opportunities in developing our own professional capacity to foster the development of socially just and responsive learners. Reflection is an ongoing process and practice that can inform all aspects of teaching, and can help to build self-awareness around a personal teaching and learning philosophy.

Respectful Interaction

“An approach to teaching that meets the challenge of cultural pluralism and can contribute to the fulfilment of the purpose of higher education has to respect diversity; engage the motivation of all learners; create a safe, inclusive, and respectful learning environment; derive teaching practices from principles that cross disciplines and cultures; and promote justice and equity in society" - Ginsberg and Wlodowski (2009).

Research on the relationship between students’ engagement and motivation shows that students’ concentration, imagination, effort, and willingness to continue to learn and engage in learning are strongly influenced by ‘how they feel about the learning setting they are in, the respect they receive from the people around them, and their ability to trust their own thinking and experiences. People who feel unsafe, unconnected, and disrespected are often unmotivated to learn' (Ginsberg and Wlodowski, 2009).

In tertiary education environments, the emotional experiences of learners play a significant role in shaping their educational journey, impacting both their persistence and their willingness to invest energy in learning and engagement. Related BEL+T guidance on how to develop and sustain supportive learning environments, foster a sense of belonging and enhance learner engagement is particularly relevant in this context.

To respectfully include diverse cultural perspectives and to support learners from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, educators can ask these questions:

• What does the cultural composition of my learning environment look like? How can I facilitate respectful and meaningful sharing of ideas and standpoints in my classes? How do I empower my tutors to do so in their own teaching practices?
• What does the accepted canon of knowledge in my subject area look like? How has it transformed over time and place? What’s missing? Are there any alternative canons from other cultures or languages? Are there different and more inclusive ways of organising and presenting knowledge?
• Do the learning tasks value a certain dominant culture over others? If yes, why? How can I respectfully include other viewpoints to demonstrate respect for various forms of cultural knowledges in my subject’s readings and resources?

There are many useful resources for educators looking to create a more inclusive learning environment. For example, The Williams Centre for Learning Advancement has collated some teaching tips on Engaging a Diverse Cohort that provides strategies for respectfully addressing the various abilities, languages, and socio-cultural identities of students. Moreover, the following resources on How to Indigenise the Curriculum and How Not to Decolonise the Curriculum offer invaluable strategies for integrating a broad spectrum of diverse perspectives without marginalising any group or culture.

Relational Pedagogy

Relational pedagogy, also known as relationship-based pedagogy, is an educational approach that places a strong emphasis on building positive and meaningful relationships between educators and students (Bovill, 2020). It recognises the vital role of relationships in fostering effective teaching and learning experiences. Relational pedagogy goes beyond the traditional teacher-student dynamic, focusing on trust, empathy, mutual respect, and understanding as the foundation for a successful learning environment. Bovill (2020) argues that with the massification of HE, all staff in HE institutions face the challenge of how they can support students to feel that they belong and are valued when we regularly teach students in large classes.

According to Bovill (2020), relational pedagogy and co-creating learning and teaching foster meaningful relationships based on values, shared respect, and the importance of dialogue. Hickey and Riddle (2022) propose three fundamental directions in pedagogical relations: relations between students, relations between students and teachers, and relations between students, teachers, and spaces of learning. BEL+T’s DIAgram includes these and other elements as part of the learning design framework. These interactions and the development they prompt are iterative and suggestive of wider circles of relationality. Students and teachers connect to the private contexts of the home, peer networks, and wider socioeconomic and socio-cultural circumstances. It is with these four fundamental relations that teachers can consider the design of relational pedagogy and the positions of all.

Some suggestions for enacting relational pedagogy include:

• Considering the tone we set in our conversations with culturally and linguistically diverse learners from day one, to explore their cultural backgrounds relevant to learning tasks and to connect them with each other as well as to the teacher and learning content;
• Developing and delivering some curricula and learning resources that students can find personally meaningful and relevant to their learning journeys and future professional motivations;
• Conducting regular open-ended dialogues which are of interest to the diverse learners in the classroom and to emphasise the need to develop and grow active, respectful, and deep listening skills of various cultural viewpoints and worldviews; and,
• Working in partnership with students to create components of curricula, pedagogy, and assessments. This leads to a reciprocal outcome and fosters shared responsibility across both parties.

There are many examples of educators enacting relational pedagogy successfully. For instance, a 2021 case study by Hall and colleagues provides a compelling example of students partnering in curriculum decolonisation. This initiative involved the joint creation of a podcast series with teaching faculty and the launch of a student-staff curated blog named DeCol.

Additional Resources

The following resources aim to support educators in decolonising and indigenising the curriculum, fostering inclusive teaching practices and engaging culturally diverse students.