Developing a shared syllabus template as a living document of inclusive practices in a teaching and learning community

Abstract

Inclusive teaching and learning is central to our educational mission. In this project, we used a whole-institution approach to make our institution’s inclusive objectives concrete and specific. We aimed to develop ways to capture our own community’s goals and objectives in a ‘living document’, a syllabus template in which insights from educational literature on diversity and inclusion are presented alongside the voices and practices of members of our own community of practice (CoP). We created the syllabus template by using the literature to list elements of inclusive design, inclusive delivery, inclusive assessment, and learning-focused syllabi, then identifying examples of those elements in syllabi of local experienced practitioners, and deepening the good practices in interviews with the experienced practitioners. The final syllabus template presents authentic practices from local syllabi, with explanations of the relevance of those examples and reference to educational literature, links to teaching tools, and contact-information for individual colleagues. The shared syllabus template deliberately situates academic development within the practice of the local CoP. We found that even the most experienced practitioners find it challenging to work on inclusive practices, which is all the more reason to stimulate a collaborative approach.