Glossary

Terminology around inclusive teaching is constantly evolving. What follows is a non-exhaustive glossary of terms and concepts that appear in the Guide for Inclusive Teaching at Columbia.

• Accessibility is the consideration of various barriers to full participation in teaching and learning activities. Accessible learning environments allow students with disabilities to “acquire the same information, engage in the same interactions, and enjoy the same services as students without disabilities, with substantially equivalent ease of use.”¹ Components of accessibility could include accommodations for assignments, adjustments in physical space or with classroom technology, or providing alternative assessments.
• Colorblind ideology is a belief that assumes institutional racism and discrimination have been largely eradicated, and that “equal opportunity, one’s qualifications, not one’s color or ethnicity, should be the mechanism by which upward mobility is achieved.”² This belief can lead to a dismissal of social and cultural factors still affecting many people of color, as well as a rejection of policies that attempt to address existing inequalities (e.g., affirmative action).
• Course climate is the “intellectual, social, emotional, and physical environments in which our students learn. Climate is determined by a constellation of interacting factors that include faculty-student interaction, the tone instructors set, instances of stereotyping or tokenism, the course demographics (for example, relative size of racial and other social groups enrolled in the course), student-student interaction, and the range of perspectives represented in the course content and materials. All of these factors can operate outside as well as inside the classroom.”³
• Cultural learning assumptions are often unspoken expectations shaped by affiliation with a broadly stable set of attitudes and beliefs shared by a group of people. These assumptions could give rise to habits of learning and assumptions about the ways teaching and learning are practiced.⁴
• Growth mindset is “based on the belief that…although people may differ in every which way—in their initial talents and aptitudes, interests, or temperaments—everyone can change and grow through application and experience.”⁵ This idea stands in contrast to a “fixed mindset,” characterized by the belief that one’s qualities are carved in stone and unchangeable.  
• Implicit bias “refers to the attitudes or stereotypes that affect our understanding, actions, and decisions in an unconscious manner. These biases, which encompass both favorable and unfavorable assessments, are activated involuntarily and without an individual’s awareness or intentional control.”⁶
• Intercultural competency is the “ability to communicate effectively and appropriately in intercultural situations, to shift frames of reference appropriately and adapt behavior to cultural context.”⁷
• Intersectionality is a concept used in critical theory to highlight the interconnected nature of socially constructed categories (such as race, class, and gender) as they apply to a given individual or group. This concept can be key to illuminating overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage.⁸
• Learner-centered teaching calls for students to actively engage in their learning process and for faculty members to facilitate that process, rather than relying on faculty to do the “heavy lifting.”⁹
• Learning objectives specify the knowledge, information, and skills instructors want students to have at the end of the course. Learning objectives are generally student-oriented (i.e., “at the end of this course, students should be able to _____”), focus on concrete actions and behaviors, and should be measurable.
• Microaggressions are “brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioral and environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative racial slights and insults to the target person or group.”¹⁰ While Sue et al.’s definition specifically indicates race as the focus of bias, the term has since been expanded to apply to a variety of identity factors, such as sexuality, gender, and ability.   
• Monocultural education is “an education largely reflective of one reality and usually biased toward the dominant group.”¹¹
• Positionality is the way one’s social location or position is assigned and negotiated as the result of combining various social factors or identities (e.g., race, sex, class, gender, ability, sexual orientation).¹²
• A rubric is “a scoring tool that lays out the specific expectations for an assignment. Rubrics divide an assignment into component parts and provide a detailed description of what constitutes acceptable or unacceptable levels of performance of each of those parts.”¹³
• Stereotype threat is defined as “being at risk of confirming, as a self-characteristic, a negative stereotype about one’s social group.” Stereotype threat can occur related to many different facets of identity, including race, ethnicity, and gender. In educational settings, research has demonstrated students’ performance may be negatively impacted “by the awareness that one’s behavior might be viewed through the lens of stereotypes” if those identities (or stereotypes related to those identities) are highlighted prior to the performance. Situations that highlight one’s social identity factors (e.g., asking demographic questions before an assessment) can activate stereotype threat.
• Tokenism is the practice of making a cursory or symbolic effort to employ inclusive practices to give the appearance of inclusiveness and fairness. In the classroom, this could involve an instructor asking a student to act as spokesperson for a certain identity group, or hiring a TA from an underrepresented group to assuage criticism about inclusiveness and diversity in the classroom.
• Underrepresented groups or individuals have been shown to be underrepresented nationally in their fields relative to their number in the general population; typically refers to members of racial/ethnic minority groups (African-American or Black, Hispanic or Latino, American Indians or Alaskan Natives, Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders), and individuals with disabilities (National Institute of General Medical Sciences).

Bibliography

“Accessibility and Policy.” UDL on Campus: Universal Design in Higher Education, Center for Applied Special Technology. Accessed on October 19, 2017 http://udloncampus.cast.org/page/policy_legal#.WfiQtBNSxBw

Ambrose, Susan A., Michael W. Bridges, Michele DiPietro, Marsha C. Lovett, and Marie K. Norman. How Learning Works: Seven Research-Based Principles for Smart Teaching. San Francisco: John Wiley & Sons, 2010.

“Articulate Your Learning Objectives.” Eberly Center For Teaching Excellence and Education Innovation, Carnegie Mellon University. Accessed on October 19, 2017 https://www.cmu.edu/teaching/designteach/design/learningobjectives.html.

Deardorff, Debra. 2006. “Identification and Assessment of Intercultural Competence as a Student Outcome of Internationalization.” Journal of Studies in International Education, 10(3) 241-266.

Dweck, Carol S. Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. New York: Ballantine Books, 2016.

“Enhancing Diversity in Training Programs.” National Institute of General Medical Sciences. Accessed on October 22, 2017, https://www.nigms.nih.gov/Training/Diversity/Pages/Approaches.aspx

Gallagher, Charles A. “Color-Blind Privilege: The Social and Political Functions of Erasing the Color Line in Post Race America.” Race, Gender & Class 10, no. 4 (2003): 22-37.

Ginsberg, Margery B., and Raymond J. Wlodkowski. Diversity and Motivation: Culturally Responsive Teaching in College. San Francisco: John Wiley & Sons, 2009.

Gurung, Regan A.R. and Loreto R. Prieto, eds. Getting Culture: Incorporating Diversity Across the Curriculum. Sterling, Virginia: Stylus Publishing, 2009.

Hearn, Mark Chung. “Positionality, Intersectionality, and Power: Socially Locating the Higher Education Teacher in Multicultural Education.” Multicultural Education Review 4, no. 2 (2012): 38-59.

Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity. “State of the Science: Implicit Bias Review 2015.” Accessed October 19, 2017, http://kirwaninstitute.osu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/2015-kirwan-implicit-bias.pdf.

Mitchell, Donald J., Carlana Y. Simmons, and Lindsay A. Greyerbiehl. Intersectionality & Higher Education: Theory, Research, & Praxis. New York, New York: Peter Land Publishing, 2014.

Sue, Derald Wing, Annie I. Lin, Gina C. Torino, Christina M. Capodilupo, and David P. Rivera. “Racial microaggressions and difficult dialogues on race in the classroom.” Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology 15, no. 2 (2009): 183.

Stevens, Dannelle D., and Antonia J. Levi. Introduction to Rubrics: An Assessment Tool to Save Grading Time, Convey Effective Feedback, and Promote Student Learning. Sterling, Virginia: Stylus Publishing, LLC, 2013.

Weimer, Maryellen. Learner-Centered Teaching: Five Key Changes to Practice. Second Edition. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2013.

Footnotes