1.5: Equity in Course Design

Equity in Course Design

The recently published Faculty Playbook from the Online Learning Consortium and Every Learner Everywhere listed "five primary areas of consideration" for faculty who are building an online course. Drawn from research by Kevin Kelly (2019), the areas to consider are:

• Academic: Students' preparedness for learning and readiness for online learning.
• Pedagogical: Course organization and design, quality interaction, and effective, equitable teaching practices.
• Psychological: Students' feelings of social belonging and ability to address stereotype threat, as well as perceptions of course relevance and instructor compassion.
• Social: Students' perceptions of connection versus isolation related to the course.
• Technological: Students' ability to access and use course technologies (O'Keefe et al., 2020, p. 13).

In designing courses at Lane, we have access to many rich tools that offer ways to create and review courses for how well they have integrated practices that support access, equity, and inclusion.