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This book promotes embracing different cultural identities and diverse individuals. It teaches acceptance and empathy of people that may look or be different from your students

1. Have you ever shown empathy to someone who looks different than you

2. have you ever experienced being looked at differently because of how you look or speak?

3. How can we show others empathy and acceptance in our classroom?

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Just ask! Be Different, Be Brave, Be You

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Just ask! Be Different, Be Brave, Be You

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This book celebrates Diversity and those with disabilities. It helps promote seeing disabilities in a positive view and as a superpower.

1. Have you ever experienced feeling different from your peers

2. Have you ever thought you couldn't achieve something, but achieved it anyway?

3. Can you recall a time you embraced your differences?

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This book is about celebrating linguistic diversity and its connection to our identities. Helps affirm cultural identity within your future students.

1. How many languages are used in your classroom

2. Does anyone prefer to learn in another language

3. What is your favorite memory connected to your language identity

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Article on how to create an inclusive classroom and why it is important to implement in the classroom.

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Nine Powerful Ways to Promote Inclusion in the Classroom

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In the United States, the landscape of education has been steadily evolving towards inclusivity.

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Strategies on how to create a more inclusive classroom for students. Shows how it looks like in the classroom and during instruction.

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The suggestions offered here range from simple to complex, and anyone can start to create the ripples that shift classroom and school culture.

Building Safety and Inclusion in Multicultural School Settings

1. Focus on how you might personally experience deep empathy. We all learn differently, so your empathy-building process might entail watching Ava DuVernay's documentary 13th, or Bryan Stevenson's TED Talk " We Need to Talk About an Injustice." Or you could look for curricula on race and racism. Since there's no shortage of resources, try to discover first-person experiences. Take a deep breath, imagine yourself in those shoes, and withhold judgement. Share and model your inquiry and learning with students.

2. Curate your newsfeed, engage, and listen. Stay up to date with a few influencers, like Dr. Joy DeGruy or Professor Christopher Emdin, and news sources that inspire and challenge you to honestly confront difficult conversations on race and bias, from NPR's Code Switch to The Root. But limit these, so you don't get overwhelmed and shut down. Follow key hashtags like #Educolor on Twitter, to be aware of social justice and equity conversations. Spend time learning and listening to the conversation before opining on it.

3. Build your social justice vocabulary. Learn the meaning as well as application of terms like false equivalency, microaggression, Jim Crow, culturally responsive, white privilege, and allyship, among other terms. Watch out for coded language and call out prejudicial talk. As Professor Howard Stevenson says, "By practicing racial literacy, we can learn to not be so fearful and learn to problem-solve together, rather than run away from conversations about race."

4. Value stories and perspectives. Encourage your students to articulate their narratives, starting with learning the stories of individuals in their community. The Out of Eden Walk can serve as a framework for noticing the stories around us and discovering our own. Ensure that your classroom book collection and curriculum include high-quality stories that represent all the students in your class. Practice noticing who's writing the articles and stories you read. If you don't know where to begin, consult your librarian or simply search "diverse books." The Global Education Toolkit includes an appendix with 326 multicultural book titles for grades pre-K through 6.

5. Display your class values prominently. Establish ground rules for active listening in class. Take the time to reflect on values so they don't feel like a laundry list. Students can respond to prompts like: "What do you stand for? How might we demonstrate that in our classroom or daily lives?" or "What might loving-kindness (or empathy, respect, generosity) in our classroom look like? How do we get there?" If there's enough safety among students, they can share their writing in pairs.

6. When welcoming new students, learn to correctly say their name. If possible, visit families in their homes at some point in the year to deepen your relationship. The start of each school year can come with special anxiety for kids whose names are perceived as different-I know this too well. Your small effort to pronounce the name correctly, and not look perplexed while taking attendance, can offer a great relief and be incredibly welcoming.

7. Practice visible learning routines. Try See, Think, Wonder and Think, Pair, Share. Engage groups of two to three students in discussing prompts like "I see _____" (about something they're observing), "I think _____" (about what they think might be going on), and "I wonder _____" (which allows students to engage their curiosity). Or reserve time for quiet thinking before pairing and sharing ideas, which builds critical reasoning and safety among learners of different temperaments, cultures, and capacities, and illuminates diverse perspectives through group work.

8. Build global competence. As long as we keep isolating global learning from diversity work in schools, these priorities will both be minimized. We can connect these efforts through many techniques, like the Global Competence framework, and by encouraging professional collaboration across interest areas.

9. Relax and focus. Use relaxation strategies centering in mindfulness prior to conducting difficult conversations on Monday morning-these discussions require their own, set-aside time-to start the week and help unify students.

There's no shortage of techniques that can build safety and inclusion, and your willingness to try any of them sends a strong signal to your students, that their learning, engagement, and voice really matter.

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Being open to talking about race helps foster safety and unity in a multicultural classroom. Here are nine tips to help you prepare.

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Video on the meaning of equity in the classroom. Helps demonstrate the difference between equity and equality.

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The Leadership Conference on Civil & Human Rights

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Ensuring Educational Equity for All Students

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This is a short video on how teaches can create a more equitable classroom. The activity promotes the voices of all students.

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This is a book on how to build a more equitable classroom by teaching how to help students advocate for themselves and speak up for their educational and social needs

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Amplify Student Voices: Equitable Practices to Build Confidence in the Classroom

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1. What is your topic, and why did you choose it?

My main topic was creating inclusivity and equitability in classroom. I choose it because having a more inclusive and equitable classroom are critical components of a positive school experience for students with diverse backgrounds.

1. Why is this topic important to teach?

This topic is important to teach because it builds up the feeling of safety and belonging for students, which is essential for academic success of all students. With classrooms having more diversity, it is important to equip teachers with the skills to build each students self concept and confidence.

1. How would you teach this topic in your future classroom?

I would teach this topic through read aloud and activities. I would introduce the activities in the beginning of the school year and again in the middle of the school year.

2. What are 3 questions or concerns you have about teaching this topic?

My three concerns would be that some students would not be ready to share their experiences, participate, and feel unsafe in their classrooms. Therefore I would like to know how to best support these kind of students

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Activities to create a more positive and inclusive classroom. The activities help students understand what is inclusion and how to build positive identities within students

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Sing Song

Objective: Create a song about working together as a team

1. Assign students partners and have them sit facing each other.

2. The partners will work to create a song about inclusion and how students learn from each other. It can include specific examples of how students help each other in the inclusive classroom or generic ways they can include others in activities.

3. Have the teams decide on a song they both know the tune to such as "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" or "Happy Birthday."

4. Then teams will alternate creating lines of the song until it is complete.

5. Give a few, or all, of the teams the opportunity to share their songs with the class.

Here is an example of how you can introduce the activity to the tune of "Three Blind Mice."
All of you,
Yes, all of you.
Will work together,
To compose a song,
About how we can all get along,
and work as a team all the day long,
Please start now,
Working together.

I Am You

Objective: Carry on a conversation "in the shoes" of a partner.

1. Put students in pairs.

2. Direct students to think about several positive things they know about their partners.

3. Students will then have 2 minutes to take turns speaking as the other person about themselves.

Example conversation:
Ellie speaking... "My name is Bobby and I'm such a great artist. I painted a piece of art that won a ribbon at the last art show."
Bobby speaking... "My name is Ellie and I am so kind to everyone. I make sure everyone has someone to sit with at lunch and am nice to everyone in our class."
Extension Activity:
This is a great activity to talk about at length later on. Discuss how it made you feel to have someone recognize your gifts. Follow up with journaling about what they learned about themselves through others eyes.

I Appreciate...
Examples may include:
I appreciate my kind students.
I appreciate my friends that play with me at recess.
I appreciate the great book we are reading during story time.
I appreciate Jackson for helping me when I have a question.
Objective: To foster a sense of positivity and inclusion through sharing things the members of the class appreciate.

1. Have the students sit in a circle and think of several things they are grateful for in their lives. Remind students these can be abstract concepts, actions and concrete things.

2. Start with yourself and continue clockwise, giving the students the opportunity to share one thing they appreciate.

In Other Words

Objective: To brainstorm several words that show inclusion.
Example:
If the answer is "Through sharing my gifts."
The questions could be:
How do I make our school a better place?
How do I show kindness to other students?
How can I make a positive impact on the community?

1. Have students work in small groups.

2. Provide a word such as inclusion, compassion, community, etc. Use the word cloud on the Inclusive Schools Week ribbon, t-shirt and water bottle for ideas. Have students brainstorm synonyms or words that relate to the chosen term.

3. Have a recorder for each group write down all of the words generated by their group.

4. After 2 minutes, have each group take turns sharing one word they thought of until all of the words have been shared.

Jeopardy

Objective: To think of ways to demonstrate inclusion.

1. Give the students a statement that serves as an answer.

2. Have student pairs think of and record as many questions as they can for that answer in 2 minutes.

3. Ask each pair to share one question they thought of with the rest of the group.

Download the Activities as a PDF: Ten Minute Warm Ups for the Inclusive Classroom

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Ten Minute Warm-Ups for the Inclusive Classroom

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Sing Song Objective: Create a song about working together as a team Assign students partners and have them sit facing each other. The partners will work to create a song about inclusion and how students learn from each other. It can include specific examples of how students help each other...

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This lesson plan introduces the topics of Inclusion and diversity through vocabulary and short activities. It also creates the discussion for each topic.

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This is a lesson plan to help students reflect on their identities and the social norms that promote or exclude their identity.

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Overview

The Spectrum Activity, Questions of Identity are questions for discussion or reflective writing that prompt students to critically consider their identities and the relationship between identity and context. These questions can be used in conjunction with the Social Identity Wheel and Personal Identity Wheel to prompt students in a discussion or reflective writing exercise about identity.

While this activity is intended to be inclusive, there are some considerations for you to make when implementing it in class. For some students, certain identity categories may require them to disclose information they may not be ready to share in such a setting. Forced disclosure is not part of this activity and it is essential that students have the option to choose which category they want to discuss further. In this capacity, students are empowered to answer authentically through their choices. It is recommended that you facilitate this activity after the class has had time to build community and trust.

Another consideration that must be made is accessibility for this activity. This activity requires students to move around the classroom and ensuring that all students have access to do so is imperative. Be sure to address any accommodations before implementing this activity.

Please be sure to leave a comment at the bottom of the page with your thoughts or experience with this activity!

Activity Goals:

To encourage students to consider their identities critically and how identities are more or less keenly felt in different social contexts. The classroom and the university can be highlighted as a context as a way to approach questions on barriers to inclusion.

To illuminate how privilege operates to normalize some identities over others. For example, a student who speaks English as their first language can reflect on why they rarely need to think about their language as an aspect of their identity while some of their peers may identify language as the aspect of their identity they feel most keenly in the classroom.

To sensitize students to their shared identities with their classmates as well as the diversity of identities in the classroom, building community and encouraging empathy.

Application in a STEM Course:

Fostering a sense of community in your classroom can create a sense of belonging. According to a CRLT study on retention in STEM courses, "students reported that classroom climate (including their anxiety levels, how welcome they felt in class...and instructor rapport with students) significantly influenced their decisions to stay in or leave STEM disciplines." If students feel that they are part of a community, they will feel more comfortable engaging and participating in the classroom. In another study, peer interactions and support in STEM courses led to gains both academically and socially. The Spectrum Activity is a great way for students to engage with each other on a personal level, creating connections that otherwise would have gone unnoticed. Taking the time to complete this activity at the start of the semester will help students form meaningful bonds, allowing them to better collaborate and support each other throughout the semester.

Application in an Online Course:

Online learning can feel impersonal and disconnected, but there are inclusive teaching practices you can leverage to build community and connection in your online course. Taking the time to discuss aspects of identity through this activity can help build trust between students, which is a key indicator of whether or not students feel comfortable engaging with one another. In one study, researchers asked the question, "what did graduate students who were enrolled in an online course about teaching online find most valuable about online moderation and community building?" From the study, students stated that Student Needs and Community Building were essential components to online learning. Regarding Student Needs, one student stated, "It is necessary that everyone feels safe, comfortable, and welcomed before they will fully engage, enabling them to make personal connections and grow from each other." Regarding Community Building, another student stated, "Learning communities often develop naturally in a traditional classroom environment, but in an online course, the instructor must make that happen."

Spectrum Activity Guide:

Related Posts:

Facilitating the Spectrum Activity in Your Classroom:

The Spectrum Activity starts at the 9:50 mark

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The Spectrum Activity, Questions of Identity

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In this activity, students will be prompted to critically consider their identities and the relationship between identity and context.