Category: Week 8 – Inclusive Pedagogy

Finding Our Humble Conscience (Not via Fox News)

I kind of have to admit that discussing inclusive pedagogy, diversity, microaggressions, privilege, power, intersectionality, and the many other terms associated with our society is exhausting to me. I do not mean to say these things are unworthy of our attention, because they are more than worthy, but when you live on planet Earth (and … Continue reading Finding Our Humble Conscience (Not via Fox News)

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Inclusive Pedagogy in Conservation Biology: My experience.

I approach inclusive pedagogy as a teaching policy that values human beings equally regardless of race, ethnicity, sex, gender, socio-economical status, or political views. I am certain that education, at any level, must be designed to accommodate human diversity in the classroom. This is particularly true at a university, where the community can be highly … Continue reading Inclusive Pedagogy in Conservation Biology: My experience. →

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Including Students

Inclusive pedagogy allows instructional strategies to engage students in learning therefore creating an environment conducive to the enrichment of the students education. This can be applied to any course and the beauty about this system is that the student will inevitably have a vested interest in the course material and content. Inclusive learning allows students … Continue reading Including Students →

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Thoughts on the article ‘Principles of Community need to be respected’

Manuel Perez-Quinones’s article on the importance of principles of community is an interesting read mainly because it comes across more as an attack on freedom of speech than on the importance of principles of community. Reading through this article, I realize more than ever that ‘principles of community’ and freedom of speech seem to be … Continue reading Thoughts on the article ‘Principles of Community need to be respected’

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Encouraging & Collaborating Learning Differences

“If we begin by choosing to value that both ourselves and our students have a human dignity, then we have a common ground to establish a learning relationship.”

– Dale Knepper, Instructor, Fresno Pacific University

There is a unique voice in each student that represents their own experiences, logic and reasoning, stories, cultural backgrounds, ideas, thoughts, misconceptions, perspectives, abilities, and knowledge, which requires an environment to value, respect, and support their diverse voices while responding to their assorted need(s) and developing their unique skill-sets and moxie that will ultimately lead students to areas of constructing personal meaning to them.

Initiating investigation and exploration begins with The Knowledge Partner (Teacher), establishing a climate that equally values the voice of each student and develop processes for students to establish connections that promote a healthier, holistic learning climate/environment and student achievement. There are shared roles and responsibilities between The Knowledge Partner and the student in building an inclusive environment. The Knowledge Partner is responsible for accommodating the need(s) of each student, promote deep thinking, challenge assumptions or beliefs, assist in reflecting on ideas or thought for further elaboration, provide constructive feedback, and most of all encourage creativity, questioning, and reasoning. 

While The Knowledge Partner is committed to student diversity and appreciating the various learning differences, the ultimate goal is to provide meaningful, authentic activities, assignments, and materials that will aid students in connecting and engaging with the material as well as one another effectively. The Knowledge Partner works collaboratively with each student as well as each student working with one another in constructing/ creating knowledge and providing the necessary resources in to deepening understanding in content area. 

The focus of The Knowledge Partner in an inclusive environment is being aware of your own hidden biases, cultural assumptions, and stereotypes that possibly could influence interactions or interfere with students’ learning and providing students with the opportunity to develop their skill-sets, mastery, and depth of content in the specific area of focus. Overall, inclusive pedagogy isn’t solely about race, gender, or cultural backgrounds, but a compilation of everything as a whole to transition from “one-size fits all” approach, to a more “tailored approach” to the unique need(s) and voice of each student.

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Disconnection through Diversity Discussion

After reviewing the articles for this weeks reading, I was happy that I couldn’t personally recall a situation in my academic experience where I felt oppressed.  It might have something to do with being in an applied science major (engineering).  In engineering, all subject matter is independent of personal or emotional belief, thus the probability of … Continue reading Disconnection through Diversity Discussion

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Why is "Behave like a Roman while in Rome" attitude problematic?

A couple of weeks ago, I reached my Contemporary Pedagogy class ten minutes before the class start-time and started charting with one of my classmates who had also arrived almost the same time I had. Somehow, the conversation started drifting toward writing and I argued that the professors (at Virginia Tech or any educational institution) should be cognizant of the fact that different cultures have different writing styles. For example Asian cultures follow a circular writing pattern and on the other hand, the dominant writing style in the USA is linear. Hence, when the professors are evaluating a student’s work, especially an international student or even a domestic student from a different cultural setting than their own, they should be at least cognizant, if not considerate, of the student’s culture and look at their writing with the knowledge of student’s cultural background in mind. This is important because in the absence of knowledge of variation in writing style among cultures, the professor may judge student’s writing and hence their level of understanding of the subject matter poorly in case there is a writing style mismatch between the professor and the student.


While I was making this argument, another classmate who belongs to the majority group (white male) jumped in to the conversation and presented a counter argument by saying “Behave like a Roman while in Rome.” I find this attitude of the white guy very non-inclusive and even oppressive. However, this is not to say that he was intentionally trying to be non-inclusive or oppressive while making his comment. It is very much possible that he was unaware of his own privileges and the oppressive nature of his comment. And my aim for writing this blog post is not to point fingers at anyone. It is just to express my own feelings and if that classmate of mine reads this post, it is to educate him and many others who might be unaware of their privileges and the non-inclusive structure of the university and education system.


In order to understand why the comment made by my while male classmate non-inclusive and oppressive in the context of higher education in the US, we will have to go to the history of higher education in the country. The first colleges and universities in the country were set up to educate ministers or to provide education so that the graduates could take up public employment in Church and Civil State. The universities were accessible only to the dominant majority i.e. the white men. It was not until the middle of the nineteenth century that females and other racial minorities were given access to college education in the country.


In such a case where the universities were only open for the white males and were run by them, it is easy to understand that the education system was structured according to what the white males deemed appropriate. In other words, the university structure was designed in a way which was suitable for the white males. And the same argument can be made for the accepted behavioral styles including writing styles in the university and the academia. The styles of behavior and academic writing which seemed appropriate to white males were adopted and others were deemed inappropriate. While the universities opened for females and other racial minorities almost 150 years ago, I argue that on a structural level, universities have made little changes to accepting what is appropriate and acceptable; and what is not. Thus, the structures which govern the universities are still very “white male-ish” in nature. And hence, the university structures are not very inclusive of minorities.


How does this non-inclusive structure lead to oppression? Universities expect all the students to follow the rules, guidelines and structures and adapt to those. For a minority student who was taught a different set of behavioral patterns and social etiquette in their cultural setting, the guidelines which the universities ask them to follow might be strange and unfamiliar. Thus, what universities are asking them to do is to forgo what behavioral styles they learned as appropriate in their cultural settings and follow the behavioral styles which the universities espouse i.e. the style favored by the dominant group. When students try to adapt to the new set of behavioral patterns as asked of them by the universities, they face disconnect with their own cultural heritage and hence suffer isolation. They are neither able to identify with what they learned at home about appropriate conduct and behavior nor they fully learn the new style of behavior. And a lot of times, this difference in the behavioral styles is seen as an inability to learn. This perpetuates further oppression and segregation of the minority students.

I know it is not easy for any professor to learn about all the cultural styles whether it is related to writing or behavior. However, only by being cognizant of the fact that differences exist one can move a step forward in creating an inclusive learning environment. This is how a professor can start putting in efforts to understand where students are coming from and what values they bring to the classroom. This, instead of asking students to “behave like Romans while in Rome,” will create an inclusive learning environment in universities.

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