Inclusive Lecturing

A well-executed lecture can accomplish a number of goals in the classroom: motivating a topic with an engaging story, providing an explanation of a key concept, modeling expert thinking, synthesizing and translating complex ideas for a novice audience, and so on. Lecturing with an inclusive mindset matters for at least two reasons. First, students who feel a sense of belonging in a course are more likely to be engaged in that course and in their major (Wilson et al., 2015); and second, there is good evidence that inclusive lecturing strategies—such as introducing structure and building in moments for active learning—help all students learn, and in particular students from under-represented backgrounds (Eddy and Hogan, 2014; Freeman et al., 2014; Theobald et al., 2020). While how to define a lecture is a subject of some dispute (see, e.g. Freeman et al., 2014; Bruff, 2015; Campbell, 2023), there are several approaches one can incorporate into a lecture setting to promote an inclusive classroom environment that enables all students to learn.

Set the Tone and Foster Relationships

A supportive classroom climate helps to promote a sense of belonging among students, and can be promoted by the instructor with warmth, organization, and attention to how students relate to each other in class (Dewsbury and Brame, 2019). Setting the tone begins even before students enter the lecture hall, as how we frame the course and present ourselves in the syllabus shape how students perceive the course and its expectations. The college classroom is a social space, and there is good evidence that fostering relationships with and among students helps to promote student success (Felten and Lambert, 2020). This can be challenging in a large lecture setting, but there are a number of strategies that can help to set the tone, warm up the classroom, and convey a sense of belonging:

• Use the time just before class: Showing up to class 5-10 minutes early and using that time to set the tone or warm up the class signals care and attention to students and their learning. Lang (2021) provides examples of approaches to pre-class warm-ups that are focused on the content (an astronomy instructor who puts up an astronomical image before class with questions for students to consider as they file in and take their seats) as well as the social dynamic of a class (an instructor in a large lecture course who makes it a point to have brief pre-class chitchat with each student by the end of the term).
• Use students’ names: Addressing students by name, again, signals attention and care, and reinforces the idea that even a large lecture course is a space where every student matters.
• Promote a growth mindset: Conveying the idea that everyone can learn the content in a course helps to motivate students and produce better learning. A growth mindset is the belief that “ability is malleable and can be developed through persistence, good strategies, and quality mentoring,” while a fixed mindset is the belief that intelligence and ability are “innate qualities that cannot be changed or developed much (Canning et al., 2019). There is good evidence that instructor beliefs about mindset can shape achievement in a course; all students in a class with an instructor who endorse a growth mindset perform better, in particular students from under-represented backgrounds (Canning et al., 2019).

Build in Structures of Active Learning

Delivering lectures in smaller chunks can help students make connections to new ideas, give them time to formulate questions, and provide an opportunity to process and practice their new knowledge. For example, Eddy and Hogan (2014) found that building structured activities into a course before (e.g. guided reading questions and pre-class quizzes) and during class time (e.g. working in groups on in-class questions) improved exam performance for all students, and in particular for students under-represented in STEM fields, such as Black and first-generation students. Strategies to consider include:

• Pause: Build in a few moments during a lecture to pause and give students time to work in pairs to discuss and rework their notes, compare ideas, fill in missing information, and discuss the content with their peers. At the end of each lecture, give students a few minutes to write down the key points they remember, or ask them to write down three key points and the answer to a question and give their paper to you. 
• Think, pair, share: After a short lecture, pose a question that invites students to think about a puzzle, problem, or application of the new content. Give students a minute to think or write about the question silently, then have them pair up and discuss the question with a peer. Conclude the activity by asking some of the pairs to share their responses with the whole class.
• Practice homework problems: After lecturing on a particular type of problem, give students a problem to work on individually in class that resembles the problems they’ll see on their homework. After giving students a few minutes to work through the problem, have them compare their strategies and/or answers with a classmate and then with the class.

Highlight Contributions and Achievements of Underrepresented Groups