2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

This evidence-based practice paper highlights a framework of inclusive teaching practices and strategies developed for the mechanical engineering department at Stanford University to enable faculty to create inclusive classrooms. There is a growing consensus among educators and policymakers that inclusive learning outcomes lead to better student outcomes. Yet, there seems to be a general lack of awareness about how to create inclusive classrooms. To address this gap, we developed an inclusive and equitable course design checklist that enables faculty to proactively incorporate inclusive principles into various aspects of their course design, including syllabi, content, assessment, and pedagogy. With input from students, educators, and instructors, this checklist is primarily designed for mechanical engineering faculty, with an emphasis on aspects such as design and laboratories. Still, it can be widely applied to other engineering courses.

Furthermore, our paper seeks to shed light on the dynamic nature of such checklists. Given that our understanding of learning and human identity continues to evolve, we must continually re-evaluate how we perceive equity and inclusivity in education. Hence, we envision our checklist as a living document that requires periodic iteration and feedback. To this end, we recently conducted workshops with students and faculty members from the same university one year after the initial release of the checklist to ensure that we are up-to-date with our thinking about inclusive teaching practices.

This paper presents the inclusive course design checklist and the methodology we followed to develop and refine the framework. Our hope is for faculty and instructors to learn from and leverage this checklist to design equitable and inclusive courses, as well as to contribute their learnings to a living checklist document that can be shared more broadly beyond one institution.