Diversifying Course Materials

What do we mean by course materials?

Course materials include anything we use in our courses to help our students learn. Each course material has a particular format, subject, and author(s) with which students may or may not connect. Many instructors already assign some diversity of course material formats, such as readings, videos, and podcasts, especially ones that are canonical in their disciplines. As we strive for equity in our teaching, we recognize the need to diversify the content within our course materials as well as the authors of those materials. This resource explores how instructors can further diversify the materials they use to more effectively engage students in learning processes. It also details the pedagogical reasoning behind diversifying course materials.

Note: Diversifying course materials does NOT entail simply adding more materials! As you diversify your materials, think about which existing materials can be replaced, made optional, consolidated, or pared down. Unduly burdening your students with extra work to squeeze in some “diversity,” especially if that does not directly support your learning outcomes and course goals, does not constitute a pedagogically sound, equitable practice. Diversifying course materials requires a thoughtful examination of which materials best support your students’ learning.

Why use diverse course materials?

Diversifying course materials entails working against the historical trends that made so many identities invisible in academia. This section explores the pedagogical benefits of diversifying course materials as an equitable teaching practice.

Diversifying the format of materials beyond the canonical materials of your discipline is essential from the perspective of Universal Design for Learning (UDL). Exposure to the same concepts through multiple media representations helps students learn more deeply. Reading about a concept, hearing others speak about it, and seeing a visualization all reinforce learning and provide students with options for how they feel best equipped to engage with new information. Consult this resource created by one of the CTRL Student Partners for a more extensive exploration of the benefits and possibilities of engaging multimedia outside of the classroom.

Diversifying materials also aligns with UDL’s emphasis on the value of student choice. Allowing students to decide how to engage with the concepts in your course – in terms of both format and content – opens paths to deeper, more meaningful learning. Build flexibility into your materials, including assignments and in-class activities, to allow students’ personal, academic, and professional interests and goals to shape how they engage with material. We can also include more materials if we give students the opportunity to decide which one(s) they engage. For example, we could provide a set of three to four different materials from which students choose one or two, and then have students share what they learned with each other through online discussion boards or in-class discussions.

Expanding from UDL, diversifying content and authors supports broader efforts to make classrooms more inclusive and equitable spaces. To learn new material, students need to find ways to relate new materials to our preexisting knowledge. Commonly accepted theories of learning indicate that our brains store information in schemata. Beginning in infancy, human beings form concepts that enable them to categorize objects and events. Learners also pull concepts together into general categories of understanding. These general categories are called schemata. Advanced schemata help us access information more quickly, retrieve relevant information from our memory, identify patterns in new information, and more. Adding to a schema requires a connection between the new material and the existing schemata.

To help all of our students build effective and efficient schemata, we can take steps to relate our course material to contexts or schemata that matter to our students by getting to know them and by using diverse examples that relate to their various identities. By incorporating more diverse representations of the content, skills, and scholars you are teaching, you are offering more opportunities for each of your students to connect with the course content on a personal level. When possible, use the information that students shared in introductory surveys or class conversations to help you select examples that relate students’ backgrounds, interests, and experiences.

Finally, allowing students to engage with course materials from a wide range of identities also highlights the diversity within your field and allows students to recognize themselves in the course content. Students are better able to imagine themselves as professionals in the field if they are exposed to academic scholarship created by people with their intersectional identities.

Diverse types of learning materials will provide students with a more thorough understanding of your field and the ways in which your field contributes to society. This fosters deeper learning among your students.

How can I diversify my course materials?

Format

Most commonly, the formats of course materials include academic books, articles, and textbooks. In a humanities class, students will also typically encounter novels, art, music, or other artifacts that the various disciplines study. In natural sciences, additional course materials might include primary research articles or data to analyze. In the social sciences, instructors might also incorporate policies, policy reports, or interview transcripts. A journalism course might assign newspaper and magazine articles, blog posts, or news clips; a business course might assign marketing schemes, quarterly reports, or yearly budgets; an education course might assign lesson plans or individualized education programs; the list goes on and on.

Many of the materials listed in the previous paragraph are also authentic to the work students will have after graduation, which helps make the materials more meaningful to the students. In addition to offering a diversity of course material formats, think creatively about how you can design assessments and activities that align with a variety of professional interests.

Because of different canonical materials across disciplines, diversifying the format of course materials will look different in every discipline. Below are some questions you can consider for guidance in the diversification process.

  • Which materials do you typically use with your students?
  • What types of assessments do you typically assign to your students?
  • Which modalities of engagement (reading, listening, viewing) do you already employ? Which are missing?
  • Which modalities of assessment (writing, speaking, creating) do you already employ? Which are missing?
  • Which communication codes (academic, colloquial, journalistic, etc.) are present in your materials and assessments? Which are missing?
  • What content in your course could be presented to students and by students as effectively or even more effectively through a different format?

To help you answer these questions, here is a non-exhaustive list of resources that can be incorporated inro your course to offer a more diverse and balanced array of materials to your students:

  • TED Talks
  • Documentaries
  • News clips or news articles
  • Podcasts
  • Radio productions
  • Interviews
  • Blogs
  • Graphics
  • Artistic representations

Content

Historically, most disciplines have produced and celebrated materials that reflect the identity of those who already have access to the discipline and to the academy; this has limited the subjects studied according to the interests of this privileged group. With increasingly diverse student populations and recognition of the intellectual benefits of representing and addressing multiple identities, we have a social responsibility to diversify the content of our courses to better support our students’ learning.

Diversifying the content of your course includes incorporating diverse subjects and assessments. While a single course cannot encompass the full range of diversity within academic topics, think of how you can incorporate as representative a selection as possible within your course area. Consider the sets of questions below as you select course materials and design assessments.

  • What topics do I currently cover throughout the course? To whom do these topics most immediately pertain? What personal and professional interests are already represented in the content of the course materials? How can I diversify the topics and reach more diverse interests?
  • Which individuals and populations are the focus of my current course materials? How can I diversify the subjects of the scholarship included in this course?
  • Who are my students and how can I motivate them with our course content? Can they relate to my current course content, and how can I improve this?
  • For which career paths am I preparing my students? How can my course prepare students for (or expose students to) a wider variety of careers?

Authors

Finally, the authors that have most commonly been represented in course materials across the board have historically been White, cisgender able-bodied, straight, anglophonic, middle- and upper-class men. This is the intersection of identities that has historically dominated and continues to dominate faculty and upper administrative positions, including receiving the largest amounts of research funding, at universities. The products of their research and other forms of labor have been canonized in many disciplines despite other scholars making outstanding contributions.

You may find that the most important concepts or texts around which your course and even your discipline are based are dominated by the privileged identities already noted. It may be hard to fit more diversity of authors into your course if you are teaching another person’s syllabus, or if you are responsible for teaching about very particular texts or ideas. This does not mean that the class cannot explore a diversity of authors; rather, it is an opportunity to discuss the lack of diversity with students. You might ask your students to reflect on the shared privileged identities of your field’s canonical authors and to consider how that homogeny influences and limits the applicability of their frameworks. You may ask students, “Who is missing from these texts and conversations? How might the inclusion of those voices change the conversation? How does that exclusion influence the application of course concepts in the real world?”

Diversifying the authorship of your course materials includes selecting materials authored by a diverse range of people. This can even include individuals working outside of academia in industries, communities, etc. Another strategy is to highlight marginalized figures in your discipline, about whom students would not otherwise know. Similarly to diversifying content, no single course can include contributions from every intersection of identities. Still, explore the scholarship that is present in your field and, when you have options, select course materials that have been authored by people whose identities have historically been marginalized within academia. Consider the sets of questions below as you select course materials.

  • Which creators of knowledge are present in my syllabus and in-class lessons?
  • What are their various identities? Which intersections of identities are missing?
  • Who in my field could I include to represent a wider range of identities?
  • Is the diversity of scholars fairly evenly distributed across the semester?