Teacher’s Diary -Episode 7 -Ragab Kamal

Dear readers, 

In the previous article, we discussed some of the common barriers that take place during the educational process. if you miss that article, I recommend that you read it first ( Here). 

These few barriers are: (Unconscious biases - lack of motivation - Material comprehension - Communication and emotions).

These four common barriers to learning can impact any learning environment in a classroom or online. But as the title of this Teachout suggests, the focus is to incorporate inclusive pedagogical practices in an online learning environment. So at this point, you may be thinking how on earth do I create an inclusive learning environment by incorporating inclusive pedagogical practices, when students are geographically separated from one another? All these barriers should be considered during the educational process.

However, to understand and analyze how to fix such problems and resolve such barriers, we should also understand What Inclusive Pedagogy means? Why is Inclusive Pedagogy Important?
What are the goals of Inclusive Pedagogy?

But before going alone with trying to answer these previous questions, there is one even more important question I always ask myself: Why and how would any instructor not want all students in the course to have an enjoyable and effective learning experience?

So educators always have practice or policy of including people who might otherwise be excluded or marginalized, such as those who have physical or mental disabilities and members of minority groups, and that is what is called “Inclusion”.

Meanwhile, Pedagogy is the method and practice of how we happy such practice and policy in teaching.

However, it may sound a bit confusing when you try to combine both terms together to come up with the term “ Inclusive Pedagogy” and what it means. Inclusive pedagogy is an approach to teaching that creates a learning environment that is beneficial to students of all backgrounds. Content and activities consider the varied perspectives of students and engage them in intentional ways to overcome barriers to learning.

What are the goals of Inclusive Pedagogy?

1. Create a learning environment where everyone feels safe to express ideas.

2. Multiple diverse questions or opinions are considered, and

3. student experiences of marginalization are minimized

Why is Inclusive Pedagogy Important?

1. A sense of belonging to an academic community has been shown to be a significant predictor of academic success.

2. Many students, particularly those from groups, who are marginalized because of things like race, class, gender, sexuality, et cetera, do feel excluded from learning.

3. This experience of exclusion can hamper academic performance in a process that can spiral out of control. Through a negative recursive cycle, where psychological threat and poor performance feed off one another, leading to an ever-worsening performance.

You can share with us in the comment section your experience with the Inclusive Pedagogy you had, and how helped you during your lessons.

Yours Sincely

Ragab Kamal

This article is mostly a summary of a course on Inclusive Online Teaching Teach-Out at Johns Hopkins University. you can apply for the whole course with financial aid as well and study the course for free. Click (Here) to join.