Students from negatively stereotyped or underserved groups can question whether faculty and staff may treat them fairly in interactions, grading, and other forms of evaluation. Faculty that communicate and behave in ways that engender trust and a perception of caring can mitigate social identity threat for students from these groups.
The Classroom Practices Library contains practice recommendations that instructors can use in their courses to bolster student engagement and increase equity in academic outcomes. The following practice recommendations are designed to engender student trust in the instructional team by affirming the use of fair instructional and evaluation practices. To view the practices organized by other social-psychological constructs, click here.
Policy Review: Student-Centered Course Policies: A step-by-step guide for crafting course policies that promote equity and acknowledge and accommodate the lived experiences of diverse student populations
Establishing Expectations: A Growth Mindset Approach: Approaches for communicating about academic standards and course expectations in a way that promotes student engagement, learning, and academic success
Ensuring Classroom Identity Safety: Approaches for creating classroom learning environments where students from diverse identities feel welcome, valued, respected, and as though they are recognized as having the potential to succeed
Addressing an Identity Threatening Incident: Guidance on a straightforward and practical approach for addressing identity-threatening incidents in a way that promotes students’ identity safety and social belonging, and builds connection and trust
Creating a Wise Feedback Framing Statement: Guidance on delivering critical feedback in a way that engenders trust, increases academic engagement, and helps close academic outcome gaps
Creating an Attuned Assessment Wrapper: Resources for developing a practice that helps students prepare for, and debrief, key assessments in a way that emphasizes potential for growth, connects to resources, and does not inspire identity threat
Supporting Financially Stressed Students: Recommendations for practices that can help support financially stressed students' learning, sense that they belong in college, and belief in their ability to succeed
The Classroom Practices Library was developed by CTC, with feedback and collaboration from university partners, for the Student Experience Project.
(© 2022) Copying, reproducing, or monetizing this resource without express permission from the College Transition Collaborative is prohibited.
Email contact@ctcteam.org with any questions.
Have feedback on the library? Share it here!