Critically engaging difference acknowledges students’ different identities and experiences; leveraging student diversity as an asset for learning. Using an equity-focused lens to think about difference means:

• Actively learning about the social, political and economic conditions that shape students’ lives and learning.
• Accounting for those systems and conditions by reconstructing what we consider 'fair' or 'equal' with equity-focused practices.
• Identifying our teaching practices and institutional norms as contributing to and maintaining disparities; not seeing students’ identities as a problem to be solved or barrier to overcome. Rejecting a deficit model!
• Additional Equity-focused Teaching Strategies for Critical Engagement of Difference

Structured interactions involves developing protocols or processes that support equitable access and contributions to interactive elements of the learning environment – and disrupt patterns that reinforce systemic inequities Using an equity-focused lens to think about structured interactions means:

• Creating invitations and norms for participation that give students options for engagement
• Thinking ahead about how you might handle classroom dynamics that perpetuate systemic inequities and have a plan to address them.
• Deliberately organizing student groups and teams in ways that actively disrupt systems of power and inequity.
• Additional Equity-focused Teaching Strategies for Structured Interactions

Academic Belonging is about cultivating students’ sense of connection to and ability to see themselves in the discipline or profession, your course, or a community of scholars (including your class or campus.) Using an equity-focused lens to think about academic belonging means:

• Actively learning about and addressing patterns of inequity that impact representation and a sense of belonging in your discipline
• Paying attention to participation patterns in your classroom and intentionally creating new pathways for students to contribute and engage
• Developing practices that validate prior knowledge as legitimate and necessary as opposed to additive
• Additional Equity-focused Teaching Strategies for Academic Belonging

Transparency is clearly communicating with students about expectations and norms; explaining purpose, task, and criteria for learning activities. Using an equity-focused lens to think about transparency means:

• Acknowledging and addressing the presence of hidden curricula that impact your course and student success
• Explicitly naming what teaching for equity means for you and creating opportunities for students to identify how they can and will contribute to equity in the classroom
• Offering students regular opportunities to share their experiences in the classroom and inviting them to provide feedback
• Additional Equity-focused Teaching Strategies for Transparency

Flexibility means responding and adapting to students’ changing and diverse circumstances; engaging empathetically with student needs, both emerging and persistent; balancing intentional design and commitment to providing accommodations Using an equity-focused lens to think about flexibility means:

• Being guided by your course learning goals as opposed to ‘tradition’ or ‘teaching habits’ so that you can adapt and shift as needed
• Providing choices that create clear and equitable pathways for students to engage in the learning environment
• Being attentive to the changing conditions within the university and the larger society and proactively sharing with students how you will adapt as new circumstances arise
• Additional Equity-focused Teaching Strategies for Flexibility