Leveraging Data to Guide Change Efforts in Inclusive and Equitable Teaching: A Pilot Assessment in Academic Departments

The Inclusive and Equitable Teaching (IE-Teaching) Assessment is an initiative designed to promote more inclusive and equitable teaching practices by using data to motivate, inform, and tailor change efforts to the departmental contexts in which they will be implemented (Reinholz & Apkarian, 2018; Ngai et al. 2020). Staff in the Teaching + Learning Lab (TLL) at MIT partnered with three academic departments across disciplines to pilot test the IE-Teaching Assessment, which involved collecting multiple types of data (including surveys administered to students and instructors, qualitative analyses of course syllabi, and a review of departmental policies and practices) and using these data to guide collaborative discussions about teaching practices within the department. Each data source was designed to capture indicators of inclusive and equitable teaching, guided by the equity-focused teaching principles advanced by the University of Michigan Center for Research on Teaching & Learning (2021). After analyzing the data at the department level, we shared the findings with faculty, instructional staff, and other stakeholders to motivate and inform instructors' re-examination of their teaching practices and the departmental structures that influence teaching within the department. The data collection and sharing processes inform our understanding of the structures and cultures within the department that act as supports and barriers to change, while identifying the various levels of adoption of inclusive and equitable teaching among instructors, consistent with the CACAO model of change (Dormant, 2011; Earl et al., 2020). In this presentation, we will highlight (1) how and why we focused on working with academic departments, rather than individual instructors, to promote inclusive teaching; (2) how different sources of data, from multiple stakeholder perspectives, provided nuanced information to guide change efforts; and (3) how we are leveraging these data to support departmental stakeholders in developing their own plans and resources for promoting inclusive and equitable teaching.