Creating Welcoming and Inclusive Spaces for Learning
Brad Garner, PhD, Digital Learning Scholar in Residence, Academic Innovation Team, Indiana Wesleyan University
“The paradox of hospitality is that it wants to create emptiness, not a fearful emptiness, but a friendly emptiness where strangers can enter and discover themselves as created free … not a subtle invitation to adopt the lifestyle of the host, but the gift of a chance for the guest to find his own.” — Henri Nouwen, from Reaching Out: Three Movements of the Spiritual Life (1975, p. 49)
Think about times when you have entered an unfamiliar setting where you were unsure of the rules and expectations. Examples might include spending the weekend with your future in-laws, that first day on a new job, or participating in a worship experience in a faith different than your own. In each of these circumstances, it is helpful to have someone serve as a guide and resource and to make you feel welcome. With this assistance, you learn what is expected and how to navigate in that unfamiliar setting. We all need that assistance in our lives from time to time.
Now, consider the reality for students entering the unique and unfamiliar world of higher education. This is particularly true for first-generation students, students of color, international students, LGBTQ students, and others who may feel somewhat hesitant about whether they belong, are unfamiliar with campus customs and procedures, or feel they do not “fit” in college. Instructors can serve a crucial role in welcoming all students to the campus and their courses. However, the level at which they succeed in this role depends on five basic approaches to teaching and engaging with students.
Being Teachable
As a starting point, it is critically essential for instructors to embrace a teachable spirit. Another way to describe this disposition is practicing intellectual humility, defined by Barksdale (2022) as “a willingness to reconsider and expand one’s views, marked by realistic self-assessment and low concern for one’s self-importance.”
Instructors are always the most knowledgeable in the classroom when teaching. There is no need to exploit or advertise that reality. Instead, the goal should be to create a setting where asking questions, expressing opinions, feeling uncertain, and trying out new ideas are safe pursuits. Brantmeier (2013) offered a mantra that instructors can embrace as they work to demonstrate this teachable spirit in the classroom:
Share (e.g., share your own story, personal connections, and passion for the topics in the curriculum)
Co-learn (e.g., show enthusiasm and a sense of discovery as you engage with students and course content)
Admit you do not know (e.g., be willing to admit mistakes or areas of confusion).
From another perspective, David Brooks, in the book Road to Character (2016), argued that instructors should demonstrate eulogy virtues. These are the things we would want people to share about us at our funeral (e.g., kind, caring, compassionate, honest, motivated). Contrast these qualities with résumé virtues often summarized by our degrees, accomplishments, presentations, positions, and publications. Higher education is a résumé virtue-rich environment. Advertising the elements of a résumé does little to impress or engage with students.
Demonstrating Empathy
It is common for students to struggle with various personal or academic challenges at various times during their time on campus. This reality has accelerated dramatically in the post-COVID era (Snyder & Garner, 2022). Instructors can play a crucial role in listening to the concerns and challenges being faced by students. Goleman (2005) identified empathy as a critical element of emotional intelligence. The three types of empathy identified by Goleman include:
Cognitive — The ability to have perspective and sense how someone else feels.
Emotional — Physically feeling how another person feels and how they might be thinking.
Compassionate — Feeling what another person is feeling along with a spontaneous motivation to help if possible.
Being empathetic requires an instructor to be attentive to students' needs, aware that students face personal or academic challenges, and willing to walk alongside, encourage, and support struggling students. This task, although challenging, can make a significant difference in students' lives.
Remaining Available
The professional literature refers to availability as presence. Present instructors are aware, engaged with the ebb and flow of classroom activities, and sensitive to the nuances of the instructional process (Rodgers & Raider-Roth, 2006). Presence also requires creating multiple pathways to communicate with students (e.g., text, email, informal social media tools, virtual conferencing tools, face-to-face). Importantly, however, this also requires a commitment for instructors to respond when students reach out to ask questions or express concerns. These requests are not always easy or convenient. A way to build relationships with students and demonstrate availability is a commitment to respond to their emails and texts within 24 hours. Honoring this pledge indicates that an instructor is willing to support and encourage student success by being available and present.
Being Consistent
Consistency can be defined as doing the small things of teaching with excellence. The question is, “What should students expect from instructors throughout a course?” Possible answers include the accuracy of the course syllabus, complete resources and links on the course-based learning management system, prompt grading and feedback designed to improve performance, and communication regarding any changes in the course schedule or due dates. Kirylo (2016) examined the influence of instructor behavior patterns on learning. He proposed that consistency provides students with a “clear, secure, and certain understanding of the appropriate dispositions and actions of the teacher” and “needed boundaries and a sense of safety” (p. 102). Just as we expect students to meet timelines and course expectations, it is reasonable to set a similar standard for instructors.
Demonstrating Hospitality
All these qualities roll up as ingredients of a hospitable and welcoming environment for learning. Guzzardo et al. (2020), referring to faculty, argued that "the ones that care make all the difference" (p. 41). To frame the process of providing care, these authors invoked the classic work of Gilligan (2011) and Noddings (2012), who defined how a "carer" (e.g., faculty) and the "cared for" (e.g., a student) interact with one another. It is easy to envision how a caring instructor can dramatically impact the engagement and learning of their students. Once again, even though the connections between this language and the elements of hospitality are evident, there is a continuing reality that instructors must consciously choose to move into the caring role. Choose that role for yourself and to the benefit of your students!
Link to personal reflection checklist on a welcoming and hospitable environment for learning: bit.ly/4ezsiMk
References
Barksdale, N. (2022, September 22). What is intellectual humility? The John Templeton Foundation. https://www.templeton.org/news/what-is-intellectual-humility
Brantmeier, E. J. (2013). Pedagogy of vulnerability: Definitions, assumptions, and applications.” In J. Linn, R. L. Oxford, and E. J. Brantmeier, Re-Envisioning Higher Education: Embodied Pathways to Wisdom and Social Transformation, edited by 95–106. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing, 2013.
Brooks, D. (2016). The road to character. New York, NY: Random House.
Garner, B. (2023). Inclusive hospitality in online learning: Design, deliver, and discover. Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Gilligan, Carol. "Revisiting in a Different Voice." Harvard University Press Blog, 2011. https://harvardpress.typepad.com/hup_publicity/2012/03/revisiting-carol-gilligan-in-a-different-voice.html.
Goleman, D. (2005). Emotional intelligence: Why it can matter more than IQ. New York, NY: Bantam.
Guzardo, M. T., Khosia, N., Adams, A. L., Bussmann, J. D., Engelman, A., Ingraham, N., Gamba, R., Jones-bey, A., Moore, M. D., Toosi, N. R., & Taykir, S. (2020, September 30). The ones that care make all the difference: Perspectives on student-instructor relationships. Innovative Higher Education, 46, 41-58. Retrieved November 12, 2021, from https://link.springer. com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10755-020-09522-w.pdf.
Kirylo, James D. Teaching with purpose: An inquiry into the who, why, and how we teach. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2016.
Noddings, N. (2012). The caring relation in teaching. Oxford Review of Education.
Nouwen, H. J. M., 1932-1996. (1975). Reaching out: The three movements of the spiritual life. New York, NY: Doubleday.
Rodgers, C. R., & Raider-Roth, M. B. (2006). Presence in teaching. Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, 12(3), 265–287. doi:10.1080/13450600500467548
Snyder, T., & Garner, B. (2022). Empathy in online education. The Teaching Professor, January 24, 2022, teachingprofessor.com/topics/online-teaching-and-learning/empathy-in-online-education