About the Inclusive Teaching Practices Website
This website is designed to support educators in creating dynamic courses, removing barriers to learning, and dismantling oppressive practices by implementing inclusive pedagogies. Here, educators can explore critical diversity considerations that shape higher education in real time, read academic articles, visit suggested websites, and watch recommended TED talks and videos.
We strive to make this website a dynamic repository of information, so content is periodically updated. In the interest of collaboration and intellectual exchange, we invite you to recommend topics, submit ideas for blog posts, share your research and suggest content by getting in touch.
This site also supports asynchronous faculty development programming in the Office of Teaching and Learning (OTL), as well as ongoing research endeavors funded by the National Science Foundation and DU's Interdisciplinary Research Institute for the Study of (In)Equality (IRISE).
Don't hesitate to contact the director for inclusive teaching practices in the Office of Teaching and Learning for one-on-one consultations, either face-to-face, online or over the phone.
Our Origins
In 2016, the University of Denver Faculty Senate launched its Inclusive Learning Environments Initiative, which culminated in the creation of a full-time position tasked with providing proactive and responsive leadership, direction and programming that advances inclusive pedagogy. Since then, the director for inclusive teaching practices in the Office of Teaching and Learning has collaborated with campus partners to develop, implement and assess strategic faculty-development opportunities rooted in equity, inclusion and social justice.
In 2017, the director for inclusive teaching developed a Canvas portal that introduced professors to fundamental tenets of critical and inclusive pedagogies. The portal quickly became a repository of tools for addressing complex pedagogical issues in real time. As part of a robust portfolio of face-to-face and online programming, this allowed faculty members to begin recognizing and disrupting outdated teaching practices that continue to hinder the academic success of historically underrepresented students.
Our Continued Efforts
In 2019, the director for inclusive teaching participated in the Community+Values initiative as a co-lead and steering committee member. The Canvas portal was reimagined into this website through this extraordinary initiative.
In 2020, as the global coronavirus pandemic unfolded, academics worldwide began witnessing how the burdens posed by disruptions in education are borne differentially and inequitably. Urgency grew around launching this website and reaching across borders to support all educators in enacting equitable and inclusive praxis while teaching all students to “deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world” (Freire, 2000, p. 34).
Inclusive Teaching Practices Impact Report
Learn about the impact of DU’s proactive and responsive inclusive teaching practices programming suite. Developed, implemented and assessed by the director for inclusive teaching practices, this report showcases how our academic community actively engages with difficult topics in an effort to dismantle educational inequities.
About the Project Lead
Valentina Iturbe-LaGrave, PhD, is the director for inclusive teaching practices in the Office of Teaching and Learning (OTL) and co-lead of the Communities+Values initiative. OTL invites you to email your challenges, call with questions and make time in your schedule to visit. Let's chat about the ways that our office can support you in creating transformative learning experiences for all students.
