When students reported some ongoing issues in the classroom around sexism and racism in a school at the Faculty of Engineering in 2022, they pointed to tutors as being part of the problem. Tutors showed a lack of understanding of what is expected of them when dealing with racism, sexism, and cultural discrimination in the classroom. The program we developed in response to this, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion in the STEM Classroom, draws on students as partners in developing a set of modules designed to inform and upskill tutors using both policies and evidence-based research to deal with issues such as unconscious bias, invisible disabilities, and gender identity discrimination. The program was successfully delivered in February and March of 2023 and is now being rolled out to four additional schools in semester 2, 2023 This includes further partnerships with students, academics and tutors from each school in order to understand the unique challenges each one faces and the ways we can design for diversity and inclusion to enhance student learning conditions ad transform teaching practices.
Teaching@Sydney