Quality teaching has always been essential at Vanguard.

However, in recent years there have been more attempts at defining what that actually means. Additionally, as our student demographics have changed so radically in the last ten years, so has the importance of meeting the needs of all our students.

How Two Individuals Began to Change Their Pedagogy

On episode 197 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast, Kelly Hogan describes how she felt when she discovered that a disproportionate number of students of color were not passing her biology classes.

Instead of repeating unhelpful stereotypes to these individuals, she decided to examine her own teaching. She discovered that her approaches were not supportive to the needs of her marginalized students.

Viji Sathy was a guest on that same episode. She teaches statistics, another class that can present challenges for students. She wound up using a data-driven approach to promote student success and better support the needs of her students.

One thing that Viji stresses with her students regularly is how limiting it can be to believe that one just isn’t good at statistics. Or math. Or biology. And so on. She emphasizes the importance of making the effort to complete the actions that will help to reinforce the learning from the class.

Viji and Kelly share more about their practices on their inclusifiED website.