Step 1: Fostering an Environment Where Everyone is a Teacher and Learner

In inclusive classrooms, everyone is both a teacher and a learner, even the instructor. Certainly instructors have expertise and experience, and it’s important to share that knowledge with students. However, even experts have areas for growth and questions they continue to puzzle over. In her class, Gretchen Brion-Meisels plays down her expertise, emphasizing that everyone in the room, including her, has something to learn from others. This approach creates an environment where everyone co-constructs knowledge. As one student explains: “That was nice to know that this person who is incredibly knowledgeable and has done this work for a good amount of time is still wrestling with questions. It allowed us to wrestle with them, too.”

Profiled: Gretchen Brion-Meisels, Lecturer on Education, teaches "Partnering with Youth in Educational Research and Practice" to 23 students at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Takeaway Tips

As you learn about your students, look for areas of expertise that they hold. Think about what you can learn from them throughout your course.

Model how instructors are always learning, too. Even though you come to the discussion with advanced training, highlight when you learn something new and discuss how your thinking has changed.

Be open with your students about the areas of your discipline that you still want to learn more about. Share the questions and dilemmas that you continue to grapple with.

Related Resources

Edgar Schein’s book Humble Inquiry thoughtfully explores why leaders tend to tell rather than ask and provides practical tips for how people in positions of formal authority can build humble inquiry into their practice.

Created by the Great Book Foundation, “Shared Inquiry” is a helpful pedagogical framework for instructors who are trying to ask more questions and give fewer “answers.”

This blog post from Western Governors University gives an overview and discusses the models and benefits of peer learning.

Reflection Questions

What questions in your discipline are you still grappling with? What do you still want to learn more about? How can you use these examples to model intellectual humility for your students? 

In the classroom, do you build in opportunities to learn from your students? How can you create more such opportunities?

By positioning yourself as a fellow learner in your field, you can create an equitable classroom where everyone sees they have much to teach and much to learn. In the next video, we’ll hear about a concrete way to place students at the center of the classroom. 

 

Continue to Step 2