In November 2024, bestselling author Flower Darby led a CTaLE EconTEAching seminar on Advancing Equity in Every Class at UCL and online, exploring how educators can make their classroom communities more inclusive. Flower’s seminar provided a deep dive into how educators can build more inclusive, engaging, and supportive learning environments for all students. 

Here’s an overview of some of the most impactful takeaways from the seminar. 

Prioritising Our Own Wellbeing 

Flower began by emphasising that to effectively support students, educators must first prioritise their own wellbeing. The pandemic and other global challenges have placed significant emotional and mental strain on both students and instructors. By focusing on self-care and recovery, educators can more effectively create a supportive learning environment for their students. Wellbeing is foundational to advancing equity in education, as a teacher’s capacity to engage meaningfully with students is inherently tied to their own mental and emotional health. 

Equity-Minded Teaching: Fostering Engagement Before Learning 

A core theme of the seminar was the concept of equity-minded teaching, which emphasises that fostering student engagement must precede academic learning. Flower explained that creating a classroom environment where students feel seen, supported, and motivated is essential for their academic success. Equity in teaching is not just about ensuring that students have access to learning materials but also about fostering a sense of belonging and motivation. Students who feel that their education matters to them personally are more likely to engage and succeed. 

The Role of Emotion in Learning 

Flower Darby also delved into the powerful connection between emotion, cognition, and motivation. Research shows that emotional wellbeing directly impacts cognitive function and learning outcomes. When students feel emotionally supported and safe in the classroom, they are more likely to stay focused, retain information, and apply it in real world contexts. This insight reinforces the importance of emotional intelligence in teaching, recognising that students are not just “brains on sticks” but individuals with complex emotional and psychological needs. Emotion, cognition, and motivation are inextricably linked. Emotions help to stay focused and remember things in the longer term. 

Building Trust: Being an Authoritative Ally 

Trust was another key topic in the seminar. Flower emphasised the importance of being an authoritative ally to students. This means not only demonstrating expertise and competence but also showing students that their success is genuinely important to us as educators. Students need to trust that educators are working in their best interests and that they have their backs. Building this trust creates an environment in which students feel comfortable taking risks, asking questions, and engaging deeply with the material.  

Designing Courses for Relevance and Rigour 

Flower also spoke about the need to design courses that maintain rigour while also making the content relevant to students’ lives. Helping students connect what they are learning to their personal goals, careers, and lived experience was highlighted as an essential strategy for engagement. Moreover, it is crucial to uphold academic rigour not by lowering standards, but by providing the support structures that students need to succeed, such as clear instructions, reading guides, and opportunities for feedback. 

Providing a Structured Framework for Learning 

A central takeaway was the importance of providing students with a framework to help them organise and understand the course material. While students must ultimately develop their own structure for learning, educators play a key role in providing help so they can navigate more complex content. This might include partial slides, reading guides, or structured group activities that give students the tools they need to succeed in the course. 

Practical Strategies for Advancing Equity 

Throughout the seminar, Flower shared several practical strategies to foster equity in every class: 

• Before the Term: Warm up your syllabus and class materials to ensure accessibility and inclusivity from the outset. Make sure that course content is engaging and sets a tone of support for all students. 

• During the Term: Build trust through pedagogical caring and design opportunities for inclusive social connections. Group work, collaborative projects, and peer support systems are crucial for fostering a sense of community in the classroom. 

• After and Throughout the Term: Continuously solicit student feedback and engage with course evaluations (SET data). This reflective practice allows educators to adapt and improve the course to meet students’ evolving needs. 

Final Reflections 

Equity-minded teaching provides actionable steps that educators can take to create more inclusive classrooms. It’s a process that requires ongoing self-reflection and a willingness to adapt and evolve with each course and student. As emphasised throughout the session, equity in education is a dynamic and evolving process, one that requires consistent effort and engagement. 

For those interested in exploring these principles further, The Norton Guide to Equity-Minded Teaching, co-authored by Flower Darby, offers additional insights and practical tools for educators committed to advancing equity in their teaching practice. 

The CTaLE EconTEAching seminar provided invaluable insights into how educators can make meaningful strides towards equity in their classrooms. By focusing on engagement, wellbeing, trust, and structured support, educators can create environments where all students feel supported and empowered to succeed. 

Click here to view the slides from Flower’s seminar.