Advancing Online Teaching: Creating Equity-Based Digital Learning Environments by Kevin Kelly and Todd Zakrajsek

Abstract

Reviewed by: Advancing Online Teaching: Creating Equity-Based Digital Learning Environments by Kevin Kelly and Todd Zakrajsek E. Nicole Meyer Kelly, Kevin, and Todd Zakrajsek. Advancing Online Teaching: Creating Equity-Based Digital Learning Environments. Stylus, 2021. ISBN 978-1-62036-722-3. Pp. xv + 248. While the move to online teaching caused by the Covid-19 pandemic was sudden (March 2020), the push to online teaching will continue to increase. For many French instructors, the notions of diversity, equity, and inclusion are on our minds due to the global reach of French, and our continuing efforts to include other French-speaking cultures into our teaching. This volume successfully incorporates inclusion, learning equity, and universal design for learning (UDL) into course design, writing course outcomes, course structure(s), activities and assessment. Thus, Kelly and Zakrajsek’s work helps French teachers to create an “instructor presence,” address different modes of learning, augment multiple paths for student success, and create the human connection our students crave. Many will appreciate the evidence-based ways to make adjustments to online courses, concrete teaching tips, and the differentiation between assessing teaching and student learning. The authors convincingly argue that to “advance online learning,” we must “teach in an increasingly inclusive, equitable, and compassionate way” (3). Divided into three parts, the first section concisely defines underlying concepts such as UDL, fostering human connectedness, and equity. It also addresses (re)writing SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Time-Related) learning outcomes for equitable, inclusive online courses, and suggests concrete ways to establish a transparent organizational framework. To optimize engagement with course content, emerging technologies prove crucial to many. Best practices include aligning activities and assessment strategies with desired outcomes. The second section of the volume provides useful ways of promoting respectful, engaging discussions and other meaningful, often interactive, online activities. French teachers all invest immense time building authentic and engaging learning situations. Learning to manage student and instructor expectations through workload management strategies while assuring truly diverse, equitable and inclusive learning environments is essential to our well-being. The final part of the volume aids us to make effective adjustments to our online courses. A growth-minded approach to teaching online underlies the authors’ suggestions. Useful recommendations for authentic assessment of both our courses and of student learning translate well to our discipline. The complete bibliography, lists of URLs and applicable technologies are helpful. The strengths of this work are multiple: its usefulness for experienced and novice online instructors, its solid theoretical grounding, as well as a truly inclusive approach that includes Quality Matters (QM) considerations and goes beyond. Together, these features can remind instructors of essential factors for all students, including the building of a respectful equity-minded learning community. Suggestions of engaging, inclusive thinking, and diverse discussion and other activities prove applicable for language and more advanced French students. For teachers seeking primarily French-speaking examples or French-focused tools to create safe classroom environments [End Page 211] welcoming LGBTQIA+ students, this volume will prove less useful. Rethinking the French Classroom: New Approaches to Teaching Contemporary French and Francophone Women (Routledge 2019) and Teaching Diversity and Inclusion: Examples from a French-Speaking Classroom. (Routledge 2021) better serve that purpose. While not targeting those specific lenses, this current volume should prove useful to French teachers as they design and enact their online courses. [End Page 212] E. Nicole Meyer Augusta University (GA) Copyright © 2022 American Association of Teachers of French