Framework for Inclusive Teaching Excellence (FITE)
The Framework for Inclusive Teaching Excellence (FITE) maps the vision for professional development at Illinois State University and was informed by a systematic review of research on teaching and learning and an analysis of inputs collected from faculty, staff, and students. FITE supports the strategic directions of Excellence by Design, the strategic plan of Illinois State University.
The Framework was developed through an extensive process of data collection, analysis, and collaboration among many campus partners. Read more about its development on the Provost's website.
The six dimensions of FITE represent critical considerations for professional development in support of student success. Each aims to address ways in which course instructors can work to create high-quality, evidence-informed learning experiences that are accessible to and inclusive of all students.
Data-Informed Reflection
Critical reflection requires course instructors to use a variety of data sources to consider their own teaching practices, biases, and awareness of their students' individual and collective needs. Ultimately, data-based reflection should inform continued improvements to both teaching and learning.
Concepts in this dimension include learning communities, opportunities for feedback from students and peers, mitigating implicit biases, and creating points of input that help students shape their own experiences.
Science of Learning
The Science of Learning is a robust body of evidence that explains various neurological processes for learning that, when applied, can encourage retention and recollection of course content. The science of learning should underscore all aspects of teaching to maximize all students' learning outcomes.
Concepts in this dimension include the individual and social construction of knowledge, healthy habits for optimal learning, the impact of students' cultural wealth on learning, identifying threshold concepts in your discipline, and modeling what deep thinking looks like in your field.
Feedback and Assessment Loop
A variety of assessments should be employed within any single course to understand students' individual and collective learning and needs. In particular, a range of formative assessments offer the opportunity for instructors to identify gaps in student learning, make adjustments in teaching, and encourage content mastery.
Concepts in this dimension include student self-evaluation, universal design for learning, summative and formative assessment best practices, using inclusive language to set the appropriate tone and framing for feedback, developing inclusive rubrics and other assessment instruments, equitable and transparent grading, no-point grading, and including student perspectives in the design of assessments.
Impact of Course Design
Courses are designed to align learning objectives with assignments, assessments, and other activities that encourage students to think critically and with depth.
Accessible and equity-minded course design allows for instruction to be relevant to all learners.
Concepts in this dimension include considering how feelings of belonging or exclusion might carry into the classroom, designing meaningful and relevant course content for students, and accounting for historical and contemporary barriers to inclusion for underrepresented scholars in your field.
Classroom Climate and Culture
Classroom climate is reflected in the physical, social, and emotional spaces where students learn. Instructors foster a positive classroom climate through the intentional development of a supportive culture for all learners through the application of instructional practices that support and encourage student success.
Concepts in this dimension include ways to build trust, facilitating difficult dialogues, mental health training, the quality of faculty-student relationships, avoiding microaggressions and developing a sense of belonging, privilege and power distribution, implicit bias, and setting the tone of your course.
Evidence-Based Pedagogy
The application of evidence-informed teaching practices that promote student learning. Through the use of pedagogies found to be effective with diverse groups of learners, instructors can employ techniques to help students master key course content and integrate new knowledge into important life contexts.
Concepts in this dimension include the role of communication in motivating students to learn, teacher confirmation behaviors, the importance of empowering students, promoting metacognition and self-regulation through teaching and assessment, active learning, developing clear learning goals, and strategies to activate prior knowledge.