Embedding Equity in the Design and Implementation of Digital Courseware

Abstract

In Short

• As digital learning becomes an increasingly popular modality for teaching and learning, so too has the use of courseware in postsecondary institutions.

• Approaching the design and implementation of digital courseware from an explicitly equity-minded perspective is vital to supporting historically marginalized students.

• I offer the Equity First Framework for Digital Learning, a set of six considerations for courseware designers and instructors seeking to leverage courseware as a tool to support equitable and just student learning.

What comes to mind if I prompt you to imagine a university classroom? Perhaps you think of a large lecture hall or a scientific research laboratory? More recently, however, you might imagine a digital platform like Zoom. Given increased technological advancements and the material realities of learning in a global pandemic, online and hybrid learning modalities have become increasingly popularized. Many college and university leaders who might have otherwise disregarded the opportunity to leverage educational technology for student learning have developed robust plans for digital teaching and learning. Of the many forms digital learning can take (e.g., implementing digital tools into an otherwise synchronous, in-person course or using a hybrid model wherein the course is delivered partially online and in person), digital courseware (e.g., software built to deliver an entire course’s instructional content fully online) has emerged as a prevalent tool for supporting high-quality learning in higher education as fully online and hybrid modalities are on the rise.

Some scholars have argued that digital courseware has the potential to make postsecondary education more accessible to historically underserved students, like Black, Indigenous, and Latinx students; first-generation college students; students with disabilities; and economically disenfranchised students. Given well-documented disparities in DFWI rates (i.e., the percentage of students who earn a grade of either D or F, withdraw, or receive an incomplete in the course) in the highest enrolling gateway courses for students of color and economically disenfranchised students, the technical capabilities of digital courseware are believed to provide interventions that bolster student success. For instance, research suggests that digital courseware technology can streamline the aggregation of data analytics on student engagement and performance, which can support hybridity, individualization, and adaptability based on students’ needs. Using digital courseware is also generally a more affordable alternative to using expensive textbooks. Moreover, the flexibility of time and location associated with digital courseware can make higher education more accessible to part-time students, working students, and student-parents, who are routinely underserved by the higher education system. In this way, prioritizing the adoption of digital courseware in higher education is often framed as an equity imperative.

Indeed, digital courseware can support equity, but positioning educational technology as a silver bullet for eradicating inequity misses a significant reality: people and pedagogy also matter. Faculty play a critical role in supporting generative student experiences with online learning. Jessica Rowland Williams (2021), director of Every Learner Everywhere, posited, “[O]ur students are expressing the need for faculty who are trained in digital courseware and learning strategies and who demonstrate the ability to be student-centered and responsive” (p. 29). Yet the types of intellectually rigorous, stimulating, and equity-minded learning environments that minoritized students deserve are sometimes in tension with how digital courseware is leveraged in practice. Ultimately, digital courseware is merely a tool, and tools are only as equity-oriented as the people who design and use them. The values and mindsets that faculty and developers employ when designing and using courseware influence what possibilities are opened or foreclosed for student learning. Thus, leveraging courseware for equity demands a deep understanding of the design and function of the curricula, instructional tasks, and evaluation strategies embedded in the courseware, as well as whether and how instructors engage them.

Important Equity Considerations for Digital Courseware

Despite the potential for supporting equity, digital courseware and other technology-driven educational reforms for equity face meaningful critiques from scholars. Next, I highlight three areas ripe for critical reflection and transformation.

Raising Students’ Critical Consciousness Through Digital Courseware Curricula

Decisions about what and how to teach are essential dimensions of digital courseware design. Scholars have critiqued digital courseware providers for developing apolitical and race-evasive curricula. In this way, rather than being a means for individualized and empowering learning experiences, educational technologies such as digital courseware can ironically promote a one-size-fits-all approach to teaching and learning that cloaks and entrenches inequity rather than disrupts it. Darling-Aduana and colleagues (2020) described it best:

Due to incentives for online course vendors to provide highly standardized products, succeeding in online courses often rewards conformity and discipline valued in working-class jobs over the proactivity and assertiveness that support postsecondary success… providing students belonging to marginalized groups differential access to essential knowledge and skills. (p. 4)

But how might courseware unintentionally perpetuate inequity practice? Take, for example, the process of designing an introductory environmental science course. The course might have two broad learning objectives: (a) describing the interrelated relationship between the natural world and society, and (2) relating concepts of biodiversity and sustainability to contemporary issues in environmental science. There are many ways instructors can meet these objectives. One approach might privilege Eurocentric beliefs of a human/nature divide. Another might center Indigenous ways of knowing that emphasize the interconnectedness of humans and the natural world. Instructors might use a traditional environmental science textbook or case studies grounded in students’ local contexts. Ultimately, curricula decisions in courseware design, like the design of learning in all contexts, are political and ethical decisions. Borrowing from Freire, digital courseware should be a tool that scaffolds students’ ability to name and transform their world rather than further socializing them into the world as it currently exists.

Recognizing (In)Accessibility

Issues of accessibility are also often a threat to equity in online learning. Concerns about “the digital divide,” including access to technology, disparate skill and usage patterns, and racialized and socioeconomic disparities in the benefits that accrue from using technology, permeate conversations about how to use educational technology for equity-oriented ends. Surely, being attuned to the systemic inequities in technology access, use, and benefits is central to embracing an equity-minded approach to using digital courseware. Accessibility, however, is about much more than access to necessary technological devices, hardware, and software; accessibility also requires expanding students’ opportunities to meaningfully engage in the learning process.

Another critical way to conceptualize accessibility that ensures educational equity is through the lens of dis/ability. Too often, students with disabilities are relegated to the margins. Studies reveal that online courses have significantly underserved students with disabilities. For example, participation in online learning often relies on taken-for-granted physical abilities. Some digital learning tools are incompatible with screen readers; some lack the capability for accurate, real-time audio captioning and interpreters; and other tools are not designed to accommodate people who must navigate the computer using a keyboard rather than a mouse. Thus, a key component of equity-oriented digital courseware is developing tools that allow for students’ full participation in the learning community, with particular attention to serving those who need accommodations. Given the increased ubiquity of digital learning options during the COVID-19 pandemic, postsecondary institutions and governmental entities must push to create and enforce policies that strengthen opportunities for equitable and meaningful engagement with digital courseware among students with disabilities.

Data Analytics and Equity-Minded Decision Making

Understanding the empirical realities of student experiences, engagement, and performance can better position faculty to proactively intervene to advance student learning. Digital courseware offers access to in-depth and real-time data that are vital to this endeavor. Yet having robust data, knowing how to interpret it, and then making data-driven decisions are distinct processes—ones that many faculty struggle with knowing how to engage. Bensimon and colleagues (2016) pointed out that “practitioners who are unaccustomed to using data—the majority of faculty, staff, and administrators—often feel overwhelmed by long data reports. Worse, they may be too embarrassed to admit that they can’t see a ‘story’ in the percentages and numbers” (p. 1). Also, many faculty do not disaggregate data by race and ethnicity, socioeconomic status, or dis/ability status. Data disaggregation encourages faculty to be attuned to difference and diversity rather than expectations of sameness (Bensimon et al., 2016). Overall, data analytics, when critically applied in race- and power-conscious ways, have serious implications for educational equity.

Embedding Equity Into Digital Courseware

Given the myriad ways inequity can creep into the design and use of digital courseware, it is important to identify the design dimensions (e.g., the technical and curricular capabilities of the courseware) and pedagogical elements (e.g., how instructors employ courseware for instructional purposes) that can facilitate the intentional use of digital courseware for equity. Applying insights from a literature review I conducted in partnership with Ithaka S + R for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, I developed the Equity-First Framework for Digital Courseware. This framework offers a set of six dimensions that are central to cultivating expansive learning in online modalities: (a) interactivity and relationality, (b) individuality and differentiation, (c) critical consciousness-raising, (d) culturally responsive and student-centered pedagogy, (e) data-driven decision making, and (f) accessibility and full participation.

What might these dimensions mean for tangible features of design and teaching practice? Table 1 offers a set of considerations for courseware designers and instructors seeking to center equity in their design and use of digital courseware. Practitioners can use these questions to audit whether and how they are integrating equity-first practices into their work.

Table 1. Overview of the Equity-First Framework for Digital Courseware

Courseware Design	Dimensions	Pedagogy
Does the courseware allow students to interact with each other and their instructor? Through which mediums?	Interactivity and Relationality	Is the instructor skilled at facilitating (a)synchronous virtual interactions between students?
Does the courseware provide opportunities for differentiation and individualization of learning goals and objectives? How adaptive are these processes?	Individuality and Differentiation	Does the instructor appropriately individualize and differentiate course instruction to meet the diverse needs of their students?
Are the curricula used in the courseware attuned to issues of power and privilege?	Critical Consciousness Raising	Are the instructor’s pedagogical practices responsive to issues of power and privilege?
Are the curricula used in the courseware representative of the languages and cultural practices of the students they seek to serve? Are the curricula used in the courseware centered around student experience?	Culturally Responsive and Student-Centered Pedagogy	Are the instructor’s pedagogical practices both relevant and responsive to the languages and cultural practices of the students they seek to serve? Do these practices supplement the courseware’s curriculum when it does not appropriately reflect their students’ cultures?
Does the courseware support the routine and systematic collection of course data (including grades, attendance)? Are the data transportable?	Data-Driven Decision Making	Does the instructor use disaggregated qualitative and quantitative data to identify equity gaps in their course? Are data disaggregated by race, ethnicity, and gender?
Do the courseware’s curricula promote multiple pathways for access and full participation in the course? Does the courseware come standardized with accessibility features such as text-to-audio, audio-transcription, alt text for photos?	Accessibility and Full Participation	Is the instructor aware of and prepared to engage extant resources to support students’ ability to access digital courseware (i.e., disability services, financial and technological resources)?

The field of higher education is at a critical juncture—faculty and administrators are being called to intentionally be responsive and accountable to the needs of racially minoritized and economically disenfranchised students. Many instructional faculty are eschewing a “Sage on the Stage” model of teaching and learning in favor of evidence-based pedagogies that have been shown to support student learning and engagement for our most vulnerable students. As digital courseware has the potential to eradicate racialized, classed, and ableist disparities in student performance, faculty and administrators must cultivate learning experiences that recognize, respect, and amplify students’ interests and strengths. This type of transformative work requires a fundamental reimagination of teaching and learning. A core part of this paradigm shift demands recognizing that equity-minded change demands an ecological approach. No one tool or “best practice” can loosen the grip of racism’s hold on higher education without cultural and systemic change. However, institutions can foster collaboration among instructional designers and instructors to create digital tools and online learning environments that not only improve academic outcomes for minoritized students but also center opportunities for students to develop and enact critical consciousness and self-determination. Providing these stakeholders with targeted support for putting this framework to action through professional development and establishing communities of practice can contribute to practitioners’ critical reflection and transformation of their practice to foster more just virtual classroom communities. Historically minoritized students deserve nothing less. 

I thank my thought-partners at Ithaka S+R, especially Michael Fried and Martin Kurzweil, for their generous engagement and comments on this manuscript.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Aireale J. Rodgers

  Aireale J. Rodgers is a Research Assistant in the Pullias Center for Higher Education at the University of Southern California. Her research explores how to design interpersonal and organizational learning that facilitates critical race consciousness in postsecondary education.