Universities are often filled with layers of assumed knowledge that are woven into the everyday systems, structures, and customs of their learning spaces. These embedded vocabularies, epistemologies, and educational structures are identified in the SoTL literature as “The Hidden Curriculum,” the unwritten rules and unset expectations that not only inhibit learners (such as communication styles, assessment norms, course expectations, and more), but more broadly, can often uphold and reproduce race, class, and gender-based hierarchies that educators looking to work within principles of EDIA would do well to address.
This interactive workshop will invite university educators to identify, interrogate, and critically address this hidden curriculum in their teaching. Participants will explore how implicit academic conventions at the wider institutional level and within specific learning spaces can be made transparent though inclusive and universal design for learning (UDL) frameworks.
This session will guide attendees in developing practical strategies for highlighting the hidden curricula for their students through guided reflection, case studies, and collaborative discussion. Participants will come away from this workshop with the skills to make their classrooms more inclusive and transparent spaces, by empowering their students with the academic literacy, cultural awareness, and confidence needed to navigate higher education more equitably and successfully.