Using an equity lens in course design

• In Event: Problematizing the decolonization of digital learning to envision course design and learning in a digital society

Proposal

Despite the digital divide needing improvements for both physical and non-physical access and equitable representation in knowledge, it is beginning to narrow, with the decolonization of the digital landscape (Meighan, 2021). Decolonizing pedagogy requires that we critically wonder about knowledge and how we approach knowledge in ways that reinforce the “monolithic, monocultural, mono-epistemological academic traditions” (Biermann, 2011, p.386). This approach is concerned with what counts as knowledge and how it is represented and reshaped by power. As Kanu (2006) noted, we must decolonize the space of education, but to do this, we must decolonize the mind; in other words, we must be open to negotiating our own biases to develop a shared understanding. Digital learning and its associated pedagogies, “can help to realize higher education as an entry into new spaces and cultures of reasoning and understanding.

Author

• Krystle Phirangee, University of Toronto