Simple Strategies for Achieving Equity in the Classroom.

This guide helps Wisconsin educators at all grade levels and in all content areas identify specific methods to help them achieve equity in their classrooms. Although most suggestions are simple ones, others may require some time to develop new ways of teaching, grading, and interacting with students. The following strategies are outlined in this document: (1) instructor verbal and written communications; (2) instructor classroom materials; (3) topics, content of courses; (4) physical classroom setting; (5) classroom assignments and projects; (6) interaction between instructors and students; (7) agenda for staff inservice training on the pupil nondiscrimination statute (Wisconsin statute 118.13); and (8) role of a local equity coordinator. An appendix contains the following information: (1) goals of equity in schools; (2) locus of control; (3) some definitions; (4) examples of attributional styles; (5) teacher feedback that provides a message to students' attributional styles; (6) implications for educators; (7) classroom interaction; (8) eight print and two video resources; (9) the economic costs of discrimination; (10) social costs of discrimination for females and males; (11) male/female differences in educational achievement--how women and men lose; (12) does language have an impact on attitudes and behaviors?; (13) process for selecting unbiased instructional materials; and (14) checklist for identifying bias in resource materials. (NLA)