What is inclusive curriculum design?

Educators across all grade levels and subjects shape how their students view personal identity, culture, community, and how we understand our place in the larger world. We shape belonging. With intention, our choices can affirm identity, foster inclusion, and help students see their place in the human story.

Mike Matthews of Authentic Education and Monique Vogelsang of Humanizing History are partnering together to offer a 3-day Understanding by Design workshop,  Inclusive Curriculum Design: Backwards Planning For Equity and Belonging, that explores the question: “How do we tell the human story?”

Transform your teaching by registering for this 3-day intensive now.

Sample UbD units backwards designed with inclusivity, equity, & belonging front of mind.

We’ve put together some sample units that capture the intentional use of backwards planning for equity and belonging across various grade levels and subject areas. These are just a starting point and there is so much more we will dive into during the workshop.

Can change happen without hope? Can hope exist without change?

9th Grade English: Rewriting the World: Young Voices on Hope and Transformation

Stories can inspire hope, but they can also reveal its fragility and the barriers that limit change. In this unit, we’ll explore modern short stories by young authors from around the world, grappling with moments when hope fuels transformation, when change happens without it, and whether one can truly exist without the other.

How might I navigate this moment?

5th Grade Advisory: Navigating Constancy and Change: Exploring Emotions and Self-Regulation

A month-long exploration of regulation that considers emotions, individual needs, and how our experience, such as trauma, shapes our interactions with the world around us. This unit, designed for the start of students’ middle school journey, grounds student-centric learning in practices and philosophies from a range of cultures, philosophies, and times in our world’s history.

How can statistical reasoning help us better understand, challenge, and ultimately change inequitable systems?

12th Grade Advanced Statistics: Leveraging Inferential Statistics to Understand Our World: An Exploration of Housing & Racial Segregation in the United States

Data tells a story—but who gets to tell it, and what does it reveal (or hide) about the world we live in? In this unit, we’ll use statistical reasoning to uncover, question, and challenge patterns of racial segregation in housing, exploring how data can be both a tool for justice and a barrier to change.

How do we construct (and refine) the story of the physical world?

10th Grade Science: Elements of Discovery: A Global Story of the Periodic Table

Science isn’t just a series of breakthroughs—it’s understanding we construct and refine over time. In this unit, we’ll explore stories of untold collaborations and overlooked contributions behind the periodic table, challenging who gets credit and how our understanding of the physical world continues to evolve.

What defines a family?

Pre-K Interdisciplinary: Exploring Families

Families come in all shapes and sizes, and no two are exactly alike. In this unit, we’ll explore what defines a family and the many ways people show and celebrate love and belonging around the world.

How does who’s holding the camera shape the story being told?

11th Grade Visual Arts: Photography as a Tool for Social Change

Photography is a powerful medium and the photograph is just as much a part of the story as the person holding the camera. In this unit, we’ll examine various photographers from the United States and countries around the world to explore the ways they used their cameras to make an indelible impact—as a vessel of everyday storytelling to a compelling tool for social change.

Why do we eat what we eat?

4th Grade World Language: Investigating Food Science and Stories to Enhance Our Understanding of the Spanish Language, Histories of Indigenous Peoples, and Current-Day Culture

Across time and place, people have developed scientific innovations that have greatly impacted their region, and sometimes the larger world! In this unit, we’ll examine the miraculous innovation of foods Indigenous to the Americas—including corn, chocolate, and potatoes—and how such foods shaped language, culture, and global history.

Swifter, higher, stronger: How do Olympic ideals shape our stories?

2nd Grade Physical Education: A Cross Cultural Study of the Games, Athletes, and Countries that Participate in the Winter and Summer Olympics

Guided by the motto of “Citius, altius, fortius,” or “swifter, higher, stronger,” The Olympics give us an opportunity to celebrate both individual talents and our collective strength. The Summer and Winter Olympics are global events that bring together thousands of athletes and more than 200 countries across the world. In this unit, we’ll examine the various kinds of games that are played, the histories of these games, and the stories they tell. With a goal of enhancing global awareness and citizenship, we’ll review the stories of different sports and their athletes. Our study will culminate with students creating their own games to play, as they co-design a student experience that mirrors the Olympic games.

What sparks change?

3rd Grade Social Studies: Analyzing the Intersections of Changemakers and Climate Justice

Changemakers are all around us and work in many fields—they can be writers, educators, mathematicians, and scientists! In this unit, to better understand how some people have committed their lives to mitigate climate change, we’ll review the biographies of changemakers who worked in various scientific fields. By studying everyday levels of advocacy, such as the development of city gardens, to studying global icons like Wangarĩ Maathai, and documents like the United Nations’ Actions for a Healthy Planet, we will examine actions all of us can take to make positive change and support efforts of climate justice.

Who is welcome… and who gets to decide?

Middle School History & Civics: How Patterns of Migration and Immigration Policy Shape a Nation

For tens of thousands of years, human beings have migrated across the planet, often in search of opportunity and refuge. In a modern context, such movement has been either encouraged or hindered based on geopolitical contexts, including immigrant laws and policies. In this unit, through case studies of specific eras in U.S. history, such as Ellis Island and Angel Island, we’ll analyze immigration laws, and communication across national media, to understand how policies can impact demographics and larger society.

Inclusive Curriculum Design

Backwards planning for equity and belonging

Join Mike Matthews & Monique Vogelsang for a 3-day intensive to expand your thinking about best practices for including underrepresented voices, untold stories, and broader perspectives into your curriculum design, resulting in more inclusive and culturally expansive units.

Register now at ae.training/Inclusive.

Are you looking for more Professional Development opportunities this summer?

Authentic Education is also offering our Leading Curricular Change workshop for teachers and school leaders. Early bird registration ends 3/31/26, so apply now.