D642 Empathy and Inclusive Collaboration, catalog number PWS 2300, is a three CU professional skills course in the WGU School of Business covering the recognition of implicit and explicit bias and effective collaboration in culturally diverse groups. Sincerity is assumed in this course. What gets scored is specificity, and that is where most submissions fall short.
Specific beats sincere
PWS 2300 attracts more well meant, unscoreable writing than almost any other course in the School of Business. The reason is structural: the subject invites statements of value, and statements of value cannot be assessed. A paragraph affirming that diverse teams perform better tells an evaluator nothing about your competence. An account of a meeting where one person's contribution was consistently attributed to somebody else, what you noticed, what you did in the moment, and what changed afterwards, tells them everything.
The second thing this course examines is whether you can discuss bias mechanically rather than morally. Implicit bias is a cognitive phenomenon with a research literature, and treating it as a character flaw makes it harder to write about, not easier. The productive framing is that these patterns are ordinary features of how humans process limited information quickly, that they produce measurable effects in hiring, evaluation and turn taking, and that the interesting question is what structures reduce them.
The third scored element is action at the level of process rather than attitude. Attitudes are unverifiable. Processes are visible: a rotating chair, structured turn taking, criteria agreed before candidates are seen, written contributions collected before discussion. A submission that proposes structural changes is answering a rubric; a submission that proposes being more aware is not.
Turning scored aspects into a section plan
Scoring detail lives in your Course of Study, so start there and count the aspects. Each is judged separately against a three point scale and each requires a 2, so a strong analysis of bias does not compensate for a thin section on collaboration practice.
Give each aspect its own heading using the rubric's own nouns. In a course where the writing tends towards essay, headings are the single cheapest structural improvement available and they prevent the most common return, which is an aspect answered somewhere in a paragraph about something else.
The word budget, worked. Take six scored aspects and directions calling for about 1,600 words. Hold back 120 words for an opening that names the group and the setting, and 100 for a close. That leaves near 1,380, about 230 per aspect. Then shift 40 words out of each definitional aspect into the aspect covering what you did in a specific interaction and the aspect covering the structural change you proposed. Definitions of bias are freely available and cheap to write; applied examples are the scarce material and deserve the words.
A structure that fits an inclusive collaboration deliverable
Where your directions specify a structure, use theirs. Where they do not, this ordering matches how the aspects tend to be written.
| Section | What belongs in it | How it gets read |
|---|---|---|
| Setting | The group, its composition, its task and how decisions were made in it | Composition without decision process makes later analysis impossible |
| Bias identified | A specific pattern observed, described behaviourally rather than as an accusation | Behavioural description is both fairer and more scoreable |
| Analysis | The mechanism behind the pattern, supported by literature | Where sourcing separates analysis from opinion |
| Your own position | Where your perspective shaped what you noticed and what you missed | Self examination that names a specific blind spot, not a generic admission |
| Action taken | What you did, said or changed, and how it landed | Scored on specificity; intentions do not count |
| Structural proposal | A change to process that would reduce the pattern without relying on goodwill | The strongest available evidence of practical competence |
| Evaluation | How you would know whether the change worked | Frequently missing; it converts a proposal into a plan |
Describe behaviour rather than labelling people. A submission that says a colleague is biased invites an argument that cannot be resolved. A submission that says the same colleague interrupted two of the three team members disproportionately across four meetings is describing something observable, and observation is what an evaluator can score.
Evidence craft on a sensitive subject
This is a course where evidence discipline protects you as well as the work.
- Anonymise people properly where directions call for it, and check that role descriptions do not identify someone by implication.
- Cite research for every mechanism you name. Claims about attribution, affinity or stereotype effects come from studies and should be attributed to them.
- Prefer counts to impressions. Noting that one person spoke in two of six agenda items is stronger than saying they were sidelined.
- Separate what you observed from what you inferred about intent. Intent is rarely knowable and rarely necessary to the argument.
- Use current sources. This literature moves, and a source from decades ago used as the sole support for a contemporary claim is a weak foundation.
- Use APA throughout and keep direct quotation minimal.
The most valuable single addition is a description of your own error. Naming a moment where your own assumption shaped a decision, and what you did after noticing, satisfies self awareness aspects with evidence rather than with assertion, and it is far more convincing than any statement of values.
What separates Competent from a submission sent back
Aspects score independently, and returns in this course tend to hit the applied sections while the conceptual ones pass.
- Every general claim about bias is attached to a source.
- Every observed pattern is described behaviourally and, where possible, counted.
- The action you took is specific and its effect is reported honestly, including if it fell flat.
- The structural proposal changes a process rather than requesting better intentions.
- An evaluation measure exists for the proposal.
Performance assessment work at WGU can be revised and resubmitted without a grade penalty, so a return costs time rather than standing. Terms run six months at a flat rate, which makes the professional skills sequence the cheapest place to build momentum early in a term.
Six mistakes that cost time in D642
- Writing a statement of values. Affirming the importance of inclusion is not evidence of competence in producing it.
- Labelling instead of describing. Behavioural description is both fairer and more useful to a rubric.
- Unsourced psychology. Bias vocabulary used without citation is one of the easiest weaknesses for an evaluator to spot.
- Proposals that depend on goodwill. Asking people to be more aware is not a structural change and cannot be evaluated.
- Omitting your own position. A submission where the writer is a neutral observer misses an aspect the course is built around.
- No measure of success. A change with no way to tell whether it worked is a suggestion, not a plan.
Structural changes that survive a rubric
Because the strongest sections of a D642 submission are the practical ones, it helps to know what a defensible structural proposal actually looks like. The common feature is that it changes the conditions under which decisions are made, so that a good outcome does not depend on everyone behaving well.
In meetings, that might mean collecting written input before discussion so that early speakers cannot anchor the group, rotating who chairs and who summarises, or tracking speaking time for a few sessions and sharing the result without comment. Each of these is small, cheap and observable, and each produces data you can point to.
In evaluation and hiring, it means fixing criteria and their weights before any candidate or piece of work is seen, scoring independently before discussing, and requiring that any deviation from the criteria be written down. The mechanism is not moral improvement; it is removing the freedom to reinterpret standards after the fact, which is where most unequal outcomes are actually generated.
In everyday collaboration, it means making attribution explicit, recording who proposed what in notes, and creating a norm where anybody can ask the group to return to a contribution that got passed over. Then attach an evaluation to whichever change you propose: what you will count, over what period, and what result would tell you it had not worked. That final sentence is the one that turns an essay into a submission a rubric can reward.
How support works on this course
Send the rubric from your Course of Study and the task directions. What comes back is aspect mapped: a structure that separates observation from analysis from action, help finding and citing the research behind the mechanisms you name, and revision support that pushes generalities into specifics. Your observations and your self examination stay yours, because they are the part of this course that cannot be supplied by anyone else.
Terms are six months at a flat rate, and the four professional skills courses share enough structure that clearing them in one stretch is materially faster than approaching them separately.
Questions students ask about D642
Is D642 the same course as PWS 2300?
Do I have to write about my current workplace?
Can you write my reflection on bias?
Where D642 sits in WGU's programs
The July 2026 catalog places this code in 3 current WGU programs. Open a program page for the complete standard path and term positions. The live Degree Plan remains authoritative after transfer credit, substitutions, and mentor planning.
The assessments, one by one
The public catalog does not publish this course's PA/OA identity or task count. WGU Tutors publishes at most one PA manual per course and only from a WGU-controlled public rubric. Until that source exists, PA help begins from the student's real Course of Study and OA support remains preparation only.