Last week’s Academy Forum on inclusivity was one of the best-attended sessions this year. It was great to see so much interest and commitment in developing more inclusive teaching. This session was delivered in partnership with Student Support Services. Accessibility Advisor Nicky Cashman provided staff with information on demographics at AU as well as support available to students.  

The session started from a broad question of ‘what does inclusivity means to you’ (see the word cloud we created above). After Nicky’s introduction, we moved onto a scenario-based activity. Each group was given one scenario to work with. Every few minutes each group received and an additional piece of information providing them with a broader perspective of the situation.

The scenarios can be found at the bottom of the post.

The activity was followed by a whole-group discussion. Staff talked about a ‘duty of care’ towards their students and the extent to which they are expected and should be monitoring their students. We also talked about the balance between taking care of individual students and the needs of the entire cohort. The group looking at scenario one rightly pointed out that more inclusive practice would be to ensure that students are pre-assigned to groups, to avoid situations when someone is excluded. A discussion on when alternative assessments are appropriate and where additional support in completing existing assessments would be more suitable. Finally, the importance of establishing trust with students as well as checking in with students who may show early signs of difficulties was discussed.

We are very grateful to Nicky and all staff who attended and contributed to this session.

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The Academy Forum provides a platform for sharing good practice in learning and teaching. The Forum is open to members of the University community: teaching staff, postgraduate tutors, support staff, and students are all welcome. All forums will be held online for the year 2020/21 and you can book your place on the Staff Training Website.

The two Academy Forums running in the next few months are:

27.01.2021 (15:00-16:30): How can I plan online and in-person activities?

In this session, we will discuss differences in designing and conducting sessions in three different formats: online, in-person and blended. As part of the session, attendees will be required to work with their colleagues in designing an activity for one type of delivery. The group work will be followed by reflecting on and discussing different approaches taken and their suitability regarding various sessions’ formats. We will collectively identify factors essential for effective teaching in an online, in-person and blended design.

19.02.2021 (10:00-11:30): How can I make my teaching more inclusive?

In this session, we will discuss the benefits and challenges of making teaching more inclusive at university and we will explore these ideas through a series of group-based scenarios. We will also be joined by a member of the Student Support team who will give a brief overview of the student demographic at the University; strategies that are in place to deal with issues relating to inclusivity; and some practical tips on how you could make your teaching more inclusive.  

We will also be running other Academy Forums throughout the rest of the academic year, including:

24.04.2021 (14:00-15:30): How can I embed wellbeing into the curriculum?
28.04.2021 (14:00-15:30): Preparing students for assessments
24.05.2021 (14:00-16:00): Reflections on this year’s Academy Forum

We hope that you will be able to attend these forums. Please contact us with any questions (lteu@aber.ac.uk).

For the last Academy Forum in Semester One we chose one of the most common topics raised by teaching staff; how to motivate students, particularly when it comes to online learning?

The first part of the session was a general discussion which started from reflection on when we feel most motivated and it revealed factors such as:

• When there is external pressure (deadline) 
• When it is enjoyable
• When it involves other people 
• When the tasks are not that difficult, important or multifaceted
• When you receive positive feedback

Attendees also shared their strategies for keeping themselves motivated:

• Switching between tasks
• Breaking big projects into smaller tasks
• Asking yourself why do you need to do it?
• Completing a smaller, manageable task and using the ‘success high’ and motivation that comes with it to work on something else
• Complaining less about having to do it and just getting on with it
• Using lists and being able to cross things off
• Setting realistic targets 
• Looking after yourself (trying to see work in perspective)

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In the next Academy Forum this year we explored the why and how of helping students to reflect on their learning. Our discussion started from the attempt to define what reflection is.  Using the polling software we gathered initial thoughts from the attendees which touched upon different aspects of reflection including learning, challenging assumptions, noticing, evaluating and thinking about an action.

“Put simply, reflection is about maximising deep and minimising surface approaches to learning.” (Hinett, 2002 as cited in Philip, 2006, p. 37). Students who adopt a more surface approach to learning and students who have little interest in the topic are more likely to view any assessment as a means to an end. However, students who adopt a deep approach, committed to understanding the topic, and those who take the time to think about feedback are much more likely to improve their future performance. The difference between the two approaches (surface and deep) is that the ‘deep’ learner reflects on experience. Reflection is also a way of getting students to realise that learning is about drawing on life experiences, not just something that takes place in the lecture theatre. It helps students to think about what, why and how they learn and to understand that this impacts on how well they do (Philip, 2006).

As reiterated by Race (2002 as cited in Philip, 2006, p.37): “Reflection deepens learning. The act of reflecting is one which causes us to make sense of what we’ve learned, why we learned it, and how that particular increment of learning took place. Moreover, reflection is about linking one increment of learning to the wider perspective of learning – heading towards seeing the bigger picture. Reflection is equally useful when our learning has been unsuccessful – in such cases indeed reflection can often give us insights into what may have gone wrong with our learning, and how on a future occasion we might avoid now-known pitfalls. Most of all, however, it is increasingly recognised that reflection is an important transferable skill, and is much valued by all around us, in employment, as well as in life in general.”

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