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Learning Environments and Inclusion by Design 

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Learning Environments and Inclusion by Design 

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Can be effective in increasing, participation, agency, and inclusivity in larger sessions.

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This research study was conducted in 2018 and resulted in an instructional system designed to support university instructors that seek to promote student agency in lecture-based learning environments. The objective of the study was to design and test an instructional system that supplements the traditional lecture and provides opportunities for the development of agentic engagement. In support of the instructional system design, the study examined ways in which university undergraduates used a digital backchannel, determined if using a digital backchannel affected agentic engagement, and identified the features of a digital backchannel that influenced student agency. The study employed a mixed methodology design using a questionnaire to collect quantitative student profile data and phenomenography to conduct a qualitative inquiry into participants' experience. The population for this study consisted of undergraduates at a private, international university located outside of Bangkok, Thailand. A total of 171 participants took part in this study, with ten students selected for a focus group through a non-probability, purposive sampling. Overall, the study found that a lecturing system that employs the strategic use of a digital backchannel can promote student agentic engagement. Student agency and instructor effectiveness were both positively influenced through the employment of an instructional system.

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A Lecture-Based Instructional System to Promote Student Agency

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This research study was conducted in 2018 and resulted in an instructional system designed to support university instructors that seek to promote student agency in lecture-based learning environments. The objective of the study was to design and test an instructional system that supplements the traditional lecture and provides opportunities for the development of agentic engagement.

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Safe spaces for learners to share experience and challenges

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Safe spaces for learners to share experience and challenges

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Forums can be used to anonymously share their experiences and challenges. Lecturers and course leaders can respond to posts and use the feedback to develop approaches to teaching and learning for the future teaching and learning.

Check in 15 minutes can be used over coffee as a safe space chat and as a lecturer we can just be nearby to capture the needs, wants and any challenges to enable us to adapt our practice across the weeks enabling our approach to adapt to our learners and groups.

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 Open Access: Sanger (2020) 'Inclusive Pedagogy and Universal Design Approaches for Diverse Learning Environments' 

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 Open Access: Sanger (2020) 'Inclusive Pedagogy and Universal Design Approaches for Diverse Learning Environments' 

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Sanger, C. S. (2020) 'Inclusive Pedagogy and Universal Design Approaches for Diverse Learning Environments', in Sanger, C. S. and Gleason, N. W. (eds) Diversity and Inclusion in Global Higher Education. Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 31-71.  https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-981-15-1628-3_2

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Catherine Shea Sanger

Chapter

Inclusive Pedagogy and Universal Design for Learning

Inclusive Pedagogy and the Universal Design for Learning framework offer practical tools and big-picture perspectives that help us harness student diversity for learning.

Inclusive Pedagogy is an approach that aims to make learning as accessible and welcoming to all students as possible.1 Some authors use the term 'inclusive pedagogy' primarily in the context of racial, gender, cultural, and socio-economic diversity.2 Others used it in the context of differently abled or special-needs learners.3 Across these different applications, inclusive pedagogy offers a critique of what is sometimes called a 'deficit approach'. The deficit approach assumes or demands that disadvantaged or marginalized students put in extra effort and get any additional support they need beyond the classroom. By contrast, inclusive pedagogy seeks to embed equitable access and opportunity for success within the classroom and curriculum. As articulated by Florian and Black-Hawkins, inclusive pedagogy 'is underpinned by a shift in pedagogical thinking from an approach that works for most learners existing alongside something "additional" or "different" for those ( some) who experience difficulties, towards one that involves providing rich learning opportunities that are sufficiently made available for everyone, so that all learners are able to participate in classroom life'.4

Although the term inclusive pedagogy has sometimes been applied to specific learner identities or dimensions of diversity, it is applicable across very different types of students and classrooms. From this more encompassing perspective, students with more and less normative cognitive abilities should have full access to course materials, just as students from more and less-resourced secondary schools should have equal understanding of their professors' assessment criteria. For this reason, inclusive pedagogy literature emphasizes equitable access to course materials and the importance of professors being transparent about their expectations of students.

Central to the concept of inclusive pedagogy is belonging, and research showing that feelings of belonging promote student engagement and learning.5 We promote a sense of belonging when we select topics, authors, assignments, and activities with student diversity in mind. We teach students to engage with each other rigorously and with respect when we deliberately articulate class expectations and discussion guidelines. We also instil a sense of belonging when we humble ourselves enough as faculty to solicit student feedback and input as the class unfolds. These actions signal the professor's enthusiasm for the diversity in their class and desire to support all students' learning experience.

Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is similarly a framework that is broadly inclusive, without being hyper-individualized. The concept of UDL was elaborated and popularized by the Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST) in the 1990s and has subsequently become widely disseminated. As conceptualized by CAST, UDL encourages educators to provide: (1) multiple means of engagement-the 'Why' of learning; (2) multiple means of representation-the 'What' of learning; and (3) multiple means of action and expression-the 'How' of learning.6

The notion of UDL, as articulated by long-time proponent Sheryl Burgstahler, is 'to maximize the learning of students with a wide range of characteristics by applying UD principles to all aspects of instruction (e.g., delivery methods, physical spaces, information resources, technology, personal interactions, assessments)'.7 Rather than waiting to learn that a specific student needs additional or specialized support, the UDL approach encourages educators to plan their curriculum and pedagogy to anticipate broad diversity in student learning needs and proclivities. A UDL approach focuses less on the narrow accommodation of specific disabilities or identities, and more on a holistic approach to boosting everyone's learning.

UDL was initially focused on supporting students with varied learning abilities, but lends itself naturally to culturally diverse and international learning contexts.8 Most tactics that benefit one group or type of learners benefit others as well. For example, complementing verbal lectures with visual aids helps not only students who may have hearing impairment but also those who are unfamiliar with the professor's accent or vocabulary.

UDL is sometimes misunderstood as advocating hyper-individualized support. This is not the case. The idea behind UDL is not to apply resource-intensive 'spot treatments' for individual student needs. Instead, UDL integrates broader structural changes that make our classes more engaging and accessible for all, regardless of specific student needs or required accommodations.

To illustrate, a 'spot-treatment' approach for helping students with attention deficits or hearing impairments would be to provide a designated note-taker for each individual student who qualifies for assistance. UDL draws our attention to the fact that many other students would benefit from seeing their peers' notes, even if they do not have an official 'disability' or 'condition' that confers such an accommodation. For example, seeing peers' class notes would be useful for students who are new to the language of instruction, first-year students who are new to collegiate academic habits, or students who are new to the discipline being taught and therefore unfamiliar with the professor's jargon. Given this, a professor might create a low-stakes assignment where students sign-up for a week to be responsible for anonymously sharing their notes with the entire class. Such an assignment will help students who have difficulty taking their own notes, but has the added benefit of exposing all students to different note-taking methods, which could be an important academic skills-builder for the entire class.

There is compelling evidence that taking this holistic, UDL approach to student learning and integrating multiple modes of instruction enhances learning for all. Far from expecting professors to tailor lessons to each individual student and their perceived 'learning styles', new research emphasizes the importance of exposing all students to diverse formats and learning processes. Students may believe they learn best by listening or by using visual aids, but evidence suggests most students do not have a single 'learning style' and in fact learn best when exposed to a range of modalities and representations.9

An enthusiastically inclusive approach makes a difference for students in the quality of learning and their interest in learning. In the voice of one student, as reported by UDL practitioner James Lang:

What we don't want is to be made to feel like we are a burden to you because we have requested accommodations. Many of us already have this feeling that we're burdening you, and it really helps if you can treat us like you want us to be in your course. We're not asking for accommodations to make your life difficult, or because we're trying to get away with something. We want to be in your course. We just need your help learning the best we can.10

Strategies for Inclusive Teaching

Teachers can apply the following strategies to diverse higher education settings in order to foster student belonging and learning. Consistent with UDL, the techniques offered here are not organized primarily around types of diversity or difference. Instead, most strategies promote learning and a sense of belonging across multiple dimensions of diversity.

Following the UDL approach, instructors do not need to know each student's personal backstory to be an effective or inclusive teacher. However, especially when faculty are teaching outside their own cultural milieu, and do not have familiarity with their students' educational or social context, it is valuable to learn about the identities and backgrounds in your classroom. For example, when the author relocated from the United States to Singapore, it was important to learn that almost all Singaporean males do two years of National Service prior to attending university, a feature of local context that has implications for pedagogy, especially when teaching first-year students. There are a number of ways of acquiring information about your educational context, from reading up on local history to meeting with Admissions officers to inquire about student demographics and educational backgrounds.

Although UDL is geared towards creating broadly inclusive learning environments, inclusive pedagogy research tells us that students do appreciate having their individual identities and lived experiences acknowledged by professors. You can signal you care about students as individuals by surveying them prior to the start of the term to learn basic information like nationality, languages, prior education system, perceived learning preferences, preferred gender pronouns, etc. Gathering this information allows you to acknowledge diversity in your class, and follow-up with individual students to make sure their needs are being met.

As such, some inclusive pedagogical strategies do require knowledge about individual students. For example, the following strategies help leverage information about students' backgrounds to enhance learning:

Meet individually with students and ask about their transition to college and prior educational experiences. Consider mandatory office hours appointments for first-year students. If you are teaching a large class, consider scheduled group office hours to get students accustomed to visiting you outside of class in small batches.

Administer an anonymous intake survey or reflective writing activity to better understand the prior knowledge of your students. Share the information you received in anonymous form back with the students, which will help them see that while they may all have different personal histories, they probably share some common hopes and fears.

Give students an opportunity to share relevant personal information without forcing them to reveal information they prefer to keep private. For example, if you are teaching a smaller class, invite information but give students choice over what they share, e.g. 'Please share anything you would like us to know about your name, gender pronouns, educational background, learning needs, and learning goals'. (This approach depends heavily on local context. In an institution or country where being transgender is illegal or highly stigmatized, or where people with special learning needs are ostracized, you may not want to encourage students to share information that could make them vulnerable to violence or exclusion by peers or other professors.)

When assigning group work activities, intentionally pair students with more and less prior experience so that the more experienced students can help guide their less experienced peers.

Additionally, the following techniques do not require information about specific students but can still contribute to making your classroom inclusive of students with differences in an educational context.13

Explicitly acknowledge the various degrees of prior exposure among students, and solicit a discussion of prior learning environments and comfort zones.

Create reflective activities (discussions, writing activities, silent reflection) throughout the term that prompts students to think about how their prior knowledge has been amplified, disrupted, or applied in the class. These do not need to be graded or even collected by the instructor to have a learning benefit for the students.

Consider how your speech includes or alienates. Ask yourself if you routinely use words or references that are likely to be alienating to students from different educational backgrounds than you are used to. For example, using a sophisticated vocabulary can help students expand their own linguistic repertoire, but using 'fancy', unfamiliar words can also serve to intimidate and hinder comprehension. If you tend to use more esoteric language, consider telling students at the beginning of the term that they should ask if you use words they do not know, or they should write it down and look the words up after class. You could even give students participation credit for identifying and looking-up new words used during class, which signals that you do not expect students to already know all the words you are using.

Here are some specific suggestions for encouraging effort and signaling confidence in your students' ability to learn.

Share your own academic struggles and how you managed setbacks and times of uncertainty. Modelling that it is okay to be uncertain, and that learning is a process, may inspire students to be open with you about their struggles so you can help them learn.

When you see students putting in effort, acknowledge and encourage it. This can be through verbal encouragement in the moment, or even an email after the fact (e.g. 'Hello Jin, I was really impressed with the patience and perseverance you showed today during the lab experiment. Your attitude sets an important example for the whole class. Keep up the effort and good work').

Ask students to report not only their answers but also the process they took to arrive at those answers. Provide feedback on process as well as final product.

Make it okay to be unsure. Signal that all students belong and can thrive in your class by suggesting resources that students with less prior knowledge of your discipline or teaching style can use to catch up over the first few weeks. Invite students to meet with you if they feel confused or are looking for additional resources.

This sense of self-doubt and inferiority is compounded if students come from cultural contexts where it is considered weak or unbecoming to ask for help. In such contexts, students cannot get helpful advice from family and may feel they cannot reach out to peers or professors for assistance either. This can lead to feelings of isolation and discouragement.

This confluence of potentially alienating dynamics makes it important for faculty to proactively explain the rationale and strategies for success in their classes, and reiterate to students the resources that are available to help. For example, rather than just sharing your office hours' time and location, explain what office hours are designed for and how students can use this one-on-one time with you.

Success in college requires effort, but knowing where to focus that effort is not intuitive to all students. Being explicit with students about academic success strategies like closely reading the syllabus, doing outlines and drafts of essays, sample lab notes, and clarifying assignments with faculty during office hours can help.

Here are some more specific tactics for promoting transparency in your teaching.

It may be obvious to you why you have given students a particular activity or assignment, and how it will be evaluated. But for some students, this is not at all clear. To make your classroom inclusive to all, apply the TILT (Transparency in Learning and Teaching) framework and try to be as transparent as possible with your students about what you are asking them to do, why you are asking them to do it (e.g. what will they learn from it), and how you will evaluate their work.20 You can also help students transition to college by being explicit about things like email etiquette and how you want them to present themselves in class.

Some faculty feel that giving explicit advice on how to do well gives an unfair advantage to lazy students because it provides a short-cut for students who would not take the time to figure out how to succeed on their own. From an inclusive pedagogy perspective, we worry even more about the risk that students from different cultural or educational backgrounds from their professor might learn less because they do not feel empowered to ask the professor for help, and do not understand how to succeed in class. Failing to coach students for success privileges students from a shared cultural and educational background or better-resourced secondary schools, not students who are inherently more hard working.

When possible provide examples of what you consider to be high quality or exemplary work and, very importantly, the process students can use for achieving those results. Professors sometimes worry that sharing examples will dampen student creativity or lead to copying. If those are concerns, make it clear to students that you will reward intellectual risk-taking and what constitutes productive versus unproductive forms of deviation from the disciplinary norm.

You can help students help themselves by actively encouraging them to take full advantage of all academic support resources including office hours, peers both in the class and out, tutoring, faculty advisors, librarians, counselling centres, etc. If you feel comfortable doing so, you may want to share an example of how you took advantage of such resources during your education or how you have seen it make a difference for other students.

Explain in detail why these expectations matter to you and why your students benefit from investing in those skills or knowledge. For example, as more and more universities are moving away from emphasizing rote learning and towards critical thinking and communication skills, in-class participation becomes a more important part of the learning experience. However, many students come from secondary school systems where students were not encouraged to speak during class. Some students come from educational contexts where the students' job is to listen and absorb knowledge, and the professors' job is to impart knowledge. In such educational environments, students ask questions, and professors give answers. If this has been your educational experience since birth it is not at all clear why, once you get to university, the professor would be asking the questions and expecting the students to answer! The value of learner-centric teaching is not intuitive for those inculcated with other educational norms. If you emphasize discussion and active student contributions, be explicit about what that looks like and how students can get better at it.

Teaching students using different formats and types of learning activities will help reduce inadvertent bias and give all students opportunities to cultivate and demonstrate learning.

When designing lessons, consider what barriers might exist for different types of learners in accessing and processing information in your class. How would students with less familiarity with your language, cultural references, or pedagogy engage? How might students with vision impairment, or attention deficits encounter your class? For example:

If your primary delivery method is visual, consider complementing that with verbal information. Provide verbal descriptions while projecting pictures, graphs, and charts and/or ask students to describe in words or in writing what they see and what it means. This will deepen all students' comprehension of the ideas you are trying to convey, and give them practice in visually processing information. And for students with vision impairment or who are unfamiliar with the representational formats of your discipline, listening to peers describe the visual materials will help them understand the content even if they cannot process it visually the same way as their peers.

Conversely, if you often transmit information in pure lecture format, consider sharing the transcript of your lecture so that students who may have difficulty integrating verbal information can complement lectures with a written format. This would help students with low hearing or auditory processing disorders, but also those who may be unaccustomed to your accent or jargon in the course. Some faculty are concerned that sharing lecture notes will discourage lecture attendance. However, there are other methods that can be used to boost attendance like implementing low-stakes quizzes or integrating more interactive mid-lecture activities. Moreover, it may be a worthwhile trade-off to give students who really want to learn more ways of understanding the course material by sharing transcripts, even if that means some of the less-motivated students skip lecture. Some students may even be able to achieve adequate learning and perform well on assignments without attending lecture, in which case it may be reasonable to let them decide whether or not to attend. But if lecture adds considerable learning value independent of the transcript, then students who are motivated to succeed in the class should also remain motivated to attend. This author's approach is to prioritize making learning as accessible as possible for students who put in effort, over coercing attendance by students who do not value the lecture.

Incorporating different types of activities and teaching methods will make your classroom more inclusive of students with different prior experiences and learning strengths.21 Here are several formats that can be integrated into many types of courses.

Lectures with visual aids like images, charts, graphs, or videos offer an effective combination of visual and auditory learning.

Lectures with interactive tools like clickers and PollEverywhere prompt students to learn material by taking actions and making decisions, also enhancing student attention.

Informal discussions of a prompt chosen by the professor or by the class help students think and learn by 'talking things out' and hearing differing perspectives across the class.

Formal discussions are more structured presentations or debates that may be especially beneficial for students who prefer to develop a script and refine their ideas internally before speaking out loud.

Small group or paired activities can feel safer or more productive spaces for intellectual exploration than whole-class discussions for some students, especially when students come from secondary education systems that emphasize collaborative work over speaking aloud during class.22

Writing in real time on a chalk or white board by the professor or by students can enhance and clarify what is being said during a discussion. The writing could take many forms, such as lists, causal diagrams, or mind-maps.

Writing in real time on an online discussion board projected on a screen creates opportunities for anonymous contributions, which might be useful if teaching students who are unfamiliar and lack confidence contributing verbally to in-class discussions.

Reflective writing exercises, especially when they are not shared with peers, can serve as a private, more personal exercise to stimulate analysis and critical thinking, and allowing students to take intellectual risks without fear of 'sounding stupid'.

Creating student-to-student learning opportunities helps maximize the gains from a diverse classroom. Create class-time activities and assignments where peers can support each other and bring their different talents together for shared success. Some research has found that peer support is not only important for students' emotional and social transition to college but also a very important factor in academic success.23 Peer support is especially important for first-generation college students, who will often feel peer advice is more valuable than family advice on academic matters.24 Organize study groups or review sessions for all students, perhaps making attendance mandatory or incentivized. Explicitly creating space for student-to-student learning signals the importance of collaborating with peers in learning. There are many different approaches and formats that support peer-to-peer learning.25

Think-Pair-Shares: Students are given a prompt to think and possibly write about, then paired with another student and asked to share what they came up with. This combination of individual and interactive processing activates different kinds of learning and can be a more comfortable way for students to express themselves verbally than speaking up during a whole-class discussion. These can be very short activities (1 minute to think, 2 minutes to share) or more drawn-out exercises. These work in large and small classes.

Jigsaw Activities: For a particular session students are assigned to small groups A, B, and C, with each group given a different task or prompt for discussion. After completing the discussion/task, representatives from each group reconfigure themselves so that new groups are composed of at least one A, one B, and one C representative. They then share what they learned/produced in their initial groupings. This activity can occur during a single class meeting, or across more than one session.

Research Exercises: Students can apply and extend course content by engaging in research activities with one or more partner, either in a single class session or over the course of several weeks.

Field Trips/Experiential Learning Activities: The whole class or small groups can be assigned to venture into the 'field', be that a museum, estuary, or bus station. Pairing or grouping students across diverse identities and backgrounds can make these experiential learning activities more illuminating as students interpret and take actions across diverse lenses.

Problem-Based Learning: Students work in groups to solve a problem, one that often does not have only one possible answer or resolution. The groups must determine what they need to know and do in order to solve the problem, and members work together to implement a plan of action. Groups may work together over for a short or longer duration.26

Team-Based Learning: When implementing TBL, the class is divided into intentionally diversified teams and members work together over the duration of the course, allowing the group to build capacity, trust, and collaborative skills. When creating teams, it may be advantageous to consider if certain students might feel isolated or overpowered by their peers. If there are students who are underrepresented in the class, for example if there are only two female students, you may want to put them in the same group so they can support each other. In TBL most class-time is dedicated to team-work. Like PBL, in TBL students gain practice applying course content and skills to novel and complex problems.27

Collectively, the recommendations below support students with disabilities and health impediments, who may be unfamiliar with your discipline or pedagogy, and those from cultural and educational contexts that differ from your own.

Combining different modes of assessment can help you evaluate a wider range of student learning. One possibility is even to give students the option of how they want to demonstrate their learning-through oral presentations, written essays, or visual representations-or to give students the option to complement traditional essays or exams with more personalized submissions as well. Consider, for example, integrating a mix of the following formats.

Written assignments in traditional academic formats such as descriptive or analytic essays.

Written assignments in journalistic, fictional, creative, or other formats.

Verbal presentations (individual or team-based).

Visual presentations and representations (posters, videos, photographic displays-individual or team-based).

Online discussion forums or blogs.

Some faculty will assume that students understand why they did poorly on an assignment, or that they did poorly due to lack of effort. That is not always the case, especially if you are asking students to demonstrate and process learning in novel ways. Students who are unfamiliar with your pedagogy and discipline may not know how to improve upon the work they submitted. Feedback is an essential way to help them advance. Here are some suggestions to enhance the quality of your feedback when teaching in diverse contexts.

Give honest, direct, and constructive feedback.

Recommend concrete steps to improve their work.

Provide feedback promptly so students improve across assignments, thereby building confidence and commitment to continued effort.

Encourage students to come to your office hours for additional advice as needed.

When they are available, direct students to additional resources such as tutoring, a writing centre, or library, rather than just saying 'this needs improvement'.

Share an exemplar with the entire class, and have the class discuss in detail what makes that particular work so successful.

While being clear and honest in feedback, it is also important to consider your tone and how students from different cultures might receive feedback. Ways of communicating vary considerably across different national and sub-national cultures, and across different personalities. Some communicative styles are more direct, conflict-tolerant, and emotionally expressive while others are more indirect and less overtly emotional. Additionally, some cultures have clearly differentiated formal versus informal communicative modes (one for home, another for work) while others adopt an informal communication style in classroom or professional contexts.30 These differences in communication style can unintentionally impede faculty from giving students helpful feedback.

For example, faculty members with more conflict-tolerant communication styles than their students might be accustomed to directly disagreeing with or correcting students during a classroom exchange. But for students who are unaccustomed to direct disagreement, who come from cultures that emphasize 'saving face' during public interactions, they may interpret a professor's critique as 'my professor hates me' or 'I must be really stupid'.

Misunderstanding feedback across communication styles can also operate in reverse, for example, if students from more formal educational cultures have instructors with informal, 'friendly' styles of expression. In such a situation, a faculty member who tends to use an encouraging, supportive tone might inadvertently give their students the inaccurate impression they are doing well in the course. Students will subsequently feel betrayed when they get low grades. Explaining your cultural context and feedback style early in the term, and being as clear in feedback as possible, can help students accurately interpret your feedback.

Another method of inclusivity in assessment is to consider untimed exams. Exams are not just opportunities to demonstrate knowledge. The act of taking a test also contributes to learning. For this reason, we want test-taking to be as inclusive as possible, because we want learning to be as inclusive as possible. Two of the most common learning accommodations students receive are extra time on exams and the ability to take exams in private rooms. These accommodations are recommended for students with a range of testing constraints, including dyslexia, attention deficits, and anxiety. Moreover, the individuals who are formally granted learning accommodations are hardly the only students in your class who would be able to learn more and perform better if exams were untimed. Consider whether speed is an important skill you are trying to teach, and if so, whether you have taken the time to teach students how to fulfil your expectations quickly. If not, consider letting all students take their exams on their own time.

Admittedly, timed exams are convenient for faculty, as they do not need to proctor long exams or find a time all students can be in a room together for an extended period. It may be worth considering, then, whether your students can take the exam independently, at their own pace and in their own space. This approach has the added benefit of not using up valuable in-class time on testing.

Students who come to study from different countries or under-resourced secondary schools may have less practice doing the kinds of assignments that are common at their new university. Consider giving all students the opportunity to submit drafts for peer review, or to redo their first assignment if it is disappointing. This is a way to incentivize students to take your feedback seriously, and signals your commitment to support your most hard-working students. For example, you might give students the opportunity to rewrite a mid-term essay or rerun an experiment for one-third of the original grade. If you primarily assess student learning through exams, consider having a second exam for those who want to try again, and tell students you will give them the average of the two exam scores. Another option is to let students write a reflective memo after receiving their assignment feedback, discussing what they achieved in the assignment, and where they went astray. Admittedly, providing these 'do-overs' is a time-consuming practice for faculty, as it requires writing a new exam or grading a new submission. It may not be a realistic option for faculty who have big classes and high teaching loads. But finding ways to encourage students to integrate feedback, such as a small grade boost for simply submitting a revised version of an assignment, may be worthwhile even in large classes.

Bias can sneak its way into grading and assessment despite our best intentions. We might have affection for a student who shares our hobbies or seems to be working very hard in our class. We might feel a particular loyalty to a student who has served as a research assistant, or who is especially helpful during lab clean-up. It is of course wonderful when faculty can develop special mentoring relationships with individual students, but assessment should be a bias-free indicator to the student and to the professor of whether learning is being accomplished.

One way to reduce the risk of bias in your grading practices is to use rubrics with transparent and stable evaluative criteria. The act of creating a rubric helps faculty be clear in their own minds about what they assessing. If you are teaching students with varied linguistic backgrounds, consider in particular how much you want the final grade to reflect writing clarity, organization, grammar, etc. Rubrics also promote transparency with students. If you worry that providing a rubric will result in boring, formulaic essays, reports, or presentations, you can add in 'bravery' bonus points to encourage creativity and bold arguments. (See Chapter 3 'Beyond Fairness and Consistency in Grading' for more information on designing rubrics.)

Another helpful practice is to remove students' names from their submissions to keep biases out of your grading practices. Some faculty like to know who they are grading so they can reward progress and hard work by students who may have struggled in the past. It may be safer to grade anonymously initially, and then subsequently take effort and trajectory into account as part of bonus points or participation grades.

Students from similar cultural and educational systems to their professor's may be performing better not because they have learned more in the class, but because they are conforming to norms of expression the professor finds familiar and therefore more desirable. To the extent that you want to reward learning and not prior training and privilege, you may need to be very explicit with students about your standards, and provide the resources to help students achieve those standards.

To that end, ask yourself whether you are grading what you yourself have taught, or if you are primarily grading students' prior knowledge and educational background. For example, consider how much you want to penalize a student's grade for poor essay organization if you have not provided any instruction on what constitutes a quality essay for your class. Similarly, if you require student presentations but do not offer guidance on what constitutes a good presentation, it may be unfair to significantly penalize a student for speaking too quickly or putting too much text on their slides. This is another reason why rubrics are helpful because they help professors determine and communicate to students what they are assessing and how much weight to give different components of an assignment.

It is perfectly natural to extrapolate from our own experience when thinking about how to help students learn. Unfortunately, a professor's personal experience may not be terribly relevant or helpful for all students. Take some time to contemplate whether you have historically rewarded and favoured students who think like you, who share your learning or expression styles, and whether your pedagogy assumes students learn best the same way you do. These unconscious tendencies can disadvantage students with different learning styles, strengths, and educational backgrounds. For example, you may develop your own thoughts by 'talking things out' but other students may achieve greater insights and comprehension through free writing exercises. This is why it is so valuable to integrate many different formats of learning and assessment activities.

What worked for you during university is not necessarily helpful for your students. University professors are a rare breed, and are probably not representative in their interests or intellectual habits of most university students. Rather than projecting your own experience, inquire about how your course fits into students' larger educational path and development goals. Ask them about what has worked best for them in terms of teaching technique and learning style in the past. If you teach a large class, you can even ask these sorts of questions through an anonymous survey at the beginning of the term. These questions will help students reflect on their own learning preferences, which is productive for learning in and of itself.

Additionally, depending on the university type and context, recognize that many (probably most) students do not share your career goals. University faculty are extremely diverse in many ways, except one: almost all faculty members have attended graduate school, earned a doctorate or similar advanced degree, and taken up careers as university educators. Your students will pursue a much more diverse set of careers and post-graduate opportunities. Even if students currently aspire to be like you, ten years after they get their degree the economy and job market is likely to have shifted in unpredictable ways.

Consider whether your teaching is designed for students with varied life goals and career aims, or whether you are teaching primarily for future academics like yourself. For example, many faculty default to assigning research essays, but integrating other types of assignments like videos or posters can help develop students' communicative repertoires. Consider how you can design your courses in ways that will benefit students with more diverse career paths ahead.

The goal of inclusive pedagogy is to centre multiple viewpoints and identities in your course. Especially if you are teaching students from different countries and cultural traditions, proactively diversifying your syllabus and course content will help students feel that they belong, which in turn will help them learn.31

Students often appreciate having the opportunity to share their perspectives and background, but typically resent being expected to represent their entire country, continent, or race. This is especially the case for students from less-represented countries, who may be tired of answering basic and even insulting questions about their country and culture. Creating space for students to share personal experience can deepen learning and student motivation to learn, e.g. 'did this passage resonate with any of you personally?' This is different from demanding a student share from personal experience or on behalf of a particular identity group, e.g. 'Sana, you are Pakistani - tell us what it is like to grow up female in a Muslim country?'

As a professor, you can set an inclusive tone by inviting everyone to share what they know about a given topic. In general, avoid 'tokenizing' students by expecting individual students to speak on behalf of an entire nation, region, race, or culture.

Having students from across the region and the world in your classes also means some references, words, and phrases that might be 'common knowledge' in your context will be foreign to others. For a British professor, illustrating a point by referencing 'the distance across The Channel', might be an obvious reference to the body of water between England and France. But students from other regions might wonder what you are talking about. Chanel, the fashion label? Or the waterway between Singapore and Malaysia? If you catch yourself using a reference or phrase that might be culturally contingent, take a minute to explain what you mean so all students get the benefit of the analogy or point you are trying to make.

You can contribute to a sense of belonging for students by assigning authors of different gender identities, case studies from a variety of regions, and scholarly perspectives that might be underrepresented in your discipline. If possible given your subjectmatter, use diverse examples and regional references in seminars and lectures. If broad representation is not an option in your discipline, acknowledge these imbalances to your students and invite critique. If an essential textbook only uses male pronouns, or if a historic document uses language which is considered derogatory and hateful in contemporary discourse, acknowledge this and give students an opportunity to discuss and process. If possible, show examples of scholars or other figures who can serve as role models to students from a variety of communities. Be conscious of how you use examples of historically marginalized peoples. For example, integrate examples of people in desirable roles and making leadership contributions, not only in positions of oppression and victimization that reinforce negative and demeaning stereotypes.

You may not have pursued a career in academia in order to make students feel socially included, but that is a power you now have.

Faculty can help students feel included by accepting the leadership role they have in class. Students will look to professors for direction in difficult moments or when they feel alienated by something that happens in class. You can show you care and help maintain a productive learning environment by acknowledging difficult comments and following-up with impacted students outside of class when necessary. When a student makes an insulting or derogatory comment about traditionally marginalized communities, and a professor stays silent it can validate the ignorant comment. Silence by the professor harms the student who made the comment, as they miss the opportunity to become more reflective and inclusive communicators. Silence also harms students from marginalized identities, reinforcing feelings of vulnerability and exclusion.

While rooted in an American cultural context, the University of Michigan's Center for Research on Learning and Teaching and the Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching web sites have excellent, generalizable and practical resources to help faculty prepare to respond to difficult classroom situations or 'hot moments' inclusively and in ways that promote student learning.34

In diverse learning environments, with students and faculty of such varied backgrounds and identities, it is likely that someone will not realize that what they are saying is offensive or hurtful to those from different backgrounds. Faculty have power in the classroom and can enhance inclusion by taking responsibility for naming such comments, rather than expecting the most vulnerable and underrepresented students to educate and correct each other in these areas.

Conclusion: Reflect, Learn, and Listen

This chapter has highlighted the value of proactively anticipating and incorporating students' diverse backgrounds and interests into pedagogy and course design. The techniques described here are drawn from the Inclusive Pedagogy and Universal Design for Learning approaches, which are designed to enhance belonging and learning for students in diverse higher education contexts.

Perhaps the best way to create an inclusive classroom is to be conscious and critical of your goals as an educator, and on any biases or blind spots you or your discipline may have that would pose barriers for learning in your classes. In particular, it is important to reflect on whether you have historically rewarded and favoured students who think like you, who share your learning or expression styles, and whether your pedagogy assumes students learn best the same way you do. These unconscious tendencies can disadvantage students with different learning needs and educational backgrounds. We have all been exposed to biases and stereotypes that may impact the way we see and operate in the world. The more we come to terms with those biases, the more we can work to prevent them from damaging our teaching.35

For example, reflect on whether you tend to call on particular students first, and why. The answer might be straightforward and simple: 'because those students always raise their hands first'. But consider why some students feel more comfortable or emboldened to speak than their peers. It might be because they come from cultures or education systems that emphasize speaking up during class. It might be because they hold privileged identities that empower them to speak, whereas other students have been exposed to subtle but consistent messaging that their voice is not welcome. As a teacher, you have the power to help other students find and use their voice. You can take steps to make speaking up during class more inclusive, and therefore more educationally impactful.

Ask yourself whether students of different genders and nationalities are contributing equally. If not, ask yourself if there is something you can do to invite all voices into the conversation-perhaps starting with group work, or assigning students specific speaking roles. One tool that might be helpful is to have your class videotaped, and then watch for gender, ethnic, or other dynamics at play in how you teach, and how students operate in the classroom. You can also ask someone to sit-in on your course with particular attention to inclusivity.

Soliciting input directly from students on whether they feel included and supported in the classroom is another powerful tool. The very act of asking is likely to make students feel valued, and motivated in your class. There are many options for this, including office hours, in-class conversations, mid-semester evaluations, and anonymous student feedback via online course management systems. For example, include a question on a mid-term feedback exercise like 'How comfortable do you feel participating in this class?' or 'How inclusive do you find our classroom dynamics to be with regard to nationality, gender, socio-economic background, and other forms of diversity?'

Knowing the popular discourses around diversity, inclusion, and education can also help you to anticipate students' desires and expectations. It is especially valuable to keep in contact with shifting generational discourses on these topics. Students are generally not experts in pedagogy, but they are experts in their own perceptions and personal experience of pedagogy. You may disagree with students about what constitutes desirable teaching or appropriate classroom behaviour, but it is still useful to understand their perspectives and perceived needs. You can monitor evolving ideas about teaching and learning by reading student newspapers, attending community dialogues and events, following the education section of your favourite journals and newspapers, participating in webinars or conferences through the education journals and associations in your area or discipline.

Cultivating an inclusive learning environment facilitates deeper student learning in many dimensions. Thoughtful reflection about where you are teaching, who you are teaching, and how you are teaching will help to harness student diversity for learning and avoid doing unintentional harm. As more research becomes available on mechanisms for inclusion across diverse higher education contexts in Asia, we will have more nuanced and contextual resources for inclusive teaching in the region.

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Inclusive Pedagogy and Universal Design Approaches for Diverse Learning Environments

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Catherine Shea Sanger Chapter Inclusive Pedagogy and the Universal Design for Learning framework offer practical tools and big-picture perspectives that help us harness student diversity for learning.

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AdvanceHE: Inclusive curriculum design in higher education

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AdvanceHE: Inclusive curriculum design in higher education

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https://www.advance-he.ac.uk/knowledge-hub/inclusive-curriculum-design-higher-education

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The Higher Education Academy commissioned this guide to support the higher education sector to think creatively about inclusive curriculum design from a generic as well as subject or disciplinary perspective.

The guide is divided into four sections as below. For ease of access the different sections and subject specific guides are all published as separate documents. Section one includes a contents page providing links to the other 26 documents that make up the full publication.

Section one: Introduction and overview

Section two: Generic considerations of inclusive curriculum design

Section three: Subject specific considerations

Section four: References and resources

All sections can be accessed below.

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Inclusive curriculum design in higher education

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USW's Internationalisation, Inclusion, and curriculum course 

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USW's Internationalisation, Inclusion, and curriculum course 

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https://unilearn.southwales.ac.uk/webapps/blackboard/content/listContentEditable.jsp?content_id=_7573707_1&course_id=_180729_1

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oer.pressbooks.pub/openteach/chapter/the-pedagogy-of-care

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create a dialogue between mentor/mentee that meets the needs of what they are meant to be getting out of the arrangement

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Why and how would we do that?
Dr Theo Gilbert - University of Hertfordshire
Abstract: This article reports the effects (on students' social and learning experiences) of supporting students in the use of explicitly compassionate interactional strategies during their weekly seminar interactions. Also reported is the impact of this practice on individual performances in critical thinking in seminars.

Methods: Findings of a cross disciplinary search on compassion were used to design a compassion focussed pedagogy (a CfP) for the university seminar. This pedagogy was then trialled, through action research, in two departments in a UK HEI. N=97 Humanities under and post graduate students and n=60 Business undergraduates participated in subject seminars that were run using the CfP. Template analysis was used to identify themes in the qualitative data sets: field notes of observed behaviours in seminars run with and without the CfP, films of assessed CfP seminars (n=48 students), and interviews and focus groups (n=33 students). In a final participating business module of ethnically diverse students, statistical analysis explored the effects of the CfP on individual critical thinking performances (n=38).

Findings: Overall, students were attitudinally inclined to increase efforts over time to enhance their own and others' social and learning experiences in seminars through compassionate behavioural interventions during discussions; they achieved, or failed to achieve this, in observable ways that were seen and agreed to be appropriate to assess as credit bearing towards their under and post graduate degrees by five out of five external examiners. Students found eye contact - inclusive, excluding or avoidant - was critical to mediating the spread of participation in their seminars. Findings also suggested, tentatively, the potential of the CfP to substantially change the national attainment gap in terms of critical thinking in seminars.

Introduction

Across disciplines, compassion is defined as the noticing of distress and/or disadvantage to self or others, and a commitment to take action to reduce it (P. Gilbert, 2005; Goetz et al, 2010). For the purposes of discussion based university seminars, compassion can be understood as a cognitive process: a problematic issue is identified - such as the behaviour of a monopoliser, a shy non-contributor, a non-reader - and its significance for the group's learning and social experience is evaluated; then a plan is formulated (and when, possible, executed) to address the issue kindly and proactively. This process appears to require some cognitive resourcefulness. But compassion is a skill that can be practised like any other problem solving process and people can become proficient at it (P. Gilbert, 2005).
This study selected the university seminar room as a highly appropriate space for students to practise the cognitive processing that compassion demands; it is where people work in groups on task focussed discussion - face to face, and with tutors present to observe and help. Of interest to the study was that much literature suggests the negative impacts of communicative barriers between students in task focussed groups, are faced by BME and/or international students only. For example, in the literature on internationalising the curriculum, Turner (2009) identified that ethnocentrism amongst her local students was causing communicative barriers in their group work with international students. The local students tended to pathologise the silences in group discussions that the international students told Turner they needed if they were to find a way into these discussions. Elsewhere, in the USA, Page-Gould et al's (2008) study found high levels of cortisol (a stress indicator) in Latino university students when they were paired for discussion with white American students. In the UK, the National Union of Students (2009, p7) identified from a survey of 938 BME (including international students), that many considered their learning experiences to be negative, with 23 per cent describing it as 'cliquey', 17 per cent as 'isolating'; 8 per cent as 'hostile'. International students, "frequently expressed feelings of isolation and alienation" (p5). Of direct relevance to my study's exploration of compassion in the seminar room, the NUS concludes

The report recommends that FE and HE work harder "to promote social cohesion and better integrate their student bodies" (p61). It states that "social inclusion" and "social cohesion" (p61) "could be achieved by increasing discussion and interactive work within the classroom" (p61).

One difficulty I have with the above research is that, as a teacher of Academic English for 20 years, I have found in my own research that all of the above difficulties (Turner, 2008, 2009; Page-Gould et al, 2008; the NUS, 2009) happen amongst and between white, local UK students too (T. Gilbert, 2012). The results of a study of staff and student HE experiences in India and the UK suggests why. The study, conducted by Thornton et al (2012) across five HE campuses, found that language, nationality, race, region, class, caste, religion and age groupings were all "clearly identified by students and staff as the basis for separation" (p8). Thus, a greater research focus on solutions that address deeper psychosocial levels of shared, not different, human experience is needed now. This must take account of the necessarily competitive nature of the HE academic environment, but a careful (re)consideration of what kinds of competitive behaviours HE should nurture and value may be currently overdue (Chickering, 2010). On the basis of the situation outlined so far, and because scholarship in anthropology has identified that the concept of compassion is understood and valued across cultures (Feather 2006; Schwartz and Bardi, 2001), I formulated the following research question for this study:

Methods

Below are the pedagogical and the research methods used. First, for the pedagogical methods, Fig 1 shows the CfP frame work for a whole module of seminars, and Fig 2 shows the links between the behavioural strategies this framework offers - and the literature findings. After pedagogical methods, the research methods used to address the above question will be explained.
Fig 1 - The Compassion-focussed pedagogy for seminars (the CfP)
The Pedagogical Methods

The speed meeting (seminar one, Fig 1, above) was to help prevent clique formations and to support the transparently stated goal of collegiality across the whole seminar group instead.

Then the literature on compassion (see Fig 2 and its key) was summarised to students: how compassion is defined across disciplines and why self-compassion is less tenuous and problematic than self-esteem (Neff, 2003a, 2003b; Kingston, 2008). Students were then asked to consider in small groups the following two questions suggested by a Market Research business lecturer:
Fig 2 - Seminar relevant acts of compassion and their theoretical underpinnings.

What do I contribute to the learning experience of my fellow students that they most value in me?

What do my fellow students contribute to my learning that I most value in them?

Key:

(1) Students sharing, in the first seminar, their previous experiences of seminar discussion work that might have been negative. Scott (1990), an anthropologist, explains how revealing previously hidden transcripts (accounts) of personal experience can change the dynamics in a group immediately. From the perspective of psychology, sharing such accounts means that people can feel validated; they discover they are not alone - others have had similar experiences (Leahy's Model of Validation, 2005). This can make people feel socially safer (P. Gilbert, 2009; Bates, 2005) to take risks, to think more clearly and to venture more.

(2) Paying close attention to fellow group members. Using video tapes of children in their classrooms, the linguistic ethnographer McDermott (1989) developed micro-ethnographic skills of noticing non-verbal signals, and the distress these were signalling, of so-called disruptive children in class rooms. In relation to this study, the first component of compassion is to notice. McDermott's study suggested that students might also be able to develop their skills at noticing, and reflecting on reasons for others' lived experiences of seminars: their silences, their hesitations, their monopolising and so on.

(3) Acting to prevent disadvantage to fellow students' social and learning experiences, by using any of the following strategies:

3a. Initiating and sustaining inclusive eye contact around the group whenever speaking, in order to:

i. Disrupt alpha pairs. Bion (1961), a group psychotherapist identified that in task focussed groups, there was a tendency sometimes for two people (an alpha pair) to assume leadership of the group, and then for others to come to rely on them in dysfunctional ways that disabled the group from task achievement.

ii. Interrupt individual monopolising behaviours. Yalom (1985) another group psychotherapist, identified that monopolisers blocked others out of discussion partly so that they should not be challenged or questioned. He noted that they sometimes dominated discussions because they were anxious but that to silence the monopoliser was not helpful to the group: "you do not want to hear less ...; you want to hear more" (Yalom's and Leszsz's italics, p378), i.e. more of substance. In a different vein, Chickering (2010) points to a strong current of neo liberalism in modern HE which he says has over-promoted students' individualistic competitiveness amongst, and at the expense of, their fellow students. Whether from Yalom's perspective or Chickering's, monopolising is what Nitsun (1996), another group psychotherapist, rightly refers to an anti-group behaviour.

iii. Encourage a more equal spread of vocal participation. From computer science, Vertegaal and Ding (2002) and Vertegaal et al (2003) discovered, by tracking eye gaze during group discussions via video conferencing, that where speakers' eye contact was inclusive of other members of the group, there were two consequences. The first was a more equal spread of participation around the group. The second was an enhanced quality of decision making processes by the group as a whole. This key finding in the literature indicated the possible role of eye contact in how Yalom's monopolisers and Bion's alpha pairs were setting themselves up to take control of the group in often, unconscious ways. My close observations of small group discussion interactions in a range of subject seminars confirmed this repeatedly (see a. i and ii, above).

3b. Initiating and sustaining inclusive vocalisation, as through:

i. Inviting quieter members to speak; validating and acknowledging each other's contributions.

ii. Grading/standardising English language use for effective international communication amongst culturally diverse students who might have different levels of familiarity with non-standard English (slang, colloquialisms and so on).

iii. Developing speakers' thinking processes through critiquing what they say (Yalom and Leszsz, 1985).

iv. Speaking concisely for management of the discussion time available and thus helping facilitate a more equal spread of participation.

Overall, except for (1) above, all of the above required students to observe for signs of appropriate action to be taken and this depended heavily on inclusive eye contact by any speaker, sweeping constantly around the group, to observe for such signals. Eye contact was also used as a follow up intervention in itself. For example, a colluder in an alpha pair and/or with a monopoliser could notice that situation and break eye contact gently with the partner (monopoliser) channelling it to others by looking at them instead of the monopoliser. This signal, pre-agreed with students in the first seminar, would send a signal to the over-talker that others were to be addressed also [c.f. Vertegaal et al (2003)].

Practical compassion in the seminar room: How can this be assessed?

The concept of compassion may not be a controversial one for some disciplines, but overall, it remains so in education. Here in Fig 3, the compassionate strategies were strategically re-termed, 'group management skills' by the subject tutor in order to keep the CfP in place beyond the study.

Fig 3 - Small group, research-based discussion: Marking criteria

The Research methods

The pedagogy framework in Fig 1 was used as a research tool to answer the research question.

The study adopted an action research approach, and was divided into two cycles. Cycle 1 was conducted amongst mainly white, local students in a Humanities department where n=105 students were observed in their seminars, some of whom n=14 participated in one-to-one interviews or focus groups. Cycle 2 was conducted amongst more diverse cohorts of students in the same HEI's Business department where n=135 students were observed, some of whom n= 19 participated in one-to-one interviews or focus groups. Five sampling methods and several data collection tools were combined to support the use of Template Analysis for comparative, thematic data analysis. Micro-ethnographic method was used to conduct close weekly observations of the seminars for interactional processes and possible critical incidents in these. Particular attention was given to how any of these processes or key incidents could be attributed to factors other than the introduction of CfP into these seminars.

In addition to qualitative investigation of the impact, if any, of the CfP on student participants' social and learning experiences, their individual academic achievement - specifically in the area of critical thinking - was also investigated. For this, Fisher and Mann-Whitney tests were used to carry out a statistical comparison of summative, individual percentage marks given for critical thinking in a sample module of 38 business students. The comparison was made between critical thinking marks achieved in two assignments on the participating module. Each assignment was marked and moderated by the same two business tutors. In particular, they double marked every individual seminar performance. These 38 students were ethnically diverse and so it was possible to compare the results they achieved in critical thinking - under compassion relevant conditions - with the national attainment gap of 18% that exists between white local and BME/international students (NUS, 2009). This percentage gap was similarly reflected at the study's host university. All assessed seminars in this study were filmed for external examiner inspection and researcher analysis, again using micro-ethnographic method.

Findings and Discussion

Effects on academic achievement in seminars: assessed critical thinking
Fig 4 - Summary of means of percentage marks per assignment on a module in Cycle 2
In relation to individual performances in critical thinking, the circa 18% national BME attainment gap (Broeke and Nicholls, 2007; NUS, 2009) was closed on the participant business module. Fig 4 below shows the mean percentage marks for critical thinking in the seminar discussion compared to critical thinking in the essay, for each local and international group.

Differences in the groups' means for the essay were tested with the Fisher test and the same test was then applied again to each group's mean for critical thinking (CT) in seminars for which the p value was p>0.05. Taking the results of these tests together, the differences between black local, ethnic minority local, international and white local students' CT marks were statistically different for the essay and so showed an attainment gap. However, in contrast to the national attainment gap and that of the university, the seminar percentage marks showed no statistical difference between the groups for critical thinking performance. This is not explained simply by the difference between a written and oral assignment even allowing for other factors.
Fig 5 - Differences in % marks for critical thinking between ethnic groups for essay and for CfP seminar discussions
More than half of the students (21 out of 38 students) achieved higher marks for critical thinking in their assessed seminars than their essays. The increases ranged from 10% to 40% for over a third (n=13) of the whole sample. These are too large and too many to be attributable entirely to non CfP-related factors. Most of the major upward shifts in CT marks, from essay to seminar, occurred amongst local black and local ethnic minority students.

A Mann-Whitney test was applied to compare between the white students and all other students - as a single BME category that included international students. This replicated the categorisation used by the National Union of Students in its 2009 study of the national (18%) attainment gap. Significant differences were found (p˂ 0.001) for the BME means for the essay compared to the white students, but for CT in the seminars, there was no significant difference between the BME students and the white students (p=0.195). Again, these findings for higher cognitive processing by participants under CfP conditions did not confirm the NUS's (2009) research findings on the national attainment gap.

On the other hand, this was a small sample; these results may not be replicated in other samples and so they are offered cautiously, pending further research.

Effects of the CfP on social and learning experiences

Mid module and post assessment student follow up interviews/focus groups corroborated the literature on why and how, if people feel safer/make each other feel safer in groups, they think faster, more integratively, more creatively (Cozolino, 2013; P. Gilbert, 2005, 2007; Bates, 2005). It appears these students' cognitive resources were not being drained into routine, social self-defence which derails cognitive function.

Overall, students became adept at interrupting excluding eye contact, including where this involved an individual over talker. In observations also it was found that monopolisers' responses to such interruptions appeared to be self-conscious, but also immediate, corrective and good humoured and that this was received with good humour and signals of approval by fellow students.

Some students modified the suggested CfP strategies originally offered, making the CfP an emergent practice that was conducted amongst and between students. It was seen on the fly as discussions unfolded, and with some flexibility, but there was consistent adherence to the core principle, as far as could be identified, of noticing or anticipating seminar-related disadvantage to others and attempting to remove or reduce it.

Cycle 1: Conducted amongst mainly white local students (n = 97)

Overall, despite the small sample size, analysis of cycle 1 data suggests that white local students were as subject to communicative difficulties in seminar discussions as international students. They feared being thought of as less articulate than others, saying something foolish, or giving 'wrong' responses to questions. The CfP appeared to be of use in addressing the affective states of some of these local white students, in that 12 out of 14 students provided evidence that they were becoming more aware of the help available from others, and of what they were also doing to help their fellow students achieve spread of participation and progress group thinking processes.

To this end, eye contact was a frequent theme.

Cycle 2: Conducted amongst nationally and ethnically diverse students (n = 60)

With notable similarity to what had emerged from cycle one, themes emerging from cycle 2 also related to students' feelings of immediate responsibility for their own and others' social and learning experiences:

As in cycle 1, eye contact was a frequent theme. In cycle 2 it appeared in the transcripts of 14 out of 19 participants in interviews and focus groups with students linking this explicitly to enhanced learning as well as enhanced social experience:

Across the study as a whole though, two local white females, one in each cycle, appeared to feel themselves under threat during the CfP seminars and both made it obvious to others that they wished to avoid contact with them. In interviews, both students then recounted previous critical episodes or incidents of severe social stress amongst peers in education, including at school. However, by the end of their respective modules, both students appeared to have made some progress towards social integration with a number of other students in the seminars.

Overall, participant students were found to use the CfP as a legitimising platform, a license, from which to readily access and enact compassion. This position was held and sustained by students under live assessment conditions despite the irremovable, potential risks in this of sometimes consciously curtailing their own individual, competitive performances. Also, unexpectedly, it was found that the CfP strategies were being used by some participants beyond the action research study - for example, in job interviews, the work place and on other modules. In all cases of use beyond the study, students identified specific, positive outcomes.

The inclusion of summative assessment/course credits for compassionate behaviours appeared to positively motivate students to attempt compassionate group management, regardless of their ethnic or national status. This could be partly because compassion is a cross-culturally valued concept (Goetz et al, 2010; Immordino-Yang and Damasio, 2007; Schwartz and Bardi, 2001). Students did not use the compassion pedagogy differently according to whether they were local or international. This finding does not reflect the ethnic or national distinctions between students that are made in key texts on fractured, divided student communities (NUS, 2009; Harrison and Peacock, 2010; Turner, 2009; Leask, 2005). For this study, such distinctions were not only unhelpful and irrelevant; they were also found to be methodologically unreliable. Students (including local students) of supposedly one national or ethnic identity were found to have multiple such identities, as suggested might be the case by Cantle (2012) and Zapata-Barrero (2013).

Conclusion

Out of this action research with compassion-focussed pedagogy, the CfP is being used in several modules in two departments in a UK HEI for credit bearing purposes towards degree programmes. It has been approved and/or commended by five out of five external assessors so far. Given this, and with a theoretical base that is robust and still developing from sister disciplines to support and defend them, HE educators have the right to work closely, critically and explicitly with the concept of compassion in their seminars and tutorials. These are part of the university experience of millions of students, around the world, every day. The seminar has an untapped role to play in contributing to building more collaborative societies, locally and globally.

⇠ Read 'Is there a place for rote learning multiplication tables...'Read 'Edpurpose...' ⇢

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Page-Gould, E., Mendoza-Denton, R. & Tropp, L. (2008). 'With a little help from my cross-group friend: Reducing anxiety in intergroup contexts through cross-group friendship'. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 95(5), 1080-1094.

Schwartz, S.H. & Bardi, A. (2001) 'Value hierarchies across cultures: Taking a similarities perspective'. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 32, 268-290.

Thornton, M., Bricheno, P., Iyer, P., Reid, R., Wankede, G. & Green, G. (2012) 'UK and India Education Research Initiative (UKIERI) outcomes and strategies for change: Widening participation and social cohesion amongst diverse, disadvantaged and minority groups in higher education'. In M. Thornton & G. Wankede (Eds.), Widening participation and social cohesion amongst diverse, disadvantaged and minority groups in higher education. Mumbai: Tata Institute of Social Sciences.

Turner, Y. (2008) 'Knowing Me, Knowing You', is there nothing we can do? Pedagogic Challenges in Positioning the HE Classroom as an International Learning Space. Keynote for UKCISA/HEA Conference: Using the Curriculum to Integrate International and Home Students, June 2008

Turner, Y. (2009) 'Knowing me, knowing you, Is there nothing we can do? Pedagogic Challenges in Using Group Work to Create an Intercultural Learning Space'. Journal of Studies in International Education, 13(2), 240-255.

Vertegaal, R. & Ding, Y. (2002) 'Effects of eye gaze on mediated group conversations: Amount or synchronization?' Proceedings of the 2002 ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work. New Orleans. pp. 41-48

Vertegaal, R., Weevers, I., Sohn, C. & Cheung, C. (2003). 'GAZE-2: Conveying eye contact in group video conferencing using eye-controlled camera direction'. Proceedings of theSIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. Lauderdale.

Yalom, I. & Leszsz, M. (2005). The theory and practice of group psychotherapy. (5thed.). New York: Basic Books.

Zapata-Barrero, R. (2013) 'The three strands of intercultural policies a comprehensive view'. GRITim Working Paper Series No.17, Summer 201 (Barcelona Universitat Pompeu Fabra)

LINK 2016, vol. 2, issue 1 / Copyright 2016 University of Hertfordshire

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Dr Theo Gilbert - University of Hertfordshire Abstract: This article reports the effects (on students' social and learning experiences) of supporting students in the use of explicitly compassionate interactional strategies during their weekly seminar interactions. Also reported is the impact of this practice on individual performances in critical thinking in seminars.

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creating a classroom that is welcoming and where all students' voices can be heard

staff wellbeing, too

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Work with students, HoLTSEs and learning technologists to select appropriate and inclusive assessment types from the assessment tariff including offering student choice of assessment

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Work with students, HoLTSEs and learning technologists to select appropriate and inclusive assessment types from the assessment tariff including offering student choice of assessment

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To consider what skills students will need in their careers and to find employment, not just 'typical' skills -- more holistic

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https://designingfordiverselearners.info/

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The project aims to produce simple guidelines to support best practice learning material design.

Always…

Avoid…

Avoid difficult to read text. Do not use as all capitals, small font sizes and cursive or script fonts.

Avoid centre or right text alignment and full justification.

Avoid complex and cluttered layouts. Do not use multi-layered menus or complicated lists.

Avoid manual formatting text to convey headings, meaning or structure.

Avoid the use of all capital letters, underlining and italics for heading styles or emphasis.

Avoid using uninformative hyperlinks and never use ‘click here’.

Avoid the use of colour or shape as the only way to convey meaning.

Avoid low colour contrasts and the use of text over images or patterned backgrounds.

Avoid using one means of expression, especially when using media or explaining challenging concepts. Avoid unclear or overcomplex alt text.

Avoid providing audio and video without an alternative representation.

Avoid automatically playing media content and forcing control by use of a mouse or touch screen alone.

Avoid assuming your content is accessible without testing it

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Simple guidelines to support learning material design. These practices will benefit every learner. not just those who may require specific adjustments.

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Consider other forms of feedback beyond written, e.g. oral

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Use what we have to check accessibility (e.g. Ally)

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Accessibility of learning resources. Utilise a range of approaches to meet the needs of all students (eg podcasts, oral feedback).

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Accessibility of learning resources. Utilise a range of approaches to meet the needs of all students (eg podcasts, oral feedback).

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CELT Universal Design for Learning Guide for text based resources.

CELT Universal Design for Learning Guide for lecturers, workshops, seminars, and other synchronous learning activities.

CELT Universal Design for Learning Guide for asynchronous content and general use of the virtual learning environment.

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Give students choice of topic/focus to suit individual areas of interests, skillset, areas to develop, etc

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Where possible, give students choice of format in which they present their work -- suit different learning styles (e.g. visual, oral, written).

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Know your students, engage students in curriculum design, development, review. Work with HoLTSes and learning technologists to design inclusive learning activities (including student choice)

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Know your students, engage students in curriculum design, development, review. Work with HoLTSes and learning technologists to design inclusive learning activities (including student choice)

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https://umusic.co.uk/Creative-Differences-Handbook.pdf

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New EAL Website - with section on Inclusive and Accessible Active Learning

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Collaboration opportunities embedded in curriculum / leading to 2030 strategy planned in an inclusive way. Planning for appropriate support. Placement/ external partner relationships as well as internal

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Facilitating/ ensuring students know about/have access to: Library - study support
Disability services

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An inclusive design workshop for staff would be useful

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Explicit engagement with effective inclusion surfaced and evidenced through DPR commitments

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Fostering a culture where students can raise issues of inclusivity and exclusion

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Provide a range of assessment opportunities

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Connect to the new Assessment for Learning Principles and Framework 

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Connect to the new Assessment for Learning Principles and Framework 

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Principles 2 and 7 talk directly to this agenda. Each also has a handy explanation and docs to refer to for help.https://universityofsouthwales.sharepoint.com/:w:/r/sites/Assessment/_layouts/15/Doc.aspx?sourcedoc=%7B52C56363-ED1C-47D9-84A5-F530DDE36674%7D&file=USW-2030-Assessment-for-Learning-Principles-and-Framework.docx&action=default&mobileredirect=true

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Actually talking to the students about their needs and desires

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Awareness/engagement with COP resources to ensure effective simulation that is inclusive and safeguards student wellbeing

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https://celt.southwales.ac.uk/developing/inclusive-practice/

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Inclusive Practice | University of South Wales

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Inclusive practice is an approach to teaching and learning, which seeks to ensure that all students have:

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The opportunity to gain feedback addressing specific areas of practise - leverage inclusion expertise

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Design course and modules such that the 'standard' is accessible to everyone

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anchor learning design within the USW learning policy

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TEL Inclusion Page

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Decolonisation of the curriculum – a conversation. Advance HE

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Decolonisation of the curriculum – a conversation. Advance HE

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What CPD have we engaged in to aid us in changing the way we do things?

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The page you have requested is not available | Advance HE

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©Advance HE 2020. Company limited by guarantee registered in England and Wales no. 04931031 | Company limited by guarantee registered in Ireland no. 703150 | Registered charity, England and Wales 1101607 | Registered charity, Scotland SC043946 | VAT Registered number GB 152 1219 50. Registered UK Ad…

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What can we learn from other institutions - University of Plymouth on creating inclusive learning environments

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What can we learn from other institutions - University of Plymouth on creating inclusive learning environments

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Remember, it's likely that there'll be students with a range of disabilities and conditions (disclosed and undisclosed) of different genders, ages and religions.

Accessibility of resources

Materials available prior to teaching sessions: all students, including those with a modified assessment provision, benefit from being able to access teaching materials in advance of a session. The Teaching and Learning Committee (May 2008 and reviewed in January 2014) agreed that materials should be made available electronically at a minimum of 48 hours in advance of a session. The minimum standard to be adopted includes the following:

The outline and scope of a session

Preparatory reading

Key teaching materials e.g. PowerPoint presentations, support documentation, podcasts etc. should be uploaded in advance of the teaching session

This should be available a minimum of 48 hours before the teaching session, but a period of 7 days before the teaching session is recommended

All teaching materials must conform to the University's guidance on copyright and intellectual property rights

You can achieve this by posting materials for sessions on the DLE. We know that in some circumstances it may not be possible to provide all materials in advance and academic staff may use their professional judgement; however this needs to be weighed against our obligation under the Equalities Act (2010) to make reasonable adjustments to prevent unfair treatment and to achieve equal opportunities for all our students.

Research has shown that posting of lecture materials in advance of the lecture does not have an impact on attendance. To view Babb & Ross (2009), go to http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360131508002029. Their findings suggest that attendance and participation are both improved by having slides available to students before classes.

By providing materials in advance of your teaching sessions, you'll help cater to individual working styles. You should also consider how you present your information e.g. the style of paper you're using, font and clarity of text.

Students with a Student Support Document will be able to record lectures and they'll sign a copyright declaration as part of their enrolment process.

Inclusive teaching environments and method

Some conditions are variable and can be affected by the time of day, medication or temperature; this may occasionally result in absences.

Any comments or questions from the group should be repeated by the tutor so that no information is missed.

Try and face the class as much as possible and avoid turning away to write while speaking.

Use microphones in lecture theatres wherever possible as Loop systems (for hearing impaired students) are dependent on this.

Verbalise any information you write, draw or show your class.

Write new terminology or unfamiliar names on the board.

Be mindful that some students may need to go out or have a break during sessions.

Encourage ground rules e.g. only one person can speak at a time.

Where possible give lists of specialist words with meanings.

Group work

Working well within a group is considered a key graduate skill but it's one that many students can find difficult to master. The following points can help make this learning process easier:

Encourage group members to be open about any disabilities or specific learning difficulties they have and the implications that these may have for their group work.

Group arrangements sometimes require formal allocation to ensure that students don't get left out.

Some groups may also need assistance with the allocation of roles.

Some groups may require a higher degree of informal supervision than others.

Suggest having a clear point of contact throughout the tasks, and a process for students to discuss concerns relating to disability and the group work.

Presentations

Please be mindful that some students may need reasonable adjustments due to a disability, providing the learning outcomes can be maintained.

Consider the environment that the student is presenting in, particularly for students with hearing impairments, visual impairments, speech and language difficulties or social phobias. An example of a reasonable adjustment would be to allow a student to present to a smaller group or solely to the tutor(s) involved.

Placements

If you're a placement tutor, you should have a pre-placement discussion with your students regarding placement issues e.g. location, accessibility, health and safety and other reasonable adjustments.

Placement tutors, staff and students can also liaise with Disability Services for further advice, information and guidance if needed.

Occasionally an enabler may be required to support a student on a placement. The placement tutor should liaise with Disability Services at an early stage to ensure appropriate support can be arranged.

Fieldwork and off campus activities

As a module leader you should discuss fieldwork content and off campus activities with students to establish any support requirements, if an enabler is needed, appropriate transport and health and safety.

Module leaders can then liaise with Disability Services if appropriate.

Enabling and study skills support

Some students may be receiving support which can include enabling (note taking, mentoring etc), learning support and communication support workers. Take a look at the University's enabling guidelines to find out more.

Modified assessment provision - for exams and in-class tests

Some students are recommended assessment provisions such as additional time or use of a smaller or separate room. These provisions are detailed on their Student Support Document as well as being recorded on Unit-E.

For in-class assessments, students can expect modified assessment provision (such as extra time) in line with those recommended in formal examination. However there may be some in-class assessments and environments where these modifications may not be appropriate or necessary. The module leader should discuss the format or style of the in-class assessment with the student in order to determine appropriate provision in good time. Please note that responsibility for modified in-class assessments rests with the department (module leader) concerned.

Workshops, labs and studios

We recommend that you consider any health and safety requirements.

Please be mindful that some students may need reasonable adjustments due to a disability, providing the learning outcomes can be maintained.

Some students may require consideration regarding seating e.g. requiring a specific seat in a lab which is close to an exit or in a quieter area.

Some students may require additional space to work or an extra seat for an enabler.

Alternative assessment

Due to their disability, some students may be unable to complete standard assessments. In these cases an alternative assessment is usually explored through the case conference process.

Know your University

Know what other information, advice and guidance is available to support your students, such as counselling, Library Special Support Services, SU Advice and Welfare, Pastoral and Spiritual Support, Disability Services and Learning Development.

Students who have a Student Support Document will be contacted by Library Special Support Services to discuss the support that they can offer.

More specific information about teaching requirements will be linked to the Student Support Document.

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Creating an inclusive learning environment

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Remember, it's likely that there'll be students with a range of disabilities and conditions (disclosed and undisclosed) of different genders, ages and religions. Materials available prior to teaching sessions: all students, including those with a modified assessment provision, benefit from being able to access teaching materials in advance of a session.

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How might we use technology to support choice and flexibility in assessment design.

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How might we use technology to support choice and flexibility in assessment design.

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Demonstrate an inclusive mentoring style.

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Demonstrate an inclusive mentoring style.

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Over the summer, the NHS North West Leadership Academy (NHS NWLA) piloted two Inclusive Mentoring sessions aimed at equipping both mentors and mentees with knowledge and understanding about an inclusive mentoring style. We caught up with facilitator, Rehana Begum (a NHS NWLA Coaching and Mentoring Champion) who gave us her thoughts on what inclusive mentoring is, and the importance of learning about this approach.
The intent behind the inclusive mentoring sessions was to support the mentoring community to become more aware of an inclusive approach to mentoring. But what do we mean by inclusive mentoring and what does it look like in practice? The article that follows is my own take on what I define inclusive mentoring to be, based on my learning and practice in the field of inclusion and organisational development.

Miller and Katz (2002)1defined inclusion as: "...a sense of belonging: feeling respected, valued for who you are; feeling a level of supportive energy and commitment from others so that you can do your best."

If we apply that definition into a mentoring context from the point of view of the mentee; what would this mean? When we discuss inclusion, people's thoughts naturally move towards the extreme and thoughts such as, "...I am not racist, or sexist, or homophobic, I have no issues with people with disabilities...consequently I am inclusive".

However, Stephen Frost (a leading voice in Inclusion) stated "Unless you consciously include; you will unconsciously exclude"2. How many of us choose to consciously include?

Being inclusive is not discussing what you don't do...but rather what you do do in practice to enable people to feel like they belong, feel respected and valued enabling them to do their best. It focuses on our intent and purpose within any given space.

This requires a shift of mind-set from the historical definition of mentoring; the simplest definition of 'the transfer of skills and knowledge from one individual (usually someone older and more experienced) to another (usually someone younger and less experienced)'. If we consider the dynamics within this relationship, one could describe mentoring as a vehicle which promotes power, hierarchy and status.

In the act of mentoring, are we asking ourselves whether we are reinforcing the power, status and hierarchy gradient that is ours, by the approach we are taking?

Do I feel that there should be a level of appreciation from the mentee for my time; my knowledge and skills that I can 'transfer' to them?

Do I truly understand the power of the language and words I use and the impact it has on other people?

Do I take the time to understand what is my intent and purpose behind the feedback I am providing?

Is this truly in service of the mentee?

Do we enter the mentoring space with humility and the understanding that we ourselves will learn and grow alongside the mentee; that it is a two-way learning process and the power doesn't necessarily lie with us as mentors, but with us both?

Myron Rogers stated at the NHS North West Leadership Academy conference a couple of years ago, that even when we are intently listening the human brain takes in only 80% information thrown at it. Interestingly the 80% I take in will be different to the 80% you take in. I would therefore suggest that the feedback provided by any mentor will always be subjective based on the information that a mentor has absorbed.

We must also recognise that all humans are unique; as our mental frame of reference of the world has been built by the hundreds and thousands of experiences we have been part of, and no two people would have been subjected to completely the same experiences...this suggests that my thinking and reaction to a certain topic or word would be different to yours.

With this thinking we can start to appreciate that we form our thoughts and feelings based on our lived experiences, that our mentoring style and approach can be subjective and so our intent and purpose in entering a mentoring space becomes even more important. We can also apply that thinking to understand that our mentees come with their own frame of reference and unique experiences. Awareness of this gives us a golden opportunity as mentors to learn and grow our own thinking and experiences, by engaging with individuals and supporting them to learn and grow themselves. This can be done by providing and building psychologically safe spaces in our mentoring relationships, for our mentees to flourish.

The introduction of the NHS NWLA's inclusive mentoring sessions provide space for prospective mentors to consider how they define inclusion and what it means to them to mentor. It allows the opportunity for current and prospective mentors to consider why they want to mentor and to have a safe environment to reflect on the potential impact that bias might have in a mentoring space. This is an introduction to building an inclusive approach into our everyday practice; by reflection and understanding ourselves more.
1 Miller & Katz 2002; 'Unleashing the Real Power of Diversity'. In The Inclusion Breakthrough; Berrett-Koehler Publisher 2Stephen Frost 2014; The Inclusion Imperative: How Real Inclusion Creates Better Business and Builds Better Societies: Courage, Creativity and Talent; Kogan Page Publisher

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Introducing Inclusive Mentoring - what does it actually mean? | NHS North West Leadership Academy

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Over the summer, the NHS North West Leadership Academy (NHS NWLA) piloted two Inclusive Mentoring sessions aimed at equipping both mentors and mentees with knowledge and understanding about an inclusive mentoring style. We caught up with facilitator, Rehana Begum (a NHS NWLA Coaching and Mentoring Champion) who gave us her thoughts on what inclusive mentoring is, and the importance of learning about this approach.

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Acknowledge the wider context in which HE operates. Equality Act for HE educators.

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Acknowledge the wider context in which HE operates. Equality Act for HE educators.

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Show alignment with the USW Assessment Life Cycle Hub (Making assessments inclusive) by illustrating how you have for example i) offering a choice of assessment type, ii) writing the assessment brief and instructions in accessible language, iii) sought advice form TEL faculty partners to ensure digital assessments are inclusive.

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Give examples of how you have designed an inclusive course, developed an inclusive syllabus, create inclusive classrooms and frame dialogue with your classroom around diversity and social justice.

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www.albany.edu needs to review the security of your connection before proceeding.

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Committed to learning about inclusion by design.

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Committed to learning about inclusion by design.

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Through CPD activities we can show we are committed to developing our inclusion by design activities. By studying Universal design for learning principles in higher education for example.

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This section provides an overview of the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework and how it applies to higher education learning environments and additional resources for deeper understanding. It also offers practical information about getting started, c…

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Know your students
Ensuring there is a thought process and planning to meet a range of needs and abilities
One size DOES NOT fit all!
Observation and listening are key elements in delivery and reflection
Reflective delivery that based in previous learning and evaluations / outcomes
Review learning and teaching from alternative view points
Provide a range of resources that allows for student choice and enhanced levels of engagement
Shulman - head, hand, heart - Purposeful learning