Fair for all - Practical Strategies for Equality and Inclusivity

This one day conference was hosted by the Academic Professional Development Unit and Teacher Fellows on 11 September 2008 at De Montfort University, Leicester. 

Keynote Speakers included:

Mick Healey - Professor of Geography and Director of the Centre for Active Learning at the University of Gloucestershire. He has published extensively in Geography but his main research area is now learning and teaching in HE. Mick has led several major government funded projects, and he is Co-Director of an ESRC project on “Enhancing the quality and outcomes of disabled students’ learning in higher education”.  He spoke on 'disability and learning difference'.
Mick Healey's handout 

Glynis Cousin - has recently taken up post at the University of Wolverhampton as Director of the Institute for Learning Enhancement and of the Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (Enabling Achievement within a Diverse Student Body). Glynis  has worked on a number of national and international higher education research and evaluation projects and is currently completing a book on higher education research methods.  She spoke on internationalisation and cosmopolitan approaches.

Conference flyer  |  Programme
Please see below for workshop information and handouts 

1    Accessibility – an everyday issue with everyday solutions 
- Simon Ball, Senior Advisor, JISC TechDis service
Accessibility is about providing materials and services that are fit for purpose, such that as many needs and preferences are catered for. We all use Word, PowerPoint, PDFs or similar programs, but how do we ensure that the documents and presentations we produce are as accessible as they can be? This session will present some of the everyday solutions we can all adopt to make our outputs more accessible, and will also present a few of the free and easy-to-use technologies you might wish to employ to offer a more inclusive range of outputs to your learners.  Accessibility – an everyday issue with everyday solutions Handout 

2    Promoting student mental wellbeing in teaching and learning 
- Professor Ann Davis, Director CEIMH, University of Birmingham
One of the objectives of The Centre of Excellence in Interdisciplinary Mental Health, (CEIMH) The University of Birmingham is to promote student mental well being in teaching and learning. This workshop shares some of the initiatives that CEIMH have engaged with and the materials that have been developed with a range of students and staff at the University. The focus of the workshop is on sharing issues, ideas and experiences in relation to this topic.
Tony Glynn's story 

3    Neurodiversity labels: do we need them? 
- Dr David Pollak, De Montfort University & Edward Griffin, Research Assistant
This workshop will discuss the positive and negative effects of the student identification process. It will cover the overlaps between dyslexia, dyspraxia, dyscalculia, AD(H)D and Asperger's Syndrome and the meaning of the term 'neurodiversity'. Participants will be invited to explore the experience of neurodiversity in HE, from the point of view of both student and HEI. We will examine the effectiveness of current HE arrangements for such students and consider alternative approaches such as the 'mainstreaming' of inclusive practice.
Neurodiversity workshop outputs    

4    Mature students’ voices – sharing experiences of learning and teaching    
- Deborah Le Play and students from the Faculty of Humanities, DMU
This workshop will consider issues of accessibility from the perspective of the mature student and will involve a group of mature students (current undergraduates and recent graduates) from the Faculty of Humanities, DMU. Participants will be asked to reflect on their own experience of teaching or engagement with mature students, and to consider accessibility in the context of transition to Higher Education, institutional culture, ‘student culture’, learning and teaching, and academic skills and conventions. Participants will also have the opportunity to listen to accounts of the personal academic trajectories of the students taking part. 

5
    "Maths is just not my thing" 
- Frances Wright and Jan Robertson, Maths Learning Support team, DMU 
Many people, both students and lecturers, feel ill at ease with maths.
is workshop will explore the roots of this commonly experienced mathematical anxiety - historical, cultural, psychological, and the result of plain bad teaching. It will then consider ways in which lecturers can help students (and sometimes themselves) to deal with their anxieties and do some simple maths, rather than run away from the problem.

6    Trying out new technologies to enhance teaching, assessment and inclusivity 
- Simon Ball, Senior Advisor, JISC TechDis service
This session will introduce 'new' technologies such as  podcasting with Audacity, screen capture with Camtasia, and other free tools like  DSpeech, LetMeType, Wink and Xerte .  The aim is  to show how they can enhance your teaching and assessment and assist in embedding inclusivity into curriculum delivery.  Trying out new technologies to enhance teaching, assessment and inclusivity Handout    

7   Promoting student mental wellbeing in teaching and learning
- Professor Ann Davis, Director CEIMH, University of Birmingham
For details see above (number 2).

8    Appearance really does matter   
- Jane Frances, Education Adviser at Changing Faces, the national charity working with and on behalf of people with disfigurements
1 in 111 individuals has an injury, condition or illness that affects the way they look. Among the whole population, recent research has found that 9 out of 10, across all levels of education and in all grades of employment, could not link positive words such as happiness and outcomes such as life prospects to images of people with disfigurements. Join this workshop, including video-clips of young people with disfigurements talking about their experiences, to

  • become familiar with the causes and effects of disfiguring conditions
  • adopt positive thinking about people with disfigurements
  • adopt new ways of behaving when you meet someone with a disfigurement
    Appearance really does matter Handout from workshop   

9    Working with Black Students (BME): The Development and contextualisation of Black consciousness – finding safe places to enable the genius to grow
- Carlton Howson and Momodou Sallah, Faculty of Health and Life Sciences, DMU
This workshop/session is based on the experience of working with Black students and insights into the experience of Black students in higher education gained from qualitative research that has been undertaken with Student dialogue groups. The insights are significant and can be used to develop policy and practice with a view to influencing learning and teaching.
Many of the students reflected not only on their experience in education, they considered issues of progression and employment. Moreover it is well known that Black students experience discrimination both inside and outside of the university (Dodd 2007; Bambra 2007; Ward 2007; Smith 2007; Daniel et al 2007). 
Working with Black Students Handout from workshop   

10  “Working with International Students. Facing up and confronting the views from teachers and students regarding independent learning.”
- Dr Carolina Valiente, Faculty of Business, Computing and Information Management,London South Bank University
- What is “Learning”?
- Learning styles and strategies?
- The “Independent learner”.
- The role of the lecturer.
- The “best way of learning”.
- Teaching styles /techniques.
- Why do we want students to be “independent learners”?

-- What teaching styles/techniques do you use?
-- How can lecturers help students to become “effective learners”?
-- Differentiating between “home” and “international students”?
Handout 1  |  Handout 2