Principles to Practice:
Equality, Diversity and Inclusion

Outline

This session provides a robust foundation upon which to build inclusive L and T or research practices that promote inclusion, equality and belonging for all students.

Using a reflective tool participants will be introduced to 25 elements of identity that may be self-assigned, prescribed by others, fixed or fluid, and introduced to evidence of how these identities can afford individual, group or communities, privilege or disadvantage.

Through the lens of intersectionality, participants will be able to make sense of the cumulative and complex circumstances and experiences of themselves, and others.

The session continues to empower participants with inclusive strategies for interacting with others in a supportive and respectful way.

By the end of this session, you will be able to:

• Understand the multi-faceted nature of implicit and explicit privilege and disadvantage across individuals, groups and communities.

• Understand our own privilege, disadvantage and positionality.

• Develop allyship practices to use our privilege in solidarity with those who are marginalised or discriminated against.

• Develop inclusive language skills that prevent alienation when working with students and/or research participants.

Outline

This session provides a robust foundation upon which to build trauma-informed L and T practices that promote inclusion, equity, and belonging for all students.

Through the lens of colonial history, cultural dominance, and structural inequality participants will be introduced to individual and collective trauma as well as the intergenerational mechanisms of transmission. Participants will be introduced to the range of circumstances that lead to the re-traumatisation of students within higher education and a range of trauma-informed strategies to prevent this.

Trauma-informed teaching strategies are transferable in that they create safety and belonging for all students and support with reduction in awarding gaps.

By the end of this session, you will be able to:

• Understand the bio, psycho, and social model of trauma and its impact on individual physiology.

• Understand collective and community trauma as well as intergenerational transmission.

• Recognise the impact of individual, collective, and community trauma on student learning and outcomes.

• Develop trauma-informed pedagogical strategies for equitable student experiences.

Outline

This session provides a robust foundation upon which to develop your Allyship skills in the learning space and through your tutor-student interactions so that all students feel like they belong.

Come along to learn how to purposefully promote a culture of inclusion through intentional, positive, conscious effort. Learn how Allyship can benefit everyone in the university community and gain an understanding of mistakes to avoid. The session continues to empower participants with inclusive strategies for interacting with others in a supportive and respectful way.

By the end of this session, you will be able to:

• Understand the requirement for, and practice of, Allyship behaviours.

• Learn how to use your privilege (through Allyship) in solidarity with students who may have minoritised characteristics.

• Develop your Allyship practices to support cohesive learning communities that celebrate differences and support each other.

Outline

This training is focused on exploring the multiple factors that contribute to awarding gaps that manifest in groups across the student body. The content provides academic staff with the foundation knowledge upon which to design and build learning opportunities, inclusive practices, and appropriate environments that aim to eradicate gaps and promote equity of opportunity, engagement, and belonging.

By the end of this session, you will be able to:

• Understand the causes of awarding both within and external to Higher Education Institutions.

• Recognise the barriers across the student journey that reinforce and replicate disadvantages, create barriers, and contribute to awarding gaps. 

• Recognise the role of educators in reducing disadvantage and promoting social justice.

• Develop strategies to promote equity of opportunity across the student body.

Outline

This session will explore a reflective tool that academic staff can use at a modular or programmatic level to evaluate the extent to which their assessment practices are inclusive and promote equity of opportunity. 

This session explores student outcomes through the lens of racialised awarding gaps and belonging. In this session, we explore the necessity for our learning spaces to be brave so that we can interrogate issues, collaborate and co-construct socially just education. 

We examine the principles underpinning brave learning spaces as well as multi-disciplinary skills and strategies to facilitate them.  Through Triad work participants have the opportunity to practise the skills and give and receive feedback to peers.

By the end of this session, you will be able to:

• Understand the principles behind inclusive assessment.

• Evaluate own practices through the lens of inclusivity and equity of opportunity.

Outline

This session explores key barriers facing international students and all students with cultural differences and offers academic staff a range of strategies for reducing them.

Through the lens of cultural humility the focus enables academic staff to think critically about cultural differences, assumptions and biases and offers opportunities to promote equity including approaches to learning, creating belonging, inclusive learning environments, and supportive, facilitative, relationships. 

This session explores the way contemporary Higher Education including colonial legacies shapes perceptions, narratives, and knowledge construction in a way that ‘others’ and excludes individuals with cultural differences. 

Academic staff are offered a reflective space to consider the current practices in HE and given opportunities to explore and develop evidence-based pedagogical strategies to promote belonging, and success for all students.

Topics include behaviours and dynamics in the learning space, understandings of student/tutor relationships, the impact of language, relationships with time and the benefits of perspective taking and reflexivity.

By the end of this session, you will be able to:

• Have developed a critical understanding of the notion of cultural competence.

• Recognise the impact of culture on learning experiences in the UK.

• Understand and develop Learning and Teaching practices that reduce cultural barriers and can support success for all students.

• Develop a range of activities to enhance belonging for students with cultural differences and/or marginalized identities. 

Outline

The Brave Space Workshop is built on the premise that in order to tackle awarding gaps universities must make their data available to all staff and students for examination, inclusive conversations and the co construction of solutions. 

This workshop outlines key considerations regarding awarding gaps and highlights the necessity for classrooms to become safe/brave places equipped for critical exploration of assumptions, mis information, stereotypes, social justice, prejudice and bias.

This session supports educators to learn and develop a range of basic techniques from the disciplines of counselling, mediation, and restorative justice to educate, promote constructive classroom dynamics and celebrate diversity in the learning space. 

By the end of this session, you will be able to:

• To understand the rationale for, and concept of, Brave Learning Spaces.

• Understand the components of effective preparation for staff and students when facilitating Brave Learning Spaces.

• Develop skills to promote trust, connection and belonging in the learning space.

• Develop skills to enable the safe exploration and challenge of language, ideas and assumptions that cause offence, in a way that brings learning communities closer together. 

Outline

Join us for an engaging and interactive enABLe workshop where you will have the opportunity to explore innovative and effective ways to promote equity and tackle awarding gaps across diverse cohorts.

Collaborate with enABLe facilitators and staff from Academic Development to model the development of a
course that reflects best practice in terms of equity.

From curriculum design, belonging, and assessment methods, we will examine ways in which course provision can be facilitated to create supportive, brave and equitable learning environments.

By the end of this session, you will be able to:

• Understand the importance of embedding pedagogical strategies for equity within course provision and across the student experience.

• Identify key elements and strategies for promoting equity and fostering a sense of belonging in the learning environment.

• Collaborate with fellow participants and facilitators to share experiences, insights, and innovative ideas.

• Gain practical tools and resources to support the implementation of pedagogical strategies for equity in course design.

• Develop an action plan to take away.