Incorporating EDI in library teaching and pedagogy (Hosted online by Academic Skills Community of Practice)
About this event
Date: Friday 29th April 2022
Time: 10.00 - 2.00pm
The programme for the day is as follows:
Welcome (10:00-10:10)
- Welcome participants to the event
- Outline structure of the event
First Talk (10:10-10:50)
- Alice Bennett: “Supporting staff to support students: Developing accessible practices in Reading Lists and VLE systems” (30 minutes & 10 minutes Q&A)
Break (10:50-11:05)
Second Talk (11:05-11:30)
- Amanda Closier & Hannah Wood: “Putting principles into practice: embedding EDI in library teaching at the Open University” (15 minutes & 10 minutes Q&A)
5 minute turn-over
Third Talk (11:35-12:00)
- Donna Gundry & Karen Welton: “Supporting Student Success” (15 minutes & 10 minutes Q&A)
Break (12:00-12:30)
Fourth Talk (12:30-13:10)
- Edward Powell: “Reflections on the place of learning development within the project of decolonising the curriculum” (30 minutes & 10 minutes Q&A)
Round-Table Discussion (13:10-13:40)
- Sam Aston: “UKPSF Round-Table discussion” (30 minutes)
Jamboard Reflection (13:40-14:00)
- This will be an opportunity to reflect individually and collectively on what has been shared and discussed in the event and think about how we can take this forward into our own practice.
Abstracts
Alice Bennett: “Supporting staff to support students: Developing accessible practices in Reading Lists and VLE systems”
Ensuring teaching staff have the skills and knowledge to effectively use academic library and learning systems is critical to creating accessible learning environments for students. This presentation will summarise the benefits that the consistent and effective use of systems can make to students' experience and the disproportionate impact the use (or mis-use) of these can have on disabled students. The issues around the need to support academic staff in developing and understanding accessible teaching practice are widely applicable, but this talk will consider these within the context of providing reading materials through a VLE. It will then offer an overview of the system at the University of York, which uses Leganto and Blackboard enabling interactive reading lists to be embedded on the VLE, and outline the accessible features and accessibility issues of these platforms.
The presentation will then address the way in which departments implement these platforms and the associated accessibility problems we commonly see with the way these are used by teaching staff. It will then go on to discuss the challenges library staff can face in engaging with academic teaching staff about accessibility on these platforms (and more widely) and some of the structural issues behind this, before discussing how we are trying to address this and look at possible ways to overcome staff reluctance to engage with accessible practice.
Amanda Closier & Hannah Wood: “Putting principles into practice: embedding EDI in library teaching at the Open University”
The Open University (OU) has developed an Inclusive Curriculum Tool (IC Tool) to promote inclusive learning and teaching practices with the aim of improving students’ sense of belonging, motivation, and success. The tool is a spreadsheet containing a set of prompts (or questions) that can be used to review existing course materials to ensure they embed the principles of equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI). The tool is also used to support the planning and design of new modules. The IC Tool is constantly evolving (we are currently on version 5) and those using it are encouraged to adapt the tool to best suit their needs. With this is mind, Library Services decided to trial the tool to see how we could use it to review and potentially improve EDI in our skills teaching.
We deliver a range of online training sessions using Adobe Connect and develop skills activities for our Virtual Learning Environment (Moodle) and the web (Being digital). This short talk will share some examples of how we’ve been using the tool to review existing teaching materials and learning activities, and how we will use it to inform the design of new skills content this Spring.
Donna Gundry & Karen Welton: “Supporting Student Success”
There are two periods throughout the academic year (October and February) that Plymouth College of Art welcomes Erasmus+ students to study alongside existing students for up to six months. To support this integration, the Academic Skills Team delivers a six week course which aims to build confidence in written communication. The content is aligned to the requirements of the attendees following a written diagnostic and discussion, but also includes core research and reflection skills needed to successfully complete allocated modules. Positive feedback received from these sessions suggest they not only support students’ written work, but help them to navigate the Library space so they feel very comfortable engaging with the resources on offer.
To further support the development of these skills, in collaboration with the Library Team, a weekly Conversation Club for ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) students has been established. Providing a dedicated space for practising verbal competency in English is crucial to the development of students’ listening and comprehension skills, whilst also aiding both social and professional relationships. Conversations usually centre around the students' creative work, social engagements and the surrounding area; this led to a proposed trip to the local museum and historical trips around the city.
During the Conversation Club’s initial meetings students also expressed an interest in exploring fiction texts. The Library sourced resources and books available within the Reading Ahead Challenge provided by the Reading Agency. Each student chose a book for the group to read collectively and discuss using prompt questions.
Edward Powell: “Reflections on the place of learning development within the project of decolonising the curriculum”
In this short talk, I will reflect on my recent experience of representing the University of Reading’s Study Advice team on the University’s Decolonising the Curriculum working group. With a PhD in postcolonial literary and cultural studies, I had a prior interest in the concept of decolonising the curriculum. Meanwhile, I felt it was important for a learning developer to be involved in the project, given the profession’s role in helping students understand how to study at university level.
Despite becoming a key priority across the UK Higher Education sector, what ‘decolonising the curriculum’ means remains contested, as does what a decolonial curriculum (Dennis 2018; Menon et al, 2021) entails. Scholarship on the subject, though, largely agrees that a decolonial curriculum must reach beyond the current curriculum’s overrepresentation of ‘Western’ figures and forms of knowledge. The focus in this debate has mostly been on changes to programme content and delivery. What these changes mean for learning developers remains comparatively underexplored. In this short talk, therefore, I will consider the following:
- What new forms of learning will a decolonial curriculum require students to master, and what must learning developers do to make sure they can support students in doing so?
- How might learning development itself be decolonised? How might members of this profession expand its scope beyond Eurowestern definitions of truth, reliability, rigour, and analysis?
Sam Aston: “UKPSF Round-Table discussion”
Equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) runs through the Professional Values of the UKPSF and so evidencing how EDI manifests within our teaching practices is recognised within the award of Advance HE fellowship. The UKPSF says
- V1 Respect individual learners and diverse learning communities
- V2 Promote participation in higher education and equality of opportunity for learners
In this discussion I will invite those of you thinking of applying for Advance HE fellowship with those already fellows, to reflect upon evidence that you might use or have used in your application to meet V1 and V2. Together we will discuss how we talk about and communicate good EDI practices within our teaching and share our activities. To close, we will also consider if the UKPSF could be improved to support EDI pedagogies.