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Inclusive Pedagogy and Practice

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The Academic Development & Diversity Team can support you to consider what you can develop for yourself, your module, your course and department. Click on one of the following headings to learn more.

Introducing Inclusion

Coming soon! 

Take a look at our 5 broad inclusive learning principles (word document) which can be applied to all areas of curriculum design and delivery – under review.

Designing an inclusive curriculum

Academic Development and Diversity are working to develop resources and a support package to support course teams as they design their curriculum as part of the approvals process.

This work is being piloted with BTE in 2021/22. The work focuses on the inclusivity of the teaching and learning practices and the assessment strategy proposed. It will support the team to consider and respond to the Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) requirements of the current approvals process. The resources developed will be available to course design teams to use independently or can be used in conjunction with workshops facilitated by Academic Development and Diversity. The package is flexible and can be tailored to the needs of the course design team.

Assessment

We have developed an Inclusive Design Guide to support staff who are involved in  the curriculum design process. It brings together a range of definitive information about inclusive course design at Sheffield Hallam University.

Whatever your experience, this guide is intended to support you and your course team in a practical way, it aims to help you make the most of the opportunity the design and validation process provides to plan and develop your course. It contains up-to-date information which is applicable and useful to anyone who has a role in creating and refreshing courses and incorporates references to College-based information and resources where relevant.

You can also locate further assessment and feedback guidance and resources on the Assessment Essentials website.

Exemplars

Exemplars are examples of previous students’ work or examples developed by practitioners that when used in learning activities help students to grasp key concepts, skills, content and assessment standards and criteria. Unlike model answers which are examples of a ‘perfect’ answer, exemplars are examples of varying standards of academic work. 

Inclusive Design Guide

Our Inclusive Design Guide (RISE) has been developed to support staff who are involved in the curriculum design process. It brings together a range of definitive information about inclusive course design at Sheffield Hallam University.

Whatever your experience, this guide is intended to support you and your course team in a practical way, it aims to help you make the most of the opportunity the design and validation process provides to plan and develop your course. It contains up-to-date information which is applicable and useful to anyone who has a role in creating and refreshing courses and incorporates references to faculty-based information and resources where relevant.

You can also access Assessment Essentials: Course Design guidance (website). 

In Conversation

A series of short video podcasts showcasing our academic colleagues’ experiences of delivering teaching and learning.

Helen Baxter, degree apprenticeship student in Occupational Therapy has developed a series of podcasts of staff and students’ lived experiences. Aim of the project is to educate and raise awareness of ND and the implications in teaching and learning.  Hoping that the podcasts will promote a culture of action, encourage a truly inclusive approach and look at co-production and equity at Hallam. 

Education for Mental Health Toolkit – Introduction

This Toolkit has been created to provide evidence informed guidance on the ways in which curriculum can support both wellbeing and learning. It has been developed for academic staff, academic managers, university leaders and all of those involved in the development and delivery of curriculum, within Higher Education. It is grounded in the research literature and has been created through research and co-creation with students, academics, Quality staff, Learning and Teaching staff and Principal Fellows of the HEA.

Read more on the Advance HE Membership Benefits overview page. 

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Hallam Model Inclusive Prompts

Here we present our Inclusive Curriculum Design Principles that cover the 4 principles of the Hallam Model:

 

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10 Degrees of Change

How to make your learning, teaching and assessment practice more inclusive. Here are:

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EDI Network

The network comprises of all the EDI leads from college departments, HROD business partners and members of the ADD team. It provides opportunities to focus on key areas of development and share good practice in line with university priorities.

Community of Inclusive Practice

Welcome. Here in the Community of Inclusive Practice (CoIP) you’ll find a source of support and conversation on how we, as a community, can review, identify, and implement inclusive teaching, learning and assessment practices which will benefit both our student and staff communities. We welcome you to join our dedicated ST-SAAS Community of Inclusive Practice MS Teams channel where you can find support and a safe space to share practice, ideas, and thoughts, somewhere where we can ‘talk about things differently’.  

The CoIP will be looking at developing a programme of events and discussions in 2022 about how best we can support students and staff. 

In Conversation: building online communities – a short podcast showcasing our academic colleagues’ experiences, tools and techniques of building online communities with Hallam students and staff and beyond. 

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Staff handbooks

  • Staff Guide to Student Inclusion Handbook: This is an introductory guide for staff at Sheffield Hallam to raise awareness of equality diversity and inclusion, when working with students. It can be a place to start building your understanding, so find out more, access training and development and talk to colleagues to build our collective awareness.
  • Equity Accomplice Participant Handbook: how to facilitate learning for your colleagues. A guide to support you to facilitate race equity learning for your colleagues, using a range of resources and activities from the Equity Accomplice suite. Coming soon, in the meantime, read more about our Equity Accomplices Programme below!  
  • Setting up student minoritised groups handbook: The guide will support staff in developing a student minoritised group, including a development model to foster inclusion and belonging, to hear their voice and to create principled spaces for their own development. Coming soon, in the meantime, read more about Supporting Minoritised Student Groups (SMSG) below.  

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Supporting your Departments Inclusion and Anti-Racist ambitions

Exploring microaggressions, what are they, what impact do they have, how can I support and prevent them? We support you to embed this in your practice and the curriculum.

Exploring your Department’s EDI ambition by setting out a commitment to being more inclusive and antiracist, this workshop helps to explore the key areas that are important to your disciplinary context in becoming more inclusive and anti-racist. We work with your Department to facilitate your learning and help you to identify your vision with related actions. 

Say My Name

Our names are important to us, and our names can tell us a good deal about who we are and our background. Say My Name has been created to support student belonging at our institution.

In Conversation: non-racist to anti-racist

A short podcast showcasing our academic colleagues’ experiences, explaining why this journey was important to them and ultimately, how it shaped their conversations with both colleagues and their students moving forward, both in their personal and professional development. 

Sheffield Hallam University Nursing and Midwifery Minoritised group: the experiences of black student nurses, past and present.

Authored by Lucy Kirkham (Principal Lecturer in Adult Nursing) l.kirkham@shu.ac.uk and Ifrah Salih (Senior Lecturer in Adult Nursing and Academic Development and Diversity) i.salih@shu.ac.uk

 

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Supporting the Institutional approach to the degree awarding gap

Evaluating your approach to addressing the Degree Awarding Gap

Using the institutional Race Equality Corporate Action Plan (RECAP) you can identify local actions and participate in our institutional response towards the eradication of the degree awarding gap. Visit our dedicated Degree Awarding Gap website where you find a host of guidance, information and resources to support your work.

The Academic Development & Diversity Team are leading on a number of workstreams to help eradicate the degree awarding gap, as follows: 

#DecolHallam: Belonging, inclusion and Equity

  • Student as partner collaboration
    • Working with the Student Union, this project works with paid student partners to research and recommend action through dialogue about historical, cultural and materials ways to decolonise the curriculum.
    • Working from the perspective of Hallam Values to create principled spaces for all students and staff to create inclusive and equitable curriculum experiences where everyone belongs.

Visit our #DecolHallam project page for more details.

Supporting Minoritised Student Groups (SMSG) 

A crucial factor in helping to eradicate the degree awarding gap, is to develop ways that students from racially minoritised backgrounds can experience belonging and thrive during their experience at Hallam.   

The Academic Development and Diversity team has launched a new programme called ‘Supporting Minoritised Student Groups’ (SMSG) to support College departments and the Doctoral School to develop new or sustain ongoing groups.  In doing so, SMSG helps to create a community where racially minoritised students do not feel like the outsider, experience discrimination, and have a space where peers can support each other so they feel included.   

 

Equity Accomplice Programme

The suite aims to enhance the equity and outcomes for racially minoritised students, support individuals to recognise and utilise their power, to foster and model solidarity for students, explore ways of continually fostering inclusive and equitable learning encounters wherever they take place.

As 70 % of our students would be identified as being from an underrepresented student group within universities, its essential that we work hard to assure that everyone can feel they belong at Sheffield Hallam. We know that students who are from a racially minoritised communities can experience discrimination, made to feel othered and that this can happen on and off campus. This simple way of starting the conversation about race equity and inclusion through the production of a suite of workshops titled ‘Equity Accomplice’, which supports staff and external stakeholders in developing their awareness of race equity to enhance outcomes for minoritised students.

This suite aims to enhance the equity and outcomes for all students in the university to promote an inclusive learning environment which recognises the historical underinvestment of certain communities.  The suite aims to support individuals to recognise and utilise their power, to foster and model solidarity for students, explore ways of continually fostering inclusive and equitable learning encounters wherever they take place. 

However, whilst allyship, (from Latin meaning ‘to bind to’) accomplice, this more than a supporting role, willing to take the next and right step to addressing and dismantling the structural power of privilege and position to create long-lasting change.  This resource will foster active allyship (the ally accomplice) and will be the start of a journey for staff.

The aims of developing this resource are to create a development offer that staff to grow their capability to take the work forward in their own areas. The resource includes the content, a medium for delivery, and resources for facilitation with individuals or groups. 

This resource is designed to be developed and delivered in context, so case –based discussions need to be built with the staff and student groups who may use it. 

Equity accomplice introduces the theories that underpin the anti-racist approach, participants will explore their positionality and the concepts of EDI as well as language and terminology. Discussions are held around the importance of saying the name of a minoritised person, not asking them to shorten it, provide a nickname or making no attempt to pronounce their name. Words matter and can impact on ourselves and others. How we live our lives, how we are perceived by each other, access and opportunities encompass equality diversity and inclusion. We all need to do our part to ensure that the ways we communicate do not create barriers that exclude groups of people.  Talking about power and privilege can be ‘uncomfortable’ especially when it relates to your own advantages This suite of workshops seeks to identify and raise awareness of the existence and impact of micro aggressions and micro inequities in their various guises. Moving forward, participants are asked to reflect on what they can do to foster change.  

Throughout the suite participants are supported in developing effective strategies to identify and act safely with impact to address micro-incivilities and aggressions that occur towards individuals with protected characteristics and the intersectionality of those characteristics. 

Understanding EDI Data

Unpacking equality and diversity data is an essential step to understanding your plans for impactful inclusive practices. We can facilitate a discussion with your course teams to do this (in conjunction with SPI) and a critical interpretation, with practical next steps.  

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Supporting placement learning

Coming soon!

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Training and Development

HROD new staff induction: co-delivery of the ‘Introduction to EDI at Hallam’. If you’re a new member of staff you should have attended this as part of your induction. If you’re not aware of this or indeed wish to have a refresher, visit The Core Portal system and book your place – search under EDI and look for course code NSEDI / Professional Development. 

Look at the inclusive pedagogy and practice professional development opportunities we have on offer.

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Resources

Here we present a range of guidance and information to help you embed inclusive practice in all that you do:

Accessible Learning Materials and support for disabled students

The ADD Team have developed Guidelines for Inclusive and Accessible Materials (RISE) and contain information for use when creating digital and paper-based learning materials in order to ensure they are both inclusive and accessible to as broad a range of students, staff and visitors as possible. 

Article by AccessAble: 5 tips for disabled students starting university – what hints and tips can you share with your students…

For the last 15 years, staff and students from the BSc Nursing (Learning Disabilities) and Social Work course have worked in partnership with a group of adults who have a learning disability and/or autism. The ‘Partners in Learning’ group is made up of seven experts by their own experiences. Group members work collaboratively and creatively with staff to plan and facilitate students’ learning. A creative example of Partners in Learning’s work is their ‘A-Z of Learning Disabilities’ poster campaign which you can see displayed in the café area of the Robert Winston Building (Collegiate Campus). Here, you will also find artwork created by experts, staff and students from the College of Health, Wellbeing and Life Sciences.

If you would like to explore further the types of needs, strengths and talents that people with a learning disability may have, please email Charlotte Nutting (Senior Lecturer in Learning Disability Nursing and Social Work).

Improving the accessibility of your course  – top tips and tools: Presented by Marissa Hill, Head of SRAC, Nick Russell, Web Accessibility and Training Manager and Kieran White, Graduate Intern, Web Accessibility Project at the December 2020 Course Leader Fest ‘Engaging and Thriving’. 

Developing strong student networks for all: Lessons from care experienced and estranged students journeys in higher education: Presented by Nathaniel Pickering, Senior Lecturer, Liz Austen, Head of Evaluation and Research and Alan Donnelly, Researcher – Student Engagement, Evaluation & Research (STEER) Student Experience, Teaching & Learning – SETL at the December 2020 Course Leader Fest ‘Engaging and Thriving’.

Madriaga, M., Hanson, K., Kay, H. & Walker, A. (2011). Marking-out normalcy and disability in higher education. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 32 (6), 901-920.

Madriaga, M., Hanson, K., Heaton, C., Kay, H., Newitt, S. & Walker, A. (2010). Confronting similar challenges? : disabled and non‐disabled students’ learning and assessment experiences. Studies in Higher Education, 35 (6), 647-658. 

Community of Inclusive Practice – themed event: June 2019

External and sector-wide

 

 

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Last updated:  4th November 2022 NB