- Talking about
- Inclusive teaching and learning in the School of Design
Continuation Priority 3b: We will remove unnecessary barriers to continuation for students to progress between years, so they know that success matters – Access and Student Success Strategy 2025, University of Leeds.
Inclusivity is one of our core values and a key part of our overall Student Education Strategy.
In 2016 Jenny Brady, then working as a Disability Coordinator at Leeds, concluded that the culture of teaching needed to change to support students with a sense of belonging, not just their progress and attainment.
Jenny’s belief in a wider academic approach to inclusivity coincided with new Government guidance urging universities to incorporate inclusivity into teaching and learning practices to make them relevant to diverse cohorts of students, instead of focusing on an individual student with additional needs.
A university-wide approach
As part of Jenny’s work, the University adopted six baseline standards and established dedicated School Academic Leads for Inclusive Pedagogies (SALIPs) in 26 schools across seven faculties, including the Lifelong Learning Centre, Digital Education and Library Learning services.
These Academic Leads work to ensure clarity, avoid assumptions of prior knowledge and consider where flexibility can be built into delivery and engagement. Areas identified in the last academic year (2021-22) included:
- promoting consistency of use in the Minerva digital learning environment
- producing guidance for staff to enhance student participation in seminars
- encouraging the use of Blackboard Ally, enabling staff to identify and improve course content with accessibility issues.
The Academic Leads provision was enhanced last year with a bespoke leadership development programme.
Inclusive Pedagogies Spotlight: Embedding inclusivity via self-assessment in the School of Design
In response to student research highlighting inconsistencies in feedback and assessment, the School of Design introduced active self-assessment into its teaching and learning practices to give students a more inclusive and positive experience.
The approach follows four stages:
- First week of teaching: a discussion around assessment where students can consider the criteria required for each grade band and understand the rubrics for assessment, giving them a focus for their goals.
- Halfway through the semester: a standardised self-assessment online exercise which students complete ahead of their formative feedback tutorials. Students evaluate their own work based on an extract in progress.
- Next, this evaluation is discussed in tutorials , with active participation where everyone can see the work in discussion and reflect and comment on the self-assessment
- Follow up: summative feedback sheets advising students on what they did well, what they need to improve and notes for future assessment.
Impact on students
The fact that some students have the confidence to comment on other students' work is great. They take the agency that is being offered to them and act on it in a really constructive way, keeping with the kind of non-judgmental openness that we’re trying to encourage.
Students appreciate the opportunity for verbal explanation of the rubrics, as the written format and language may be difficult to engage with. Peer evaluation in online tutorials also helps students understand where they are perhaps being too judgmental of their own work.
“The mid-semester point for reflection enables students to establish what they do and don’t understand,” says Dr Joanna Bianco-Velo, Assessment Lead in the School of Design. “It facilitates active, rather than passive participation in the tutorial discussions.”
Helen Clarke, Academic Lead for Inclusive Pedagogies in the School of Design, believes the practice has helped with student confidence.
“They find it easier to say to their peers, ‘maybe I am being a bit hard on myself’, which is more powerful than the tutor saying, ‘this is a 2:1 or a 2:2’,” she said.
“The fact that some students have the confidence to comment on other students' work is great. They take the agency that is being offered to them and act on it in a really constructive way, keeping with the kind of non-judgmental openness that we’re trying to encourage.
“The language that describes the difference between a ‘good’ and a ‘very good’ is often quite subtle, so seeing what these look like through examples is really useful for them, and something they can take back and directly apply to their own work.
“It’s ‘criteria in action’ — having that live example and being able to see how criteria is applied adds that extra dimension and doesn’t assume that students will be able to make sense of the rubrics on their own.”
The experience also encouraged other students to consider self-assessment.
“Those students who had taken the time to do the self-assessment prior to the tutorial really benefited from it,” continues Helen, “but those who hadn't could still see the benefit of taking part, which might motivate them to follow that path next time.”
To find out more about inclusive teaching and learning at Leeds, email the Student Success Team: studentsuccess@leeds.ac.uk.