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Christopher Douce

Affirming Neurodiversity in teaching and learning seminar

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Edited by Christopher Douce, Tuesday, 1 Oct 2024, 09:39

On 12 September 2024 I attended a university wide Quality Enhancement Conversations seminar. The aim of this blog is to capture some of the points made during interesting and thought provoking professional development session. Since this blog was created from a set of contemporaneous notes, I must accept responsibility for mistakes and misrepresentations.

The event began with an introduction, which had the title Better support models for neurodiverse students which was given by Michelle Pryde. Her introduction shared some history, which included an introduction to the notion of a model of disability, the movement towards autism being understood as a spectrum, and the first use of the term neurodiversity 1998.  This was linked to the point that there is no one right way of thinking; behaviours and differences are not deficits. An interesting point is that not everyone likes the term. Neurodiversity isn’t, of course, a condition. It is instead a framework that can be used to understand difference.

Some other points I noted include a shift in societal views over time, and changes to the OU student charter, which includes a commitment to anti-discrimination and anti-racism. Student numbers suggest that evidence that we (the university and its staff) need to do more, and to further evolve and develop the university’s teaching practices. The university should support staff to help them not to make assumptions. It is important to practice active listening.

Neurodiversity: The Affirmation Model

Megan Lawton, Professor of Learning and Teaching (academic practice) and head of academic development from University of Wolverhampton gave an opening keynote.

Reflecting a point in the introduction, Megan continued the introduction of different models of disability. Three were picked (although many others exist): the medical model, the social model (focus on how society disables somebody, and provision of reasonable adjustments), and the affirmation model (considers abilities and strengths).

The affirmation model is new to me. It gets away from the notion of a ‘tragic view’ of disability and a view of people with disabilities being ‘brave’. Contrast this with the charity model, and depictions of athletes at the Paralympics. Athletes are just athletes. A reference for the affirmation model can be found in an article by Swain and French (2000) Towards and affirmation model of disability, Disability and Society.

An important point was that ‘language, terminology and attitudes matter’. People with disabilities can have positive (affirmed) traits can offer benefits to society, and to business. I noted an encouragement to set up a diversity and equality action plan and consider establishing assessment methodologies for students, to enable students to take advantage of their affirmed traits. Consider how to assess learning outcomes in a way that is separate from the medium of the demonstration. In other words, rather than essays or written exams, could there be another way to demonstrate a learning outcome?

Neurodivergent student numbers and completion rates

Next up was a brief dive into some stats. A question that was asked was: can we identify neurodivergent students? One challenge is the university gathers data using historically dated terms and language. There is no specific marker within student records for neurodiversity, but other flags can be combined together, i.e. ‘ASD’ and ‘dyslexia’, gives that a figure that suggests 7.1% (based on combined yearly data summarised from 2018) of students are neurodiverse.

A follow on question was: ss disclosure rate different between different demographic groups? Yes in some cases, but not in others. A further question was: are different success rates between neurodivergent students and neurotypical students present in university statistics? Yes.

Supporting neurodivergent postgraduate research (PGR) students

The subtitle for this next presentation, given by Lindsay O’Dell was ‘supporting students in accessing and participating in their studies’. Challenges for neurodivergent students may include navigating and working with university systems, accessing support, and navigating supervisory relationships. The supervisory relationship is really important for doctoral students. It is through this relationship can students express what students need.

This presentation emphasised the need to consider students at different levels. It is just as necessary to consider how to best support postgraduate research students as it is to support access students.

The Relaxed Tutorial Project: Designing for Neurodiversity (FASSTEST)

This presentation, about inclusive tutorial practice, was all about how to make safe spaces for students who may disclose autism. This said, it also has relevance for students who may typically avoid online tutorials due to of anxiety or have a variety of complex requirements.

A question is: what might a related tutorial look like? Some suggestions includes reduced sensory input, reduced social participation, casual attendance, a established safe and sympathetic environment. Paraphrasing an element of the presentation, a relaxed tutorial will also not be recorded, will not expect students to use the mic, here will be no web cams, students will not be put on the spot, not be put in a breakout rooms. The point of a relaxed tutorial to get students to attend who might not be willing to attend earlier. The packaging of the ‘relaxed’ tutorial is important.

Reflecting on the notion of the ‘relaxed’ tutorial there is an obvious tension. Some tutorials can be transformative in your understanding of module concepts since they can provoke provocative questions. Interactive tutorials can strengthen and develop understanding of key ideas. As sometime who often identifies as neurotypical, I don’t want to relax in a tutorial; I want my own tutorials to be challenging. This said, it would stretch me as a tutor if I were to run two different styles of tutorial. Arguably, running a ‘relaxed tutorial’ may lead to the development of trust (and student-tutor relationships) and lead to students attending other forms of tutorial.

Exploring the Transitions of Neurodivergent Access Students to Level One Study

The subtitle for this presentation was ‘Narratives of Study Skills and Support’. The aim of this PRAXIS project was to explore experience of neurodivergent students by making use of a qualitative photo-elicitation approach, to ultimately help to inform the enhancement of the student experience. The research was centred around a number of Access modules: Y031 Arts, Y032 Social sciences, Y033 STEM. The researchers interviewed five student participants. There were three sections to the research: photo elicitation, questions about study skills, and questions about the quality of support provided. A key ingredient was, of course, the tutor, who always plays a key role in Access modules.

Panel discussion

What follows is a summary of my own interpretation of the themes that emerged from the panel discussion.

An important theme was about listening, and communicating. Linked to this was the importance of flexibility. I noted the words “nothing about us without us”. Accompanying this was the point that we should always talk to our students, and emphasise that everyone can achieve. Connected to this, there should be a move away from disability to the notion of needs, and how the university, module teams and tutors can meet unmet needs. 

When it comes to talking with students, online interactions and tutorials can represent an enabler, as well as a barrier. Face-to-face teaching can be considered to be an enabler, and a barrier. With this in mind, I asked a question: is it right that the university policy is to currently have no official face-to-face events? Study mentoring could, for example, take place during face-to-face sessions. The response was that early face-to-face interaction, to help learners understand what is involved in study is helpful and enabling options (or choice) is crucial.

There was an interesting discussion about assessment methods, particularly the use of essays. A question is: can learning outcomes be assessed in different ways to accommodate student needs? Essays help develop writing skills and offer an opportunity to demonstrate both knowledge and skills.

Resources

The following resources were shared during this session:

Guidance (GOV.UK)

The following resource was also shared:

It is also worth mentioning that the university has its own inclusive curriculum tool, which helps module teams to consider diversity and inclusion beyond neurodiversity.

Reflections

The most useful point I took away from the seminar was the introduction of a new model: the affirmation model. I haven’t heard about this model before. It makes a lot of sense, and I relate to it on a personal level.

It was interesting to hear the notion of neurodiversity being discussed, and this makes me question where the boundaries of neurodiversity lie. 

Coming back to the personal, I will disclose that I have a speech difference, a stammer. Does this make me neurodivergent? Since neurodivergence appears to cover specific learning disabilities, such as dyslexia, and autistic spectrum ‘disorders’ (I’m unhappy with the notion of disorder, since it does suggest the medical model of disability), my own difference isn’t a part of this label. Whilst I'm not going to argue on being included into the club, a curiosity is that a stammer can be profoundly socially disabling in some circumstances.

The affirmation model is all about emphasising what everyone is good at. This makes me question: what am I particularly good at? Curiously, there is something that my stammer has given me that I quite like: it has given me a very good vocabulary, since I’m forever making decisions about whether I could choose an easier word to say. When speaking with me, you might never know this is going on. The effect of this might be functional fluency (to attempt to fit in with the normal of a ‘neurotypically-fluent’ world) but the impact can be mental exhaustion after a very busy day of talking and phone calls. Does this sound neurotypical? I have no idea, since it is my everyday life experience. Would a label be useful? Again, I’m not sure.

This leads back to some other points that was shared during the session: consideration of needs, the importance of communication and learning about those needs, and providing of alternatives and opportunities.

A useful event; thank you to all the organisers and presenters.

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Christopher Douce

Horizons in STEM education conference 2019

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Edited by Christopher Douce, Thursday, 5 Sept 2019, 11:49

I’ve been to a couple of the HEA Horizons in STEM conferences. The last one that I went to was in Newcastle, which I found it to be an interesting event; it enabled lecturers and students to talk to one another about their experiences of teaching and learning. 

The event in 2019 was held at Kingston University, London between 3 and 5 July. I was looking forward to this event; I worked at Kingston for 6 months just over ten years ago on a contract to help develop some educational technology systems.

What follows is a rough blog sketch of points that I took away from the event. I’ve edited these notes together from the notes that I made in my analogue laptop (my work note book, and pen). Just as with many of these blogs, I’m sharing the post on the off chance that it might be randomly useful for someone (and so my line manager, and anyone else who knows me, can see what I’m doing with my time).

Just to put everything in one place, the hashtag for the conference is #UKSTEMconf19, where you can see pictures and opinions from delegates.

Opening and keynote

The conference was opened by Trish Reid and the opening keynote was by Nona McDuff, director of student achievement who spoke about: Closing the BME attainment gap through an institutional approach. 

Nona asked as an important question: why are the outcomes of some student groups so different? A part of her talk looked at the student journey. There are a number of arguments: BME students start university with different tariff points (points gained from various entry qualifications, such as A levels). There is evidence that suggests that the higher the entrance tariff points, the higher the degree classification. Looking at what is expected at what is expected and what is attained, it appears there’s a clear gap between BME students and white students.

Since there are many factors involved, an institutional wide approach was developed. I noted down the words that “equity considerations [are] being embedded within all functions of the institution and treated as an ongoing process of quality enhancement”. A part of this embedding has been raise awareness of diversity issues amongst course teams. Importantly, closing the attainment gap was considered as a university level key performance indicator at board level.

A publication that was referenced was “Inclusive curriculum framework” by McDuff and Hughes (2010), and I also noted down the words: “pedagogy, curricula and assessment that is meaningful and accurate”. This includes the importance of considering the broad concept of the teaching, its content, delivery methods, assessment, how to approach feedforward and feedback. 

There’s an obvious point in all this: considering diversity means using good practices for all students, since whatever is done or created appeals to a wider audience

A final note I made during Nona’s presentation was to another reference, a paper entitled: “Closing the attainment gap for students from black and minority ethnic backgrounds through institutional change” (Kingston University research repository), McDuff et al. (2018), published in Widening Participation and Lifelong Learning  (Open University).

Equality, diversity and inclusion session 1

The first session I attended was by Rebecca Barnes from the University of Sheffield, who spoke about developing a “Sense of belonging in science undergraduates”. Her talk was based on a model that had been developed from research carried out for an MA in education dissertation. 

Sense of belonging can be linked to self-efficacy, goals, relationships with others. 150 students were surveyed, focus groups were run, and there was something called a ‘free working activity’. Rebecca looked at BAME students, interactions with staff and other students, and asked the question: “what do students’ value during their induction?” I noted down points about opportunities to meet with staff informally and opportunities to gain more detail about what academic work they will be doing.

Next was a presentation entitled: “Exploring differential attainment by assessment type in mathematics, chemistry and life sciences” by James Denholm-Price from Kingston. James presented a quantitative study that asked an important question: do students do differently when they take exams in comparison to other assessment approaches. I noted down the phrase “we didn’t find much”, but the following sentences in James’ abstract is interesting: “The sample data show statistically-significant differences in the attainment of certain groups of students in some assessment modalities, but not all”.

My colleague, Anne-Marie Gallen presented the next talk: “How to develop and embed a discipline-specific accessibility expertise in your teaching”. Disciplines are different, sometimes those subjects introduce barriers, i.e. mathematics has some very specific barriers for students with visual impairments. Anne-Marie was included with a mathematics and statistics accessibility working group which comprised of different members: academics, support staff, disabled student services. Anne-Marie also mentioned module accessibility guides and production of resources, policies, goals and even a video.

The final talk of this first session was also by another OU colleague. Chris Hutton and Julie Robson spoke about “breaking barriers, building community: improving student engagement with preparation for studying online science by distance learning”. They addressed a familiar topic: how to use forums to engage students to help them to prepare for first year modules. Chris and Julie introduced something called a S112 preparation site (S112 being an in interdisciplinary science module called Science: concepts and practice). A key idea was to encourage students to participate in a social activity before the start of the module. 

Equality, diversity and inclusion session 2

The first presentation during this session turned out to be a workshop entitled: “Exploring ‘belonging’ at university from the student perspective: what it is and how can we facilitate it?” facilitated by Daniela Dimitrova and colleagues from Kingston. We were presented with some questions: is a sense of belonging important? Also, is a sense of belonging important to all students? This led to a discussion that it can be thought of in terms of social group, module, societies, institution, discipline or subject, and that notion of personal identity could change over time.

The next presentation had a title that presented a question that was central to an ongoing study: personal tutoring – is there one size that fits all? These questions were explored by Baljit Thatti and Nicholas Freestone, both from Kingston University who had designed a questionnaire study.

The Open University presenters in this session were Diane Butler and Cath Brown who spoke about “students as partners in scholarship in STEM open and distance learning”. Diane is an associate dean, and Cath is the president of the OU student’s association (the equivalent of the students' union). The benefits of including students are cited as being: engagement, commitment, ownership, opportunities for collaboration with staff, and contributing to an opportunity to make things better for future students. The benefits for the university includes: increased understanding of the student experience and access to authentic feedback, and the possibility of increased levels of student satisfaction and retention. There are, of course, some challenges; it’s hard to work with students at a distance.

Technology Enhanced Learning/Computer Science

Neil Gordon, from the University of Hull, began with a presentation about “Flexible approaches to teaching programming”. I seem keep bumping into Neil quite regularly; the last time I saw him was at a Computer Science education conference at the start of the year, and another time was at one of these HEA events. 

Neil made some interesting and important points: CS student numbers are increasing, but there is a poor pass rate in GCSE Computing. In Neil’s words, this represents a ‘leaky pipeline’. There are other concerns too, which are concerned with the relatively low employability rates of computer science graduates. One way to approach this is to look at the teaching of the subject. Neil introduced a CS teacher training case study that used something called Crumble https://redfernelectronics.co.uk/crumble/  (Redfern Electronics website), a programmable controller that could be used to simple robots and buggies.

A session wouldn’t be complete without an OU delegate. This session had two. The first presenter was Anton Dil, from the School of Computing who spoke about “Layered online feedback on code quality”. Anton is the module chair for M250 Object-Oriented Java Programming (OU website). Anton wants to improve the feedback that is given to students, since he mentioned that there is something that is particularly difficult about programming. Regular practice is considered to be important. How could we support tutors to test code that has been written by students? Two automated tools have been created which assesses different dimensions of code (or software) quality: whether code can compile, whether it meets the task requirement, whether it is efficient, and is presented in a way that can be read by fellow programmers (has good style). 

The second OU presenter was myself, where I spoke about “teaching interaction design teamwork at a distance”, where I drew on my experience of co-facilitating an event that is known as a Design Hackathon for TM356 Interaction Design and the User Experience. If you’re interested, there’s a blog tag called Hackathon that might (or might not) be of interest. 

Equality, diversity and inclusion session 3

This third session took place at the start of the second day of the conference. First to present was Cristina De Mattels from the University of Nottingham, who gave a presentation entitled: “Come on into our research labs: promoting interactions of early-year undergraduates wit researchers to gain insights into the research community of practice”. Underpinning this was the idea of attempting to help undergrads to get more of an insight into what scientists actually do. One way to do this is to try to facilitate some interaction between undergrad students and researchers. I noted down that there was a programme of extra-curricular activities such as an invitation into the research labs, the making of films, and an activity called ‘sharing my bench space’.

Next was a presentation entitled: “how does a vocational qualification (BTEC) prepare students for a degree in biomedical sciences?” by Liz Hurrell and colleagues from the University of Central Lancashire. They reported that there were an increasing number of students taking BTEC courses. The consequences of this could mean a higher drop-out rate and a lower degree classifications (particularly at research intensive universities) for some students. We were told that widening participation students are more likely to take BTEC than A levels but the more applied nature of the courses can have benefits. During degree programs the point was made that some BTEC students may struggle with exams and revision in comparison to A level students, and some may have a sense of accompanying stigma if students have to attend additional classes for maths and chemistry.

I found Liz’s presentation especially interesting, since I used to be a BTEC student. I really enjoyed the course that I studied, and I felt that it equipped me well for the practical computer lab sessions that I had on my undergraduate degree. Although there was an excellent maths teacher during my BTEC, I struggled as an undergraduate. In some respects, the remedial maths classes that I attended felt as if they were an afterthought. There wasn’t much teaching. Instead, we sat in a room and worked through yellow worksheets (which I think I have kept hold of).

The next session was a workshop: what does an inclusive timetable look like in STEM? It was facilitated by Nigel Page and colleagues from Kingston. To be honest, when I saw the title of this session, I was looking for the door for the simple reason that I really don’t like planning my module timetables (and many of them are online). After five minutes into the introduction, I realised that there was no immediate escape without embarrassment for everyone. 

The facilitators looked at a number of different factors, such as commuting patterns and differences in demographics between students studying different subjects. An interesting point was that BME students have to travel further to Kingston than other groups. One of the reasons for this might be the demographics of Kingston and the surrounding areas.

It was also interesting to note that they university had a policy where student’s couldn’t arrive in class after it had started. If classes start early in the morning, and last an hour, all these individual factors have a potential to create barriers for learning. The point was made that there’s a link between timetables, pedagogy and course design. Sometimes barriers might not be obvious. Unexpectedly, this session became one of the highlights of the conference. 

Professional practice session

The penultimate presentation was by Sonia Kumari and colleagues, who spoke about ‘Pedagogy through civic engagement: three case studies from geography’. Their case studies were about the intersections between academic study, practical experience and community involvement. Students went out into the community and carried out an investigative journalism project.

The final presentation had a very long title: how could teaching observation schemes adapt to meet students’ demands of what high quality teaching is expected to be in the STEM subjects? Penny Burden and Nigel Page’s presentation was about the context of the national students’ survey and the teaching excellent framework. We were given two activities: to define high quality learning, and what it might look like, and what does a good teaching observation scheme look like?

I made a note of top 3 points that you might want to look for: checking of learning, tutors and lecturers doing different things (running activities), and delivering materials that meet the needs and culture of student groups. A further point that I noted down was: look at the whole picture, beyond the four walls of the classroom; students may appreciate guest speakers who bring the outside to the classroom. 

Closing keynote

The closing keynote was by Samantha Pugh who spoke of Re-imagining Assessment in Higher Education. Samantha spoke a 12 month project about connecting assessments between programme learning outcomes (PLOs). I was curious about this concept, since I’m more used to the world of module learning outcomes. There was a link to graduate attributes and skills, such as critical thinking skills, able to work critically with knowledge, and effective communication.

We were presented with an example from Chemical Engineering. A phrase that I noted down was: “we need to demonstrate that learning outcomes have been meet at each levels, along with programme level outcomes, but how do we do this?’ We were all asked a question: “what assessments could be used to allow students to demonstrate achievement of programme learning outcomes for your subject?”

We were directed to something called a ‘research-teaching nexus’ by Healey and a report that had been written by Samantha and published by the Leeds Institute called Teaching Excellence: A compendium of assessment techniques in higher education: from students’ perspectives (PDF).

I made a note of some conclusions: assessment is an integral part of programme design; clear programme learning outcomes help with aligning assessment to study, formative assessment should inform teaching and help student success in summative learning, and students need opportunities to revisit learning.

Reflections

Nearly two months passed between attending this conference and writing these reflections. Since the event, my work has become muddied with interviewing, quite a bit of study, and taking on a new role in the university. 

I remember that a few things struck me: the extent to which diversity was featured and discussed throughout this whole conference, the number of university colleagues that I met there, and the clear opportunity of sharing (and discussing) practice with colleagues – which is, of course, one of the great benefits and advantages of this type of event.

Also remember being impressed by Kingston and the work that they’re doing. There was a time when Kingston used to be my ‘local’ university. Rather than choosing to study there (which I could have easily have done), I went to another university in another city. 

Unexpectedly, the session that I found most interesting was also a session about a subject that I find the most boring: timetabling. I took away the point that, when it comes to education and equality, geography really does matter and that it is really important to make the effort to get to know who your students are. You can’t fully understand diversity without taking some important steps towards understanding.

Addendum

When I was sorting out my papers a couple of weeks after writing this blog, I noticed a handout that I had forgotten about. It had the title "Taxonomy of 'high quality' teaching: the students' perspective". I'm not quite sure where I got the handout from, but I think might have been Burden and Page's session. Rather than recycling the handout and risk forgetting about it, I thought it would be both worthwhile and useful to summarise it here.

The taxonomy was split into three sections: attitude, methods and scaffolding. The elements of each are summarised below:

  • Attitude: respect; ability of relate to the student experience; high responsiveness; building a rapport; enthusiasm; engagement.
  • Methods: engage students from the beginning of lectures; design of reinforcement activities; connection of past, current and future knowledge; detailed explanations during lectures; PowerPoint slides as a guide, not script; workshops to support lectures.
  • Scaffolding: updated technologies; mandatory recording of lectures (voice); exams after every semester which counts for 25%; breakdown of workload for both parties; involvement of outside resources to supplement learning.

From my own perspective, the entries under attitude and methods are really familiar (and are important to remember).

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Christopher Douce

Decolonising the curriculum in our distance learning environment

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On 21 March 2019 I attended a seminar that was co-organised by UCU, the University and College Union, and the university BME (black and minority ethnicity) staff network. 

I attended for a couple of reasons: firstly, I'm broadly interested in diversity having carried out research into technology and accessibility and have a hidden disability, and secondly, one of my colleagues, Mustafa Ali, was going to be giving a talk. It turns out that Mustafa couldn’t make it to the talk, but what follows is a summary of some of the key things that I took away from the event

HE sector perspectives on decolonising the curriculum

Aravinda Guntpalli, Senior Lecturer in public health defined the term decolonisation as “freeing a country from being dependent on another country”. This could be understood in terms of political, social and economic dependence. Another comment I noted was that terminology and language has a legacy which imposes a particular view about how the world works.

Aravinda’s talk also included some statistics: in the OU, only 10% of students are BME.  It’s important to note that there is a significant attainment gap between white students and BME students.

Towards the end of her presentation, we were introduced to the history of the decolonising the curriculum movement, which has its root in the Rhodes must fall campaign (Wordpress) in 2015.  There was also a reference to a UCL campaign called: why is my curriculum white? (NUS website)

I made a few notes during the Q&A session. A question that I noted down was: ‘how can we decolonise?’ A response that I recorded was that it’s necessary to consider the process of teaching, the materials that we use to teach, and the learning environment that we establish. The voices that are exposed and valued can and will differ between subjects. It is important to consider which voices are exposed.

Reflections

The most striking point that I took away from the session was the extent of the attainment gap between white students and BME students. (I’ve asked Aravinda for an official reference; I’ll update this blog when I’ve done a bit more reading and research).

I found the history of the Rhodes must fall campaign interesting. As I was listening I remembered attending a widening participation conference some year back, which I wrote a couple of blogs about: Widening Participation through Curriculum Conference blog of day 1, blog of day 2.

I remembered something about the co-creation of curriculum, a collaboration between students and a lecturer at Kingston University. This was something that I summarised briefly in the penultimate paragraph of the blog about the first day of the conference. I then had a thought: this whole subject, of relevance and potential bias within materials has a history that obviously goes back a lot further than the events of 2014.

I attended this UCU seminar after attending another seminar in the school of computing and communications. My colleague, Michel Wermelinger had been giving a talk about one of the fundamentals of computer science: algorithms. During a part of the talk, he shared a case of where a Google algorithm was misclassifying images and producing results that were considered to be deeply offensive. A popular article, entitled: Rise of the racist robots – how AI is learning all our worst impulses (The Guardian, 2017), presents a number of case studies.

I once had a call with a student who said something that was both a comment and a challenge. He said: “all the module materials are written by white people”. I started to mentally work through all the names of the academics that I knew who had worked on the module that we were discussing. I had to agree with him. He did have a point. I also understood that although computers are mathematical machines, algorithms are created by people and are fed with data, which are also chosen and created by people. Bias has the potential to affect all disciplines.

When we were into the Q&A session and delegates were discussing what we might be able to do, my mind wandered to the module that I’m currently studying (or, should I say, trying to study!): EE812 Educational leadership: exploring strategy. A question that came to mind was: was that module doing anything to consider different context? I then remembered that it had a whole series of case studies from different contexts: from England, from Singapore, from South Africa and from India. Differences in practices and perspectives were being exposed to learners so they could think about how they related to (and differed from) their own contexts. One view of difference and diversity is that is can be a constructive and a critical tool, from where we can understand and appreciate different perspectives.

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Farewell diversity group

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Edited by Christopher Douce, Thursday, 17 Nov 2016, 09:26

I haven’t blogged for a while because I’ve been caught up in the middle of something called the group tuition policy. August and September of this year proved to be my busiest ever at the university. I have, however, found the time to write a short article for the associate lecturer magazine called Snowball (I’ll publish a version of it when it has been released). This post isn't about the trials and tribulations of the group tuition policy, but I'm sure I'll be writing about that another time.

Not long after joining The Open University in London I joined something called an ‘equal opportunities and diversity’ group. I soon learnt that the group was a throwback to an old university wide project that aimed to increase institutional awareness about equality and diversity issues. When the original project came to an end, the London group decided to continue for the simple reason: equality and diversity was considered to be an important issue in our capital city.

There was another reason why I joined: I started to self-identify with people who have disabilities (I have a stutter). Even though I’m a middle class hetrosexual white man, I started to realise that it was important to get involved. Firstly, I realised that my perspective might be one that may be of interest. I then formed the opinion that it was important to build and find allegiances with others. There was another perspective, and this was: the E&O group pretty fun group to be involved with.

This blog is, in some ways, a farewell to the group. The group is disbanding since the university has decided, in its infinite wisdom, to close the London office.  I leave the Camden office with a whole bunch of good memories.

Diversity events

Although the E&O group in London didn’t have any official powers within the university, it was charged with doing two things: representing the views of staff and students through the links that the staff have with different parts of the university, and running a ‘diversity’ event every year.

For those who prefer The Daily Mail over The Guardian, this kind of initiative might seem something of an anathema. The ideals are simple: the university has a responsibility to offer education to anyone who walks through its virtual doors. To educate as effectively as possible, we need to know about some of its students. To educate effectively, we need to become educated ourselves. The help Open University students to succeed, we need to have open minds regarding the perspectives of others.

The first event that I was involved with in 2011 was about travel. It was about sharing thoughts and impressions about places that everyone in the London office had come from, or had a connection with, or had visited. A map was put up in the café area and we were encouraged to deface it positively with string, pins, pen and photographs. Our stories and journeys criss-crossed the globe; almost every continent was touched.

The following year saw an event that was about winter celebrations and memories. We shared photographs and had a competition. The event for 2013 had a slightly different tone: it had the title ‘creative aging’; a topic that was thoroughly embraced. One reason is that our students can be of any age (and, of course, we’re all getting that little bit older).

The 2014 event had the title: ‘Open Minds: Mental Health and Diversity Matters’. This event had two different forms: a participative display that was placed in the café area, where we could share experiences and knowledge about mental health issues, and a lecture about staying mentally healthy. The lecture was given by our university mental health advisor. The message was simple: ‘we’re encouraged to eat five portions of fruit and vegetables a day to help with our physical health, so why are we not thinking about things in a similar way about our mental health?’ It’s a compelling point. When we’re so focussed on doing things and dealing with day to day challenges, we can forget to take time out. During the lecture, we were told about an idea called MindApples, which is a London based charity.

Although I enjoyed all these events, the next one was, perhaps, one of my favourites. The 2015 event was entitled: Jokes, Language and Diversity. Humour is a really interesting topic. A good joke or a humorous story can unsettle us and challenge our prejudices (and make us laugh, of course). Humour can, of course, allow us to explore taboos and understand different perspectives. During the event, a series of different performers talked about issues relating to sexuality, race, disability and language.

The final event had the title: Equality and Diversity: Past, Present and Future. This event was centred on another participative display. As well as being a retrospective of all earlier events it also touched upon the subject of utopia: what it meant to different writers and what it meant to the different people who worked in the London regional centre. In some ways, this subject represented another perspective: diversity of thought and diversity of opinion.

The wider perspective

Even though our London diversity group unofficially dissolves at the beginning of 2017, the university has a number of informal staff networks for ‘diverse’ members of staff: there is a disabled staff network, a BME network, a LGBT network, and a women’s network. I was a co-chair of the Open University disabled staff network for a while until I got mad with the ‘network’ scheme and threw all my toys out of the pram.

The reason for my departure from this set of networks was pretty simple: I didn’t feel that the groups were talking to each other, and I felt that the senior management were not taking issues of equality and diversity very seriously. There was another difference: the London diversity group was just that: diverse; it wasn’t a silo: we could talk about anything, and we could challenge each other.

Another reason for leaving the network was down to time: I felt that I could use my time more efficiently by being outside a ‘network’ than within it. Here’s an example: I’ve been lobbying for the university to provide an equality analysis in response to its ongoing restructuring programme (which is a polite way of saying ‘redundancies’ and ‘closures’). This said, I’m not saying that a ‘network’ isn’t useful or important; they may well be very useful in terms of giving voice to some members of staff. My point is: an institutional diversity programme should go further than just having a small number of homogeneous groups.

We learnt some good things in our London group, did some good stuff, and we had some good times. I'm sad that the group is disbanding and the London office is closing (which is something that still baffles me). The success of this group reflects what is really important in the university: its people.

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Christopher Douce

Locations and equality: everyone has a place

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Edited by Christopher Douce, Tuesday, 23 Feb 2016, 08:56

I have loads of different interests. Computer science, motorcycles and writing are just three of them. There is one interest that cut across different aspects of my life, and that is the academic subject of disability studies. I’m personally touched by the subject and I tutor on a module (H810 accessible on-line learning) that relates to disability and accessibility.

It’s because of this interest, that I joined a London regional equal opportunities and diversity (EO&D) group when I started working at the OU in London.

The EO&D group is a body of staff that promotes Equality and Diversity in the London and South East Open University regions.  The group was formed as a result of a university wide initiative to ensure that university staff are aware of Equal Opportunities and Diversity issues.  Following the official end of the project, the London group remained, primarily because the issue of cultural diversity is especially significant in London.

Even though the group doesn’t have any specific power or authority, it is a group that (in my opinion) is pretty important: its strength lies in the commitment of its volunteers and the networks that they have fostered. The group offers a safe space for staff to raise issues and concerns. It has also been a group that has discussed and debated the implication of university policies. The group has also been responsible for running a series of thought provoking events; we held an event to raise awareness of mental health issues, and recently held event that invited a series of speakers who aimed to challenge our perceptions about a range of different issues.

Closure of regional centres

Some members of the London and South East region equal opportunities and diversity group collectively made a submission to what the university called the locations analysis project. The submission contained a series of points that expressed concerns about what the impact on equality and diversity might be if many regional centres in England closed.

Following a recent EO&D meeting, it was decided to make this submission public. The members of the group are a great bunch: they want to support students, the university, and its mission; but like many of us, they worry about the impact that substantial organisational changes may have on the students that we work to support.

The following points are, pretty much, unedited from the original submission. One additional point has been added, and this relates to student retention, national flexibility and study support. I personally welcome the opportunity to see some of my students for additional support sessions which take place in the Camden office, and I worry that this ability to see real students might be taken away from me.

Submission to the project

This document summarises the position of some of the members of the group and requests the Locations Analysis (LA) team consider a number of very important issues that directly relate to Equality and Diversity.  These points, in turn, relate to the university as a whole. 

Members of the EO&D group rejects the notion that the locations analysis will improve the student experience and help the university to support students.  Instead, the proposals have the potential to undermine the university’s mission. During a meeting, the following points were raised:

  1. Some groups of students will be disproportionately affected. These include: students with disabilities, offender learners, students who are studying within secure institutions (such as psychiatric hospitals), and vulnerable adults.
  2. The London region is the home for an accessibility assessment centre.  In the LA proposals, this centre will be closed, requiring students to visit other centres.
  3. The regional centre is used to run examinations for protected groups of students, such as offender learners who have been released on licence, students who have disabilities, and vulnerable adults.  Since the examinations are run on the university’s premises, the academic integrity and accessibility of venues can be assured.  This facility will no longer be available if the locations analysis plans go ahead.
  4. Detailed in depth knowledge is required to match invigilators to students who have disabilities. This knowledge is based around the location of the invigilators, and the location of the student. This knowledge will be lost if the LA plans, as they stand, go ahead and staff are forced to take voluntary severance, putting the student experience and successful running of examinations at risk.
  5. Detailed in depth knowledge and personal relationships are needed to be built between the university and education officers in prisons and secure units. If these links are lost due to the LA proposals, this will directly and negatively impact on the student experience.  Allocation of tutors to prisoners and vulnerable students very much depend on local knowledge and links to faculty staff, who know about local tutors who are willing and able to support different groups of students.
  6. There will be direct impacts on the university’s ability to check, assess and validate the accessibility of examination and tutorial centres.
  7. The LA proposals will make it more difficult to ensure that tutorial centres and exam centres can more readily respond to individual and unique accessibility adjustments.
  8. Vulnerable students, and students with disabilities will no longer be able to visit the regional centre to gain first hand practical advice from faculty staff and advisors.
  9. Widening participation is both a university and a national policy. Closing regional centres in demographically diverse areas will make it more difficult to plan, instigate and organise focussed widening participation events.  In essence, the LA scheme will make it more difficult to respond to changing and unique differences between diverse parts of England. 
  10. The experience from the closure of East Grinstead clearly suggests that women are disproportionately affected purely because of the number of women who work in regional centres.
  11. The closure of the regions will significantly affect staff who have caring responsibilities.  These members of staff will be unable to readily relocate to another centre, if this option is open to them. 
  12. The following members of the EO&D group holds the view that the LA plans will significantly affect the university’s ability to institutionally take account of the national diversity within England.
  13. The university considers student retention to be a strategically important issue. Not having regional centres will reduce the university’s ability to run, plan and schedule any future nationally focussed retention or recruitment initiatives or programmes. Programmes might include face to face induction sessions and study skills workshops to support level 1 students, or students who may be struggling with different aspects of their studies.

Final points

Most of the points that are here are not about staff; they are about students. I could write a lot more about other impacts, such as our institutional ability to support our diverse group of associate lecturers. I also worry that in dismantling a lot of our organisational structures we will lose a lot of what is good about our organisation: the knowledge and expertise of those who support our students.

When this submission was made, the EO&D group requested that the locations analysis team freely publishes an equality analysis to clearly spell out how they plan to address equality issues and diversity issues. Planning for the closures is going ahead before anyone has seen sight of this analysis.

I look forward to seeing it when it is available. I hope it is available soon.

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Christopher Douce

Mental health awareness day: London regional centre

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Edited by Christopher Douce, Thursday, 28 Feb 2019, 12:08

Every year the London region equality and diversity group runs an event.  Over the last two years we’ve run an event about ‘place, location and travel’, and have held an event about creative aging.  This year, the group ran an event on 13 November 2014 about mental health and well-being.  The day was split into two parts.

Part 1 : Participative display

A couple of months before the event we erected two display boards in the university café area.  These boards were to form what we called a ‘participative display’.  Each board had a slightly different purpose.  One board was all about sharing stories, experiences and acknowledging the contributions that people who have mental health issues have made to society.  The second display board was all about ‘resilience’; things that we can all do to ensure that we maintain good mental health.  The rear of this first board was also used to share more factual information about mental health issues.  We put up papers and articles.  I remember there was one article from Science magazine about the prevalence of depression.

When the boards had been put up, the group sent an email around the office telling everyone what the boards were all about, and how everyone might contribute.  To get the whole display, a couple of group members ‘seeded’ the display by adding some broad headings, some thoughts and some initial ideas.

The email messages and the ‘seeding’ did the trick.  As the months passed, different contributions were made.  The contributions included information about writers, academics and performers.  Other contributions had a slightly more personal tone; these were stories of people who had been touched, in some way or another, by mental illness.  The board became a catalyst for sharing.

Part 2 : Mental health and wellbeing

On the day of the event, we had asked a university colleague, Emma Greenstein, to come and speak to us.  Emma works for the university disability advisory service as the university mental health adviser.  Her job is to work with staff to help to offer support for students who have mental health difficulties.  I’ve had to chat to Emma a number of times and she has helped me out on a number of occasions.

Emma intended that her talk was to be interactive.  A part of her talk was to bust some myths, introduce us to some facts and terminology.  Emma introduced us to a model called ‘the mental health continuum’.  This was a simple model that had two axes: one axis that goes from 'diagnosis of mental illness' through to 'no diagnosed mental illness' (I should also mention that the model is about rating the severity of a mental illness).  The other axis goes from 'flourishing mental well being' through to 'poor mental well-being'.  (I have read that this model comes from a paper from Tudor entitled, ‘Mental Health Promotion’).  Here's a diagram that is pretty similar to the one that Emma used on the day:

Mental health model diagram

The model enables us to think beyond diagnostic labels, which can easily over simplify things.  A really interesting point that was raised was that we can all experience mental health difficulties.  The term ‘difficulties’ can mean feeling worries or anxiety, through to the experience of feelings of grief or loss.

Another interesting point that was made (and also emphasised) was the differences between people.  Emma said: ‘If you’ve supported one student with schizophrenia, you’ve supported one student with schizophrenia’.  It was a phrase that I’ve heard before, but in relation with students who experience different conditions.  Its use in this context emphasised the importance and need to treat and consider everyone as individuals.

During the session we were shown a short video:  I had a black dog, his name was depression (YouTube).  The video comes from a book that one of my favourite friends had once shown to me.  It’s a book that one of my colleagues had also brought along to the session.

We returned to the mental health continuum where we were asked two questions: ‘where are you now?’ and ‘where have you used to be?’  It didn’t take me too long to identify two points in two different places.  There was an important point here: that we can move between different points on the continuum.

On the subject of change, we were introduced a series of three short films that were made as a part of the recent Time to change campaign (campaign website).  The first film has the title speaking up (YouTube).  There are two other clips: you can recover (YouTube), and stronger, better, person (YouTube).  These videos are pretty short and pretty watchable too.

If we can place ourselves on a continuum, then a related question is: what can we do to promote our own resilience?  We were directed to a site called Mind Apples (mindapples.org) which I understand was created by a web developer.  The idea is really simple: there’s a lot of talk about the importance of eating five fruit and vegetables per day.  (I do struggle to do this, mostly due to the overabundance of cake that there seems to be at the OU office in London, but I’m not complaining!)  If we consider doing five good things for the body, why shouldn’t we consider doing five good things for our mind?  The idea is: what five things make you happy? Or what five things should you be doing that could make a positive difference to your mental well-being?  The website phrases it in a better way by asking: ‘what do you do regularly to take care of your mind?

A point I noted was that our actions and choices are important.

Final thoughts

At the end of Emma’s session, something really interesting happened: colleagues who had made contributions to our participative display were asked whether they wanted to say something about what they had added.  This gave way to a series of amazing impromptu talks about a range of different issues, worries, concerns and experiences.  Everyone took the time to listen. In that space and situation, what was said was both important and interesting. In an atmosphere of respect and mutual support, we began to talk about mental health, mental well-being and resilience.  Suddenly, these subjects didn’t seem so hard.

After the talks, we all broke off for some lunch. The equality and diversity group had made a special trip to the supermarket to buy some bread, cheese, salad, some juices and other goodies to accompany awesome home-cooked food that some of our colleagues had prepared. There seemed to be a consensus amongst those of us who helped to run the event: this had been the best, most challenging, and most useful event that we had run. Our participative display worked.

Acknowledgements: Many thanks to Emma Greenstein who commented on an earlier version of this post, and all my colleagues who worked on the event and made amazing contributions.

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