The Higher Education Academy - enhancing the student experience

1
The Higher Education Academy - enhancing the
student experience

• Teaching, learning and
• the disability agenda
• Yvonne Dickinson
• Adviser Disability
• NADO Annual conference
• July 5 2006

2
Aims of the presentation

• Update on the national partnership arrangements
  for embedding disability support across HE
• Consider the role of the HE Academy re disability
  issues and learning and teaching
• Re-visit the manifesto for mainstreaming
  Inclusive practice (an NDT legacy)
• A to do list for embedding disability in the
  learning and teaching agenda.

3
National arrangements for disability support in
HE
WP
DEP
Equalities
L T
4
Early outputs and outcomes of the new DEP
arrangements

• Outputs
• Publications
• Presentations and workshops
• Content for websites
• Joint briefings
• Bi-annual bulletin
• Helpdesk facility and FAQs
• Direct support to HEIs re DED preparations
• Survey/questionnaire on DES

• Outcomes
• New partnerships and collaboration.
• Sharing of expertise, ideas and resources
• Improved understanding of legislation and
  equality and diversity issues.
• Raised awareness of disability issues across the
  HE sector
• Agreed joint themes and priorities

5
The Higher Education Academy What are we doing?

• Disseminating good practice in Learning and
  Teaching across the sector
• Raising the profile of inclusive practice and
  supporting staff to embed this in all aspects of
  their work within the Academy
• Working with Subject Centres and their discipline
  communities
• Working with key stakeholders who may have a
  common interest eg PDP and disability issues
• Supporting the transfer of good practice from
  funded initiatives such as - CETLs, FDTL, NTFS

6
The Higher Education Academy What are we doing?

• Engaging with other Academy related activities
  that are progressing work in areas of widening
  participation and assistive technology (WP and
  TechDis teams)
• Contributing to National, regional, local and
  Institutional events and meetings to maintain the
  profile of disability in HE
• Working in partnership with ECU, Action on
  Access, and other key stakeholder groups such as
  DRC, Skill, NADO.

7
A manifesto for mainstreaming inclusive practice
National

• Undertake strategic thinking and strategic action
• Harness the sense of social justice, equality and
  fairness that motivates most higher education
  practitioners
• Recognise the fuzzy and complex nature of
  concepts of disabled and disabled
  student/learner which makes inclusivity
  challenging on occasions
• Capture and effectively disseminate good
  professional practice
• Recognise the considerable achievements to date
  in improving inclusive practice.

8
A manifesto for mainstreaming inclusive practice
Institutional (1)

• Build credibility through creating a rigorous and
  evidence-based pedagogy
• Promote pragmatic and engaging academic/staff
  development
• Actively engage in research into inclusive
  learning and teaching
• Balance the need for subject-specific materials
  and case studies with generic approaches
• Use technologies in support of inclusive practice
  effectively
• Engage disabled students in a debate that goes
  into curriculum design
• Maintain a focus on learning from a learners
  point of view.

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A manifesto for mainstreaming inclusive practice
Institutional (2)

• Think inclusively when designing assessment
  instruments
• Ensure that standards are maintained in terms of
  the quality, scale and scope of work expected
• Embed disability matters into the curriculum for
  all students
• Recognise that the same kind of issues and
  challenges are often faced across an institution
• Continue to reflect regularly on our practice to
  ensure continuous improvement
• Recognise that there is a good business case to
  be made for actively recruiting students as
  disabled people.

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A manifesto for mainstreaming inclusive
practice Disability Practitioners

• Stop adopting practices which predominately focus
  on adjustments and start thinking about
  supporting inclusive curriculum and assessment
  design which offer all students choices that
  align with their abilities
• Recognise that disabled students, like other
  students, are consumers of higher education
• Look for synergies between different types of
  disability practitioners and make use of
  constructive partnerships between staff in a
  range of roles across HEIs.
• (Adams, M. and Brown, S. (Eds), (2006) Chp16.
  p.187 Towards Inclusive Learning in Higher
  Education Developing curricula for Disabled
  Students, London, Routledge).

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Engaging academic staff To do list

• Think subject discipline
• Build on the credibility of academic champions in
  your institutions, subjects
• Engage with the Higher Education Academy
  priorities and themes
• eg. CETLs, FDTL, NTFS, Accreditation,
• Change Academy, commissioning of research,
• Subject Centre work
• Attend staff development programmes
• Consider inclusive practice at curriculum design,
  accreditation, validation and review of
  programmes
• Engage with institutional practice in areas such
  as using External examiners effectively, QA
  committees and groups.

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Engaging disability practitionersTo do list

• Think Out of the office!
• Connect with WP teams, HR, Staff development,
  Student services etc
• Inform strategy use the DED as a tool
• Get senior staff on board and keep them engaged
• Engage in Induction for new staff
• Use your champions within your institution
• Use nationally available resources and good
  practice
• Use each other effectively.