inclusivity in the curriculum

Globalisation and Internationalisation of the IMS Curriculum

Fiona A Wilkie Leave a Comment

THE TEAM

Student leads: Boya Zhang, Shawn Lee, Dan Kviat

Staff lead: Jacob Wright

 

DEPARTMENT

Cancer Institute

 

WHAT HAPPENED?

Our project aims to increase global awareness in the IMS Undergraduate Curriculum. The current curriculum primarily focuses on a more eurocentric context, limiting global exposure. However, especially in an increasingly globalised society and a vastly diverse student population, global awareness has become increasingly more important, for future careers or better representation of the diverse student population. As we aim to find ways to introduce more global perspectives into the curriculum, we have conducted a survey with both students and faculty members, to understand their perspectives and establish whether there is the need to increase global awareness. This is followed by a short interview with a few students and faculty members, to have them elaborate on their survey questions and for us to further understand their perspectives of globalisation (i.e. what it might be and how it might be challenging to incorporate more into the curriculum). We managed to gain insightful comments from both faculty members and students. The team will then gather and analyse all of the data, before designing a framework that can help faculty members/module leads, as a reference when they are designing the curriculum.

 

WHAT ADVICE OR ENCOURAGEMENT WOULD YOU GIVE TO SOMEONE THINKING OF DOING A CHANGEMAKERS PROJECT?

I would advise that they start earlier, as it will be hard to manage the project on top of school lectures and projects etc. I would also suggest that students/staff should do a ChangeMakers project on something they are really passionate about or have an immense of interest in.

IEHC inclusive curriculum student engagement project

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THE TEAM

Staff: Dr Anne Peasey & Dr Rebecca Lacey

Students: Whitney Wells (lead), Wen Wang (support), Sicheng Hu (support)

DEPARTMENT

Institute of Epidemiology and Health Care

WHAT HAPPENED?

To support efforts piloting the decolonising curriculum toolkit on a module in IEHC, we led a changemakers workshop to gather student perspectives on how to foster a more inclusive learning environment. This project was led by three students from the MSc Social Epidemiology programme, with an initial focus on one of our modules, Health Inequalities Over the Life course (IEHC0049). Our goal was to follow an iterative process based on student feedback and perspectives as the foundation. We started with a student workshop to brainstorm challenges and suggested solutions, then discussed the themes and topics that emerged with the academic leads for the module. Academic leads then reviewed the challenges and solutions identified by students and met to brainstorm their feedback and suggested solutions for staff to take student suggestions on board. We then reviewed all the feedback and ideas that had been brainstormed to create a guide for each pillar in the decolonising curriculum toolkit. Next we aim to share this output with the students who originally input into the process and to capture their feedback before circulating more widely to academic leads across the institute and the changemakers team. During the course of the project, we found that the results we got apply not only to one module, but can be taken on any modules to enhance curriculum decolonisation based on student perspectives. Then we build a guide that can be shared across the institute with tangible actions as the result of this changemakers project. We hope this guide will be an invaluable resource for improving efforts to decolonise the curriculum across the IEHC.

WHAT ADVICE OR ENCOURAGEMENT WOULD YOU GIVE TO SOMEONE THINKING OF DOING A CHANGEMAKERS PROJECT?

It is helpful to have a team of students who can support and who are also eager about the goal, to keep the momentum going.

Improving Accessibility of Teaching for Neurodiverse Students

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THE TEAM

Student leads: Harriet Hunter, Navya Malik, Shannon McCann, Ritika Sukhani

Treasurer and staff project lead: Dominika Dykert

DEPARTMENT

Psychology and Language Sciences

WHAT HAPPENED?

Our project originally arose from neurodiverse students bringing up suggestions on how small practical changes within the classroom could have a large impact on improving inclusivity and the learning experience of neurodiverse students. The project aimed to explore the learning experience of neurodiverse UCL students and gain further suggestions on how other changes could be implemented within the classroom environment to accommodate all learners. The experiences of neurodiverse students were gathered through various means (focus groups, interviews, qualitative questionnaires) all answering the same questions focusing on their overall learning experiences and face-to-face classroom / online learning experiences. Through thematic analysis we narrowed down many similarities between students about difficulties they faced and suggestions of how their learning experiences could be improved. These themes highlighted the importance of: clear organisation within the course; the accessibility of course materials; support from staff and the physical classroom environment, which can have a large impact on the learning experience of neurodiverse students. These themes were then presented in our workshop with staff members at the Anna Freud Centre whereby we worked together to discuss solutions and identify which of our themes could be feasibly incorporated into the everyday classroom environment within the Anna Freud Centre. Although our project was small through the information gained from the staff and student partnership we will be creating and distributing a leaflet summarising our findings and the suggestions we wish to continue to incorporate within the Anna Freud Centre to make it an inclusive environment for neurodiverse students.

WHAT ADVICE OR ENCOURAGEMENT WOULD YOU GIVE TO SOMEONE THINKING OF DOING A CHANGEMAKERS PROJECT?

Sometimes things in your project may not go as planned. For us we experienced set-backs which had a domino effect on our recruitment and led to us changing the format of how we gathered information (We went from focus groups to using interviews/qualitative questionnaires). So, our advice is to be flexible on how to approach these problems and not get too shaken by them especially when you’re strapped for time. Also, your staff partners can be a life-saver to minimise these setbacks when they arise.

Developing international perspectives on the curriculum for the MA Early Years Education programme

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THE TEAM

Students: Iba Beyza Yuanyuan Dai (project lead student) Chunjing Li Kateryna Tyzhuk

Staff: Jennifer Chung Eirini Gkouskou Joseph Mintz (project lead staff)

DEPARTMENT

Learning and Leadership, IOE

WHAT HAPPENED?
In this project we worked with staff and students on the MA Early Years cluster (MA Early Years Face to Face, MA Early Years Online and MA Primary) to develop an understanding of how we could approach developing a more international perspective on the programme. Our objectives were to consider how the programme could better draw on the personal and professional experience of all students and their understanding of their own local contexts in their home countries, and further consider how this could be translated into curriculum developments. We ran focus groups with staff and students on the programme as well as a student survey. Based on analysis of this feedback we developed two exemplar resources for two units on two modules, illustrating how an international perspective could be developed in the programme. We also came up with a set of recommendations. One of the best things about the project was that we gained a real sense of what students thought was important – for example that student diversity was a real resource for learning that could be made more use of in the curriculum for the programme. We also understood better the challenges perceived by staff – in particular the need to avoid tokenistic approaches and instead to focus on deeper learning that made use of staff diversity and the full staff knowledge base on international perspectives.
WHAT ADVICE OR ENCOURAGEMENT WOULD YOU GIVE TO SOMEONE THINKING OF DOING A CHANGEMAKERS PROJECT?
So a key thing we learned was that students and staff can work together and learn together as equals. One student noted, “..the whole process we were treated as equal members of the research team, whose insights were always seriously considered. As a result, it had an immense (positive) impact on my self-esteem as a novice researcher.” Another student said, “”definitely do it because It is an excellent opportunity to develop some research skills, improve your network and experience the program from a different perspective”. Adopting a co-production perspective from the start is really important but at the same time working initially to understand the strengths and limitations across the whole team and how we can work to support each other is also really important

LGBTQ+ Toolkit for Medical Educators

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The team

Dr Jayne Kavanagh, Dr Santino Coduri-Fulford, Dr Marchesa Ataide-Da Costa.

Department

UCL Medical School

What happened?
A toolkit to help medical educators make their teaching resources and sessions more LGBTQ+ inclusive.
What advice or encouragement would you give to someone thinking of doing a ChangeMakers project?
Factor in feedback and the time needed for this.

Decolonising a Sexual Health Curriculum

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The team
Julia Bailey (lead)
Mayra Salazar Volkmann, Haoyue Guo, Kara Smythe (support).
Department
Research Department of Primary Care and Population Health
What happened?
This project is a module review for the iBSc Sexual Health module, which took a decolonising lens to look at sexual health in social contexts, meaning to acknowledge and remove the influences of colonialism in knowledge construction. To review our approach to decolonising medical education, we started this project in 2021 and received support from the Changemakers grant to disseminate our results. To gather data, we reviewed literature in the field and interviewed the session facilitators of the module, students, and the module lead. With their views and opinions, we were able to reflect on how decolonisation was perceived in sexual health education, what went well with our attempt to bring the element of decolonisation to the class, and what can be improved. We have shared our findings with departmental staff and PhD students through a workshop, and we have plans to further the impact of this piece of work through blogs, journal articles, and seminars.
What advice or encouragement would you give to someone thinking of doing a ChangeMakers project?
Time management and distribution of workload is absolutely key for teamwork. Since we already collected data before getting changemakers funding, we initially thought time wouldn’t be a problem. However, we finished analysis and preparation for dissemination just in time and it was only achieved because we set clear deadlines and divided up work clearly.

‘Critical Medicine’ Teaching Series: a DtMC x EDI collaboration

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The team

Student team: Tina Plowman (Year 6) – lead

Support students: Davina Puri (Year 5), Anjana Narasimhan (Year 4), Lauren Pereira-Greene (Year 2), Anaiya Kaka (Year 2), Srishti Agarwal (Year 4), Shem Braithwaite (Year 3).

Staff team: Lois Haruna-Cooper, Jayne Kavanagh, Sarah Wong (FY1, honorary teaching fellow).

Department
UCL Medical School
What happened?
We received UCL Changemaker’s funding to run our Critical Medicine Workshop Series, a second collaboration between Decolonising the Medical Curriculum working group and the UCLMS EDI Committee. This was designed to be a free series of interactive workshops open to all UCL Medical Students. The topics ranged from Psychiatry, with our workshop on at St Pancras hospital to the History of Medicine with a tour by one of the curators of the new History of Medicine exhibition at the Science Museum. The overall aim was to develop critical thinking skills applicable to medicine in both theory and practice. Having a critical consciousness enables students to recognise inequality and power structures within healthcare, much like wider society, and through these workshops we had discussions on directions for the future of medicine (and us medical students) to work towards health equity. We got feedback via forms and also by video – so watch this space for the final report and summary video clip!
For more information, find us on:
FB – Critical Medicine: https://www.facebook.com/criticalmedicine
FB – Decolonising the Medical Curriculum: https://www.facebook.com/groups/decolonisingmed
Twitter: https://twitter.com/DecolonisingMed WordPress: https://decolonisingthemedicalcurriculum.wordpress.com
What advice or encouragement would you give to someone thinking of doing a ChangeMakers project?
– The project might turn out different from how you planned but time management is the key – have a structure and timeline with milestones to track your progress and also recognise when to wrap up! – Keep in contact with the Changemaker’s team and faculty for advice and support – even if it is just to let them know everything is going well!

Evaluation of Disability Services

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The team

Alexa Wong (lead); Asma Lali (support), Rebecca Nasterlack (support), Peter Bratby (supervisor)

Department

Natural Sciences

What happened?
The EDS UCL ChangeMakers project was proposed to evaluate existing support services available for neurodivergent/ disabled students in the hopes of making the Natural Sciences Department more inclusive. We aim to identify existing policies, practices and resources that make a positive difference for students with neurodivergence and evaluate shortcomings in wellbeing services. This project was proposed by students in response to student feedback about wellbeing services. The project saw Natural Sciences students and staff come together to understand the experiences and needs of persons with a disability/ neurodivergence through research, surveys, and one-on-one interviews. Through conversations with the Student Wellbeing Services team and departmental mental health services, deeper insights were gained into the inner workings of support systems. Findings from the surveys and individual interviews will be compiled into a report which will be used to advocate for changes to Natural Sciences Departmental policies and practices with the goal of strengthening support systems to better meet the needs of students. By working closely with staff to analyse data, especially thematic analysis, a report analysing both the quantitative and qualitative data will be created alongside recommendations to improve such services. This report will be shared within the Natural Sciences department to increase awareness about these needs, with the potential of disseminating our findings to the larger MAPS faculty.
What advice or encouragement would you give to someone thinking of doing a ChangeMakers project?
My first tip is to find a team of people who are equally passionate about your project and committed to the cause. Juggling your project on top of academics will prove challenging at times, but being surrounded by dedicated people who remind you of the project’s importance will allow you to find it rewarding in the end. Secondly, maintain good communication between your entire team, including staff/ student partners. Thirdly, keep an organised checklist of things to be done and ensure everyone keeps to deadlines!

The Mediterranean and Beyond: Improving diversity in the Greek and Latin curriculum

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The team

Caterina Pellò (staff, lead) Annemarie Schunke (PhD student), Mridula Gullapalli (UG student)

Department

Greek and Latin

What happened?

We organised a speaker-series where students and staff gave mini lectures to improve the diversity and inclusivity of the current Greek and Latin courses. Ancient Studies cover a wide geographical territory, which is culturally and politically diverse. As such, this subject provides an opportunity to explore a broad range of human experiences. The aim of this lecture series was twofold: first, we invited speakers to give talks on unresearched topics so as to create new teaching resources that would improve diversity in the Greek and Latin curriculum. Talks focused on neglected ancient figures and topics, such as gender, race, age, disability, class, religion, and sexual orientation. Second, we created a platform where staff and students could reflect on the limits, approaches, methodological issues, and new challenges of decolonising the field, as well as create teaching resources to improve existing modules. Finally, this was also meant as an opportunity for students to gain teaching, writing, and speaking experiences, and to receive constructive feedback on their work from their colleagues and peers.

What advice or encouragement would you give to someone thinking of doing a ChangeMakers project?
1. We organised the series online due to the pandemic. However, I believe this series would benefit from in-person meetings and informal discussions over lunch, or tea and coffee.
2. One thing I would consider is whether to use part of the Changemakers funding to pay the student speakers. Preparing these talks is hard work for them and their commitment should be rewarded.
3. One could also organise a longer speaker series, with more than 3 sessions, depending on how many students sign up to contribute.
4. Organisers could also develop more systematic guidelines for students to prepare their talks and for staff mentors to give feedback to their mentees. In this way, the teaching resources and materials collected would be more homogeneous and easily reusable by lecturers.