Inclusive teaching practices: student diversity

The School of Computing and Engineering has students with diverse backgrounds. This diversity includes socio-economic status, cultural and religious beliefs, ethnicity as well as age and abilities. Studies have shown that this diversity impacts student attainment. UWL civil engineering graduates emanating from diverse backgrounds develop during their levels of study as creative professionals that are able to face technical and social challenges in rapidly changing national and international work environments. The variation in attainment in cohort with diverse backgrounds are currently being considered by some Schools in UWL as part of a bigger study. The impact of changing teaching strategies and methods that include more of interactive group work and project-based learning is being investigated as part of more inclusive teaching. Inclusive teaching in higher education refers to the ways in which pedagogy, curricula and assessment are designed and delivered to engage students in learning that is meaningful, relevant and accessible to all students irrespective of the student diversity (Hockings, 2010). Thomas and May (2010) have categorised student diversity dimensions into educational, dispositional, circumstantial and cultural attributes. The aim of the workshop is to reflect on and share good teaching practices and strategies that colleagues have used or are thinking of using. This may help contextualise good practice usage in different disciplines and whether these strategies make a difference in low attainment.