The Student Devised Assessment (SDA) offers students a personalised chance to display their critical engagement with the themes and theories of modules and to take a considered approach as to how they might practically apply what they have learned in a medium of their choosing.

This pedagogy involves creating an audio or visual rubric for assessment briefs to replace the traditional written style. This aims to facilitate a more inclusive environment for those students who learn in different ways and encourages a less daunting feeling when it comes to assessments.

At the end of each day students are asked to complete a feedback sheet with regard to the days teaching. On the feedback sheet – either paper or could be digital - there are four boxes headed: Liked, Disliked, Insights, Queries. The tutor collects these from students at the end of each day and looks through them. At the first session the next day queries are responded to and dislikes acknowledged and any remedial action that could be take is mentioned.

Guidance, warnings and ground rules are all designed to make learning spaces welcoming and inclusive for all students. By taking into account individual students’ needs and experiences, and setting clear parameters for content, dialogue, and classroom interactions, all students know that the classroom is a space in which they can share their ideas in a collegial and constructive environment.

Allocating reading material is a strategy that can promote co-production, peer-to-peer learning and alleviate workload for students in a seminar setting. The idea is to allocate a proportion of the articles or research papers from a week’s reading list; then create small groups (3-4) and divide the reading responsibilities equally between the different members of each group. At this stage, invite each member to provide a condensed series of notes for each of the readings they’ve been assigned to be brought in for the subsequent seminar. In the next seminar, you invite the groups to go through their notes and engage in a peer-to-peer learning exercise. This helps build on class integration, interpersonal skills and access to a wider range of reading material for class discussion.

Feeling good is how we feel physically, mentally and emotionally. Everyone will have times where they do not feel good. You may feel physically poorly, or mentally and emotionally drained and struggling. There will be times when you may not feel good or function well and at these times, it is important to have a toolkit that you can use to help yourself and to make positive changes. The more you practice these skills, the more you will understand what works best for you. Subsequently it is important to promote these strategies and focal points to colleagues and students.

The use of electronic devices can be disruptive in any learning environment, despite their utility to some students (i.e., note taking, vocabulary support of ESL etc.). However, non-essential use of personal devices (e.g., mobile phones, social media monitoring) in class, can be especially counterproductive- disturbing not only the student, but their learning environment ‘neighbours’ and ultimately, their instructors. This pedagogy involves requesting ‘radio silence’ -except for emergency or pre-arranged academic reasons, gives a theory-driven rationale for the request, and also facilitates student choice in response to the request.

A negotiated curriculum allows students to choose (within set parameters) the content of a module. By empowering students to choose topics that they find the most urgent, important, or interesting, the practice of a negotiated curriculum enhances student engagement, active learning, and inclusivity.