Inclusive Pedagogy & Assessments

Building on the work of the WIHEA Inclusive Assessment Learning Circle and its Inclusive SEM Assessment Sub-Group, this project explores students’ perspectives of SEM assessments – including traditional exam style summative assessments – to determine what changes might be recommended to enable inclusive and accessible module assessments.

The project team has successfully engaged with colleagues across several institutions, both national and international, and primarily focused on assessments in biology, chemistry, computer science, engineering, mathematics, physics, psychology and statistics. This initial data collection and collaboration has led to a preliminary report that outlines recommendations for consideration, a literature review, an analysis of SEM assessment trends over time at Warwick, and SEM awarding gaps.

Next steps:

The team will be conducting qualitative and quantitative data collection with teaching and learning and assessment-aligned staff and students via surveys, focus groups, interviews and workshops over the autumn 2024 term. Their findings will be shared in a secondary report, which they hope will lead to reimagining and reshaping SEM assessments at Warwick.

Keep up-to-date with this project:

• View slides from the Education Conference 2025
• Visit their project webpage
• Read the Inclusive SEM Assessment project report (August 2024)

Inclusive Pedagogies comprises the Inclusive Education Programme and Inclusive Voices Forum, both of which are aimed at supporting staff or those participating in a staff-student collective.

The Inclusive Education Programme offers a series of workshops, in person and online, which focus on various aspects of inclusion in higher education. Staff have the opportunity to delve into topics such as the concept of reflexivity, students as partners, anti-racist practice, neurodiversity and decolonisation, among other subjects.

The Inclusive Voices Forum seeks to bring together staff and students who will be invited to present information on a topic or a practice. This will then be followed by a discussion. Forum events will take place in the Autumn and Spring terms.

Outputs: The Inclusive Education Programme of workshops take place throughout Term 2. Explore the workshops and register your interest.

Find out more about forthcoming Inclusive Voices Forum events and register to attend.

Next steps: Programme lead, Dr Ryan Arthur, is available to contact for inclusive support for teaching professionals, bespoke workshops and resources, and designing pedagogical research projects. Email: ryan.arthur@warwick.ac.uk

Electronic marking labels are given to disabled students during their Reasonable Adjustments review meeting to alert assessors of challenges students with Specific Learning Differences (SpLDs) may encounter on written or oral work, such as spelling, grammar, punctuation and structuring work.

To understand staff and students’ experiences and perceived issues with electronic marking labels, Disability Services used co-creation to review sector-wide practice and ran focus groups to learn about students’ experiences using electronic marking labels and staffs’ understanding of marking labels.

Based on their findings, Disability Services have renamed electronic marking labels to Consideration Marking Adjustments and have rewritten staff and student guidance on how to access and use the adjustments. They hope that this will provide better clarity for staff and students and aim to launch the revised materials in the early part of the 2024/25 academic year.

Next steps:

The project is still ongoing and Disability Services is redeveloping their webpages on Consideration Marking Adjustments to be clearer and easier to use. They are also considering additional resources that could be useful for staff and students, such as a short video to outline the process of how Considerate Marking Adjustments work and where to find further guidance.

The creation of the Neurodiversity Toolkit was spearheaded by the WIHEA Neurodiversity and the Student Experience Learning Circle, led by Dr Jagjeet Jutley-Neilson.

This toolkit is to help support staff in supporting neurodivergent students. It is fully interactive, with resources and exemplars collected from the staff community and supported by testimonies from neurodivergent students. The toolkit covers areas such as inclusive teaching and learning, inclusive personal tutoring, creating an inclusive department, and defining what neurodiversity can mean for different students.

To access the toolkit, please visit their webpage.