Speaker
Description
Within Higher Education, the boundary between “research” and “teaching” is increasingly blurred, given the (well justified) movement towards more authentic research experiences in undergraduate curricula. This contact with research (and researchers) can help undergraduate students develop scientist identities, at a time when they are often making decisions about whether to stay in academia and when they begin forming habits about how to think like a practicing scientist. It is, therefore, important to ask how our curricula are shaping the views of future scientists and how, as a sector, we engage in inclusive pedagogy.
I will present two cases from the University of St Andrews. The first is our institutional “Inclusive Practice Support Group”, which I co-founded in 2021. It is an interdisciplinary group of academic and professional services staff that meets three times per semester to discuss a topic of inclusive pedagogy (e.g. anti-racist pedagogy, intersectionality, queer pedagogy, inclusive assessment, public engagement and inclusivity, free speech, and many others). The second is a case study from a MPhys-level Cosmology module that I teach, where I address research practices within a wider social context in collaboration with students. In both cases I will highlight successes, challenges, and plans for the future.
