In May’s meeting of the LEaDER Journal Club we were pleased to be joined by Sandra Guzman-Rodriguez from the Office for Institutional Equity & Inclusion.  Sarny led the discussion, which focussed on the following two papers:

• Compton et al. (2023), “View of ‘Not as a temporary fluke but as standard’: realising the affordances of hybrid and online teaching for inclusive and sustainable education.”
• Fennelly-Atkinson et al. (2022), “Identifying accessibility factors affecting learner inclusion in online university programs.”

Both papers made a clear case for the importance of centring accessibility in all learning an teaching practice. Fennelly-Atkinson et al. (2022) providing insights into institutional approaches to accessibility and the legal dimension of accessibility compliance.  Compton et al. (2023) focussed on the importance of learning from the adjustments to learning and teaching activities made during the pandemic, as well as the benefits and challenges of hybrid teaching.

We began by discussing definitions of the terms hybrid/HyFlex and online teaching, examining the range of possible practices which may fall under these headings.  As a group, we had a range of experiences of teaching online and were interested in Compton et al.’s (2023) notion of “Basic Hybrid” and the movement to more sophisticated “blends” since the pandemic.  Compton et al. draw on Snelling (2022) to identify the development of blended practice and its associated access benefits as an “unexpected silver lining” of the pandemic.

The group found Fennelly-Atkinson’s (2022) consideration of institutional frameworks for embedding accessibility valuable, reflecting on existing models at City and how these might be developed.  We discussed the centrality of training in the field of accessible practice, as well as the importance of support and strategy at an institutional level for promoting accessibility across programmes.

Another valuable talking point was Compton et al.’s (2023) discussion of belonging in education.  We explored some of the assumptions that often underpin in-person/online teaching practice, particularly challenging the idea that being in-person is inherently more geared towards fostering a sense of belonging. This is something we will be picking up on in our next session, which focusses specifically on the significance of belonging within HE.

The session will take place on Tuesday 13th June at midday and we will be looking at the following papers: