1.
Strategic Visions & Values: Inclusive
Curricula and Leadership in Learning
and Teaching
Richard Hall ¦ @hallymk1
rhall1@dmu.ac.uk ¦ richard-hall.org

2.
• Managing innovation around education and technology in
schools and HE [HEA, Jisc, KTP]
• Whole-institution curriculum re-design [C2004]
• Ongoing accredited/non-accredited professional development
[PGCHE]
• National networks [NTFS, OE]
• Radical/decolonial/co-operative pedagogies [#radped, Coop
Uni, SLRC]
• Institutional inclusivity programmes [Universal Design for
Learning; Freedom to achieve; Decolonising DMU]
• Integrating research and teaching [research-engaged
teaching/developing researchers’ effectively]

3.
• The value of higher education
• A movement of policy and practice
• The management of tensions in innovations that materially
affect labour rights, processes and workloads
• A flow toward risk-based management of curriculum
relationships
• A risk of forgetting of our QE past for our QA future
• Where do risky or alternative pedagogies sit? What do we
value?
• Inclusivity as a means of silencing
• Corporate vs cooperative management, governance and
partnerships?

4.
What are your experiences of working to embed visions in
the curriculum? If you have an inclusivity-based exemplar,
please use that example.
I was asked to share my experience of working to embed inclusivity in the curriculum,
with a focus upon strategic visions and values.
NB this afternoon you are working on visions into action, so my focus in on that process.

5.
our country’s future depends more than ever on the success of our
HEIs;
we will not forget the underlying values of HE… joy and value of
knowledge pursued for its own sake; pursuit of the good, the true
and the beautiful;
uncompromising in our protection of students’ interests… insist on
value for money for the student [and] also for the taxpayer.
Barber, Foreward, in DfE, 2017, pp. 8-9.

6.
Effective competition compels providers to focus on students’
needs and aspirations, drives up outcomes that students care
about, puts downward pressure on costs, leads to more
efficient allocation of resources between providers, and
catalyses innovation.
The higher education sector in England is well suited to market
mechanisms driving continuous improvement.
DfE, 2017, pp. 43-5.

7.
Visions and values, some matters arising:
• relationships conditioned by competition and metrics;
• performance management;
• learning and teaching as service-driven innovation;
• finance capital and the need for efficiencies;
• USPs, brand, risk;
• tensions between vocation and business; and
• accountability, autonomy and authority.

8.
How does value, and differential expectations of value, affect
your ability to deliver inclusive learning and teaching?
How do they affect: prioritisation of activities; people and
relationships; workloads; curriculum design, delivery and
assessment; the deployment of resources and technologies?

9.
A DMU case study: Freedom to
Achieve becomes Decolonising DMU

10.
Some DMU context
• 4 faculties; 19k UG; 4k PG
• 158 programmes (c. 1800 modules)
• HEC: corporate governance
• Innovation via Programme/Project Management: Strategic
Management Group; Theme Boards; Project Boards
• BAU: committee structure

11.
Some DMU context
• ULTAS: co-creation, universal design for learning, building
(student) capability
• CAI; festival; conference; staff development (UKPSF); AIP/£
• TEF: employability; #DMUSquareMile; personalization; student
support; resources linked to outcomes; culture of enhancement
• Research Strategy: includes societal impact; RET; new Institutes

12.
DMU Access and Participation Plan, 2020-21 (17/18 data)
• 31.5% students (27.7%) from the most disadvantaged backgrounds
(Polar4 quintiles 1 and 2)
• Continuation gap between disadvantaged and advantaged students has
disappeared, but attainment gap has widened
• BAME: 52.8% (31.1%); continuation, attainment and progression had
improved and is above the sector average (c.f. TEF Yr4 Workbook)
• Issues for disadvantaged male participation and progression, and for
Black/mixed ethnicity progression
• BAME: 2018/19, the attainment gap on Freedom to Achieve programmes
widened by 4.5%, compared against 9.4% on programmes not involved in
Freedom to Achieve.
• There is work to be done on value added vs aggregate data

13.
• Access for disadvantaged male students;
• Continuation across all students;
• Attainment across BAME, disadvantaged, disabled and
mature students;
• Progression rate into employment or further study for
black or mixed ethnicity students;
• Progression rate into employment for disadvantaged
male students.

14.
• Strategic approach to EDI; embedding data review
processes to enable faculties to evaluate and monitor their
own performance toward student lifecycle goals;
• Influential projects and programmes launched to meet
these strategic objectives;
• Ongoing institutional activity that forms part of our deep
commitment to WP and access for all; and
• Commitment to undertake equality charters, with a
strategic aim to achieve a REC silver award by 2022-23.

15.
DSA + OfS + TE(SO)F + HERA + Equalities Act
HESA data for 2017/18: 17.8% of DMU students had
a declared disability (sector = 14.6%).
Continuation amongst disabled students and
students with no known disability is similar (90.2%
and 91.1% respectively).
Disabled students have a marginally higher rate of
continuation and better progression at DMU (vs
sector), but worse attainment.

16.
1. Make clear the interconnections between UDL, FTA, Athena
SWAN, ULTAS and research-engaged teaching, to create an
enhancement-focused, pedagogic environment.
2. Mechanisms for sharing good practice and case studies will
amplify engagement.
3. Need for co-created, student engagement strategy, focused
upon academic practice and the student experience.
4. An integrated evaluation of all technology that supports UDL, in
order to shift the focus away towards enhancement.

17.
NB in relation to who is included.
• UDL for whom?
• Performative or non-performative systems and
structures? A reductionist approach?
"The wall gives physical form to what a number of
practitioners describe as ‘institutional inertia,' the lack
of an institutional will to change" (26)
“Diversity is regularly referred to as a ‘good’ word
precisely because it can be used in diverse ways, or
even because it does not have a referent.”

18.
FTA focuses on reducing the BAME attainment gap.
DMU as CI on an OfS project to address barriers to student success.
Value-added metric and an inclusive curriculum framework. ICF:
 Create an accessible curriculum;
 Enable students to see themselves reflected in the curriculum; and
 Equip students with the skills to positively contribute to and work in a
global and diverse environment

19.
Inclusive
Curriculum
Framework
UDL
L&T Audits
Good Practice
Case Study
Co-Creation
Workshops
Review of
University
Infrastructure
Evaluation

20.
UDL/ICF handouts
what are your thoughts of this framework, in
relation to your curricula?
what are your thoughts of this framework, in
relation to your practice?

21.
Co-creation events with 142 students: Relationships, Teaching & Learning,
Community, Development, Employability and Exclusion.
Student baseline survey with 233: 45% unaware of the attainment gap; 54%
unaware of the project; 75% felt reflected in their learning experience.
Students of Pakistani, Caribbean and ‘Other White’ heritage were most likely
to feel unrepresented within their learning experience.
55% felt they had not experienced changes that had resulted in greater
inclusivity: content; methods; materials; assessment; feedback.
Staff baseline with 44: 77% heard of the attainment gap; 80% made
changes; 64% use the UDL review template; differential engagement with
FOC.

22.
Programme-level co-creation
Student Curriculum Advisors (SCAs) :
• Providing BAME students’ perspective on course materials
• Collating BAME student voice via small group sessions
• Creating best practice curriculum co-creation guides
Read to Debate
Colour Full Reading Club (LLS)
Ongoing evaluation: project; curriculum; staff; students

23.
• Year One: understanding VA metric and ICF and how integration
into existing practices (40 programmes); working with
programme teams to explore their attainment gap data.
• Year Two: implement curriculum change across 40 programmes.
Engaging in co-creation with students.
• Year Three: embedding changes in practice at both an
institutional and programme-levels; culturally-inclusive practices
considered ‘business as usual’.

24.
Decolonising the curriculum is a familiar term within universities with
differing degrees of engagement and action. This is where various
universities have reassessed and modified teaching, learning and assessment
methodologies and ideologies.
However, DMU wants to go further than this and the remit of Freedom to
Achieve by Decolonising the institution so we can be a fully inclusive and
socially progressive university by tackling racial discrimination and
disadvantage on a structural, cultural and individual level.

25.
• Institutional: staff metrics; process review; communications/language; student
data review; QA; appraisal; alumni
• Staff: data literacy; CPD; curriculum development; Community of practice; toolkit
• Students: Students’ Union; HEAR; Student Awareness; Unapologetically BAME;
liaison; training
• Library: collections; recruitment
• Research
Also: Working position paper

26.
In terms of form, content, structure,
organisation, issues, politics,
whatever…
Does this case resonate in any way?
Are there any possibilities in your
work?
Are there any resistances?

27.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution 4.0 International License.