Emily fosters inclusion, sense of belonging and equitable participation by ensuring that each session includes multiple forms of participation – silent reflective writing, small‑group discussions and more active tasks. These methods led to good student engagement. She also includes an element of co-creation.

Teaching area

Seminars: large-group interactive teaching

Course

Contexts and Values in Education, a core MA in Education module with around 50 predominantly international students. I use the same practice for the Level 6 Digital Childhoods module in the Education BA in Childhood and Youth. The latter cohort tend to be younger, local and predominantly white British.

Description

For a large, diverse cohort of postgraduate students of varying ages, I redesigned my teaching approach in the two-hour seminars to foster inclusion, belonging and equitable participation. Recognising that many students were commuters coming to Brighton from places such as Eastbourne or Worthing due to the high cost of living locally, working long hours or transitioning from whatever they were doing before class, I began each session with a five‑minute warm‑up activity. I played music from a range of cultures and countries to appeal (hopefully) to different age groups, while students talked about what they remembered from the previous week’s class.

The warm-up activity aimed to acknowledge students’ identities, got people comfortable in the space and provided a gentle transition to help them settle into learning. At the final session, we shared food and a reflection activity: we stood around in a circle and we all said something that we got from the course, to consolidate our learning and sense of community. And people started holding hands, which I wasn’t expecting.

In general, for all my teaching I share clear, explicit participation expectations at the start of each session, including break times and the sequence of activities (such as input, discussion in pairs, freewriting tasks, group discussion). This transparency was particularly important for this module, which blended lecture and seminar modes. Drawing on the Universal Design for Learning, I ensured that each session included multiple forms of participation – silent reflective writing, small‑group discussion and more active tasks – so that hopefully at least one activity aligned with each student’s preferred mode. And if they weren’t comfortable with speaking out in front of the class, they didn’t have to.

I also incorporated small acts of co‑creation, such as offering one student‑led week in Week 8 of the BA and MA modules when students could decide which topics to discuss. I offered some ideas, but said I wanted to know what the students were interested in. In addition, I occasionally used the ‘jigsaw’ class frame at the end of the module. For example, on the Digital Childhoods module, the concepts included context, risk and identity. I organised the students into groups to come up with some themes together on those concepts. Then we all came together to share what we’d discovered to complete the jigsaw. Every person’s information then became the knowledge from the class. This method decentralised my role as the teacher and helped to build collective knowledge.

Outcomes

Practices that promote belonging, participation choice and cultural responsiveness are known to support the narrowing of ethnicity awarding gaps. My observations of improved comfort, community and engagement resonate with this evidence.

Sense of belonging

Students felt comfortable, and they were willing to approach me.

Student engagement

• Attendance remained high throughout the module despite complex work and commuting patterns, indicating sustained engagement.
• Enhanced classroom community: students interacted freely and comfortably (some even brought babies to class sometimes) and participated fully in the end‑of‑course communal reflection.
• Positive emotional space: the final reflective circle generated excellent feedback; students highlighted enjoyment, feeling seen and meaningful peer relationships.
• Good participation among diverse learners: offering varied participation modes reduced pressure on students who were not very comfortable speaking in large groups.

Co-creation of the curriculum

In the student‑led week of the BA and MA modules, students could decide which topics they wanted to discuss.

Comments

• I found that music and structured transitions improved students’ readiness to learn and signalled my recognition of their diverse identities.
• Students commented positively on how I made them feel, the inclusive atmosphere and the strong sense of community created through shared activities.
• Co‑creation elements (the student‑led week and the jigsaw activity) successfully decentralised my role and fostered student ownership. The end‑of‑course circle was described as ‘powerful’, with students valuing the space, the emotional safety and the connections they formed.
• Informed by Bovill’s (2020) work on co-creation, my teaching method ‘flipped’ the hierarchies of whose knowledge is given priority and enabled me to facilitate a space where students learnt from each other. Through this design, I was able to both inject some joy through music as well as position the classroom as a collaborative space. This was also impactful for learning as 100 per cent of students said the teaching made the module content clear. The cohort of Master’s students received a mean mark of 61 for their literature review assessment and were thus well supported to move on to their dissertations with knowledge and skills.

Student feedback

In 2023, my ongoing inclusive practice was recognised by a nomination for a Sussex Inclusive Teaching award with the comments stating:

Emily is an inspiring educator, her inclusive, kind, compassionate and encouraging pedagogical approach is all empowering. I felt comfortable to contribute in class and excited by the content as a result of Emily’s passion and clear, non-hierarchal teaching style.

References

Bovill, C. (2020) ‘Co-Creation in Learning and Teaching: The Case for a Whole-Class Approach in Higher Education’, Higher Education 79.6: 1023–37 (accessed 8 April 2026)