Inclusive Curricula Week: towards a definition (April 16, 2008)
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The post is just replicated here to catch all the words for archive purposes, to read the post in its original form and see the links, photos, videos etc., go here:http://www.good.group.shef.ac.uk/blog/?p=173
April 16, 2008 Inclusive Curricula Week: towards a definition Filed under: Wednesdays » InclusiveCurricula @ 10:22 am
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Kath Linehan-Department of Biomedical Sciences
One of the biggest obstacles to delivering an inclusive curriculum is what does ‘inclusive’ and what does ‘curriculum’ mean? Discussing this issue with fellow academics, it appears that we have quite a clear idea of what we mean in terms of the curriculum within our subject discipline but we are all struggling with the term inclusive. From my colleagues I got the following answers:
‘It is making sure your teaching is accessible to dyslexic students.’
‘Having an inclusive curriculum involves making sure that the analogies you use are relevant to students in minority groups.’
‘Supporting students from other countries with their English.’
‘Ensuring that the content of the course is understandable, in terms of culture, to all students.’
‘Helping students who’ve been out of education to learn independent study techniques.’
‘Making sure that all students are intergrated both socially and academically into university life.’
It is clear from these comments just how diverse the perceptions of what an inclusive curriculum is are.
The second major obstacle to delivering an inclusive curriculum is how do we ‘audit’ what we’ve done? How do we know if our curriculum is inclusive or exclusive? The logical response would be to ask the students. However, this relies on the students being (a) aware of when the curriculum has been exclusive as opposed to them just not understanding an academic concept (or is this the same thing?) and (b) having a candid enough relationship with the academic to discuss when they have found the curriculum has precluded them.
So I suppose the questions I’m posing are, what is an inclusive curriculum and if we (as academics) work out what it is, how do we then know whether it is inclusive or not?
