This blog is part of a series on ‘New Proposals for Digital Pedagogies’ that launches the Sussex Digital Pedagogies Toolkit. 

This toolkit conceptualises new ways to think through digital teaching and learning, gathering data from members of the University of Sussex community who shared their thoughts, fears and hopes about digital pedagogy. This toolkit has been created collaboratively by a staff-student research team and uses material from a series of online workshops with members of the Sussex community, including faculty, professional services and students. Those who took part will be introduced as ‘participants’ to emphasise their active participation in knowledge production for this project.

This post will explore the challenges and proposals for teaching and learning with technologies in relation to accessibility and culture, as well as some questions for reflective practice and resources to explore these ideas further.

‘We forget that we are actually dealing with people.’

Workshop participant

Challenges

Participants shared that groups from certain backgrounds, contexts or countries may be more susceptible to surveillance, especially racialised groups, and may be subject to further marginalisation as a result. Considering the context from which students originate is a useful way to safeguard students. One participant shared that, instead of creating safe spaces, they talk to their students about creating ‘accountable’ spaces, in which people are invited to share freely but can be challenged for the things they say that might harm others.

Making online sessions accessible was discussed, both from the perspective of including those with financial issues (who may struggle to access a laptop or have problems with reliable Wi-Fi connection) and those who are neurodivergent, disabled or have a mental health condition. Students should ideally be involved in any modifications to ensure specific adjustments are beneficial for the student, but the time implications of managing multiple, sometimes conflicting, needs and complicated technological interventions can be overwhelming for staff.

The intersection of disability and racial politics coincides in the use of attendance records: the home office usually sets attendance as a condition of international students’ visas and attendance records are typically lower for disabled and neurodivergent students, which typically leads to further intervention from the university. Although this data gathering can be useful for staff to reach out to students to offer further support, these structures of oversight can have the opposite effect for students who can feel policed and ashamed for their low attendance (Macfarlane, 2013).

Proposals

A key component of teaching involves caring for students, which is often an unpaid and underappreciated part of supporting students, made particularly challenging during the Covid-19 pandemic (Gray, 2022). Some participants noted that it is useful to consider small details in a student’s day, such as how they travelled to campus, to discuss how even the journey to the classroom (how far students travel, the disruptions to the flow of their day, how hungry they might be) locates how they are able to learn. It is important to humanise these day-to-day practices in the classroom, to check in and connect with students to build community amongst students and teachers. These tend to be lost in both synchronous and asynchronous digital learning environments, but this does not need to be the case.

Questions and Resources

• How might students’ needs be better assessed? 
• How can content/format/structure be modified to support disabled students? 
• How can this be managed at an institutional level to remove the burden from teaching staff? 
• Which (racialised, non-UK) students are more likely to be surveilled by university structures? 
• How can surveillance practices be shared with students?

• Accessibility Lessons for Higher Education
• Safe and Brave Spaces Don’t Work (and what you can do instead)

Read the full toolkit:

References

Gray, B., (2022) ‘The University Cannot Love You: Gendered Labour, Burnout and the Covid-19 Pivot to Digital’ in G. Veletsianos & S. Koseoglu, (Eds.) Feminist Critical Digital Pedagogy: An Open Book, EdTech Books.

Macfarlane, B., (2013) ‘The Surveillance of Learning: A Critical Analysis of University Attendance Policies’, Higher Education Quarterly, Volume 67: Issue4, October, pp. 358-373