Staff-Led Inclusive Initiatives

Some examples of initiatives could include:

• Hiring of a Research Assistant to carry out a literature review of inclusive T&L best practices related to a discipline;
• Speaker / catering for seminar;
• Student-led / focused initiative (survey / interviews / event);
• Review of particular content / teaching and learning aspect at the School/Dept.

If you have an idea for an inclusive teaching and learning initiative at your School or Department, contact trinityinc@tcd.ie to learn more about what support Trinity-INC could offer.

Current initiatives underway:

School of Linguistic, Speech & Communication Science, Centre for Deaf Studies: Opening up: bringing authentic diversity & inclusivity into the Bachelor in Deaf Studies curriculum. "To prepare BDS students for their placement as Sophister Senior students, we want them to learn about and experience the diversity in Deaf Communities in their Senior Freshman and Junior Sophister years." Led by Dr Isabelle Heyerick and Teresa Lynch.

School of Education, Trinity Centre for People with Intellectual Disabilities: Co-create accessible consent forms for Students with Intellectual Disabilities and Developmental Disabilities. "The students will develop a resource explaining what consent is and will develop consent form templates for photographs, videos and research purposes. The resources will be used in TCPID for students and graduates." Led by Emer Murphy.

School of Psychology: Understanding Undergraduate Students’ Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Concerns Regarding Postgraduate Study in Psychology. "To understand issues perceived by undergraduate students when considering postgraduate study in psychology, so as to consider and address these issues when planning postgraduate training opportunities and supports." Led by: Dr Lorraine Swords, on behalf of the School of Psychology Equality Diversity & Inclusion (EDI) Subcommittee for Student Recruitment & Support.

School of Religion, Theology, and Peace Studies: An Inclusivity Review of all Reading Lists across the School. "It is an imperative for the School to be inclusive in its teaching approaches; in this case the reading lists so that the students feel at home (with the recognition of their background and orientation) but also become open to the other in a mutually learning environment." Led by Dr Jude Lal Fernando / Dr Alexandra Grieser.

School of Engineering: An Inclusivity Audit of Undergraduate Teaching in Engineering. "Student-led media content will be created. This includes an informative video aimed at lecturers posted on the Trinity-INC YouTube page, posters giving (easily implementable) suggestions related to Inclusive Curriculum displayed in staff areas of engineering buildings. A school town-hall meeting will be held during which the resources will be publicised". Led by: Dr Kevin Kelly, with Engineering student Eva Cunningham.

Student Counselling: This project, co-developed by the Student Counselling Service and the Ethnic Minority Officer in the Student Union, will pilot a fixed term, professionally facilitated psychological support group on campus for students from cultural and ethnic minorities in Trinity. The name of the group will be The Ethnic Minorities Support Group and will offer an inclusive therapeutic support space for students from different cultures and ethnic minorities to meet, share experiences and advocate for their needs. This group will be facilitated by a student counsellor in SCS and an external therapist from within this community. Led by: Sinead Crowley, Student Counselling Service, with Hamza Bana, TCD Students Union.

Completed initiatives:

School of Maths: Improving Retention and Transfer of Mathematical Knowledge in Service Modules. Led by: Dr Andreea Nicoara.

"I supervised a recent mathematics graduate, Ryan McGowan, to create a content area on the Blackboard site of MAU11E01 Engineering Mathematics I. The content area details which modules in the engineering curriculum use the mathematics in MAU11E01 via a flow chart. For each unit in MAU11E01, there is a folder outlining various applications to engineering of the concepts in the unit as well as examples of problems with solutions from homework sets and final exams of the modules that apply this knowledge sent to us by lecturers from the School of Engineering. I added questions to the online evaluation survey for MAU11E01 that was run from the middle of the fifth teaching week to the middle of Reading Week. The feedback so far does not provide enough information to gauge effectiveness. Due to the delayed start for first year students by two weeks, not enough material was covered for students to understand the bulk of the content area by the time they filled out the survey. I hope to improve the level at which mathematics knowledge is retained in first year service modules and how it is transferred to other disciplines.

While some students were very interested and appreciated the content area, others would have liked to have seen worked out problems for the module itself to prepare them for the final exam in addition to the worked out problems in the content area for engineering modules they would be encountering later on.  Only this evaluation survey is given in MAU11E01, but I am in the process of finding out who the class reps are in order to seek better feedback. Next academic year I will write to the lecturers of the engineering modules that apply the content of MAU11E01 to see if the initiative improved the students’ ability to retain and transfer the mathematical knowledge from MAU11E01."

Explore (and download) the poster developed by Ryan McGowan about this Initative