Equalities @ EECS

PhD life can be isolating, particularly post Covid after a lot of people switched to working from home. You arrive, find your desk, say a polite “good morning” to the person in the kitchen, and that is often as far as it goes. Researchers from different groups share the same floor for years without ever learning each other’s names, let alone discovering that they have overlapping interests.
Melissa Yeo, PGR student coordinator in EECS, noticed this. When students were stressed, she would take them for a walk around the local parks to talk things through. This led on to something more formal, the Walk and Talk initiative, a weekly programme of activities designed to connect PhD students, research associates, and staff across the school.
Since launching in November 2024, the initiative has run more than 20 weekly sessions, visiting parks, museums, and green spaces around the Mile End campus, including Stepney City Farm and Mile End Stadium. It is now coordinated by a committee currently led by Madhumitha Krishnakumar and Zhansaya Amangeldiyeva, with past contributions from Sofia Zahri, Yuli Sutoto Nugroho, and Dan Gill.

Walk and Talk
Every Friday at noon, participants set off from the QMUL Graduate Centre for an hour-long walk. The route varies, but the purpose does not: get away from your screen, move around, and actually talk to colleagues from other groups. It is a genuinely refreshing way to cross the invisible walls between research communities, and more than one collaboration has reportedly started on a pavement somewhere near Mile End.

Eat and Talk
Every Monday from 1 to 2pm, researchers bring their lunch and eat together mainly in the kitchens in Peter Landin. The premise is simple, communal eating is one of the oldest forms of community building, and this puts it back on the calendar.

Inter-Group Presentation Workshop
A voluntary session where students from different research groups come together to practice presentations in a friendly, constructive environment. Whether you are preparing for your viva, an important conference, or simply want feedback before a group meeting, this is a low-stakes rehearsal space with an unusually broad audience. Hearing how people from other specialisms respond to your work is genuinely useful.

Paint and Talk
Proposed by committee member Zhansaya Amangeldiyeva, Paint and Talk is a relaxed evening of creativity and conversation. No artistic talent required. Participants get creative with paint while chatting away in good company. It is a welcome change of gear from the usual seminar format.

Communal Jigsaw
Originally encouraged by Prof. Paul Curzon, a 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle lives permanently in the Peter Landin 4th floor kitchen and in the Engineering block second floor kitchen. Drop by, work on a section, chat to whoever is there, and leave. It is a low-pressure, surprisingly sociable way to take a five-minute break, and the puzzle slowly gets done.

Basketball
The EECS basketball team meets on Tuesdays. Competitive players and complete beginners are both welcome. It is good exercise, good fun, and a reliable way to get to know people outside your immediate research circle.

Board Games
Occasional board game sessions offer another relaxed social setting, bringing together people who might never otherwise share an evening.

Hiking
Led by Yuli Sutoto Nugroho, hiking trips take the group to some of the best walking spots around the UK. A step up in ambition from the Friday lunchtime walks, these longer outings are a fine way to see the country while getting to know people properly.

Writing Up Surgery with Prof. Mark Sandler
Running monthly, this drop-in session with Prof. Mark Sandler is aimed at PhD students approaching the writing stage. This aims to give advice and help to PhD students intimidated with the task of turning their research into a finished thesis.

William Ng is professional services staff at QMUL. He has worked for a long time with the School of Mathematical Sciences and is now helping shape student support within EECS. William recommends Lara Alcock’s How to Study for a Mathematics Degree as a resource for students navigating the transition from school to university — covering everything from time management to the shift in how mathematics is taught and assessed.

Tell me about the sort of problem you’ve been working on day-to-day

The honest answer, especially with the restucturing of professional services is that things got fragmented. When a student misses an exam, or needs extenuating circumstances considered, or has a progression issue, those things are all connected but they weren’t necessarily dealt with by the same team. We’re trying to reconnect them with a student focus at the centre. Every student should receive care and attention, hard with large classes, but that doesn’t always mean each student gets the same support. I want student support to be a little more proactive not reactive.

Can you unpack that for me? What do you mean by proactive student support?

The goal is to step in before someone needs extenuating circumstances or fails an exam. That’s genuinely hard with large cohorts. We were tracking attendance, which helps, but it misses students who are turning up but are still struggling quietly. So we’ve been piloting something more direct: proactively reaching out and having one-to-one conversations, not just with students who are visibly failing, but a broader range. Different students have very different problems, and you only find that out by talking to them. Face-to-face contact, it sounds almost old-fashioned, but the evidence from our work in SMS is that one-to-one meetings produce real, proactive change. Students feel heard. They share things they’d never put in a form or raise in a lecture. We’re trying to bring that approach into EECS.

How does that work in practice? You can’t meet all students.

We reach out to students, obviously we can’t meet all of them. Some are identified to us for various reasons, low marks, low attendance and so on. Others we just select at random to get a sample of people with different needs and experiences. The meetings are one-on-one, we found this just works better. Different students have different problems and they may not be comfortable talking in a group. They also have different needs. Some students want a full student experience, student societies, socialising, being part of the university, others prefer to focus solely on the task of getting a degree. We found some things that you might not expect. Some of our “low attendance” students were not attending because they found the classes too easy or boring but they were being flagged as “at risk of failing”, they could comfortably get very high grades but weren’t being distinguished from students at risk of dropping out of the degree.

What sort of things are you doing for the students?

It sounds obvious but some simply don’t know how to study. The step from school to university is a tough one. They were sitting there in the lecture, passively, not really interacting or absorbing the material, not knowing how to maximise the experience. Students now have notes before the lecture so it did not occur to some to annotate the notes for example. In school many were in a highly structured environment where knew where they would be at every hour of the school day. Moving from that to a university environment was a hard step for some. They did not know how to structure a working day so some would work very long hours but not necessarily be very productive within that time. Some international students felt pressure from home to work long hours even when that can be very counter productive.

Let’s talk about disability and neurodivergence. What have you found there?

This is an area where I think we have genuinely helped. We made a point of meeting individually with every student who had a diagnosis: ADHD, dyslexia, and others. For students with ADHD in particular, a lot of the work came down to study planning. These students often work very differently, some are most productive in the evenings, for instance. So rather than imposing a standard template, we try to help them build a plan that works with their rhythms, not against them.

What we found was striking: many students simply did not know what support they were entitled to. They didn’t know they could apply for additional time in exams. They didn’t understand what the “cover note” on their work was for. (This is a note that is for the person marking exams to flag that, for example, grammar in question answers may be imperfect.) Some perceived the “cover note” negatively, as though it was saying they personally were problem rather than ensuring fair treatment.

For some, espeically international students, they felt the diagnosis was associated with a stigma. This is very real, and we have to acknowledge it. For some students, a diagnosis of ADHD or dyslexia carries a cultural weight that it doesn’t in the UK context. The conversation has to be handled with care. We found that simply explaining what a diagnosis means in practical terms (“this is what extra time in an exam looks like, this is how the cover note works, this is what disability services can offer”) helped demystify it. Some students were then willing to engage with those services.

What about gender equity? Is that something you’ve looked at?

At undergraduate level, the gender balance (particularly in mathematics) has actually become quite good. But at postgraduate level, it’s still heavily male-dominated, and we don’t fully understand why. Role models may be part of it although there are strong female role models in mathematics and engineering it’s still not as common.

You mentioned students who are blind, can you say more there?

We haven’t quite cracked it. Supporting students with visual impairments in a highly mathematical and technical discipline presents real challenges that we haven’t yet found adequate answers to. That’s something we need to work on, and I don’t want to pretend otherwise.

Ekatarina Ivanova is one of the founders of the Women in Higher Education Network (WHEN). You can learn more about their activities including events in February and beyond here.

Two years ago we spoke about FAN (the Female Academic Network), which is now WHEN (Women in Higher Education Network). What has WHEN been up to since then?

It began with some funding for activities connected to anyone identifying as a woman in EECS. We received funding from ERIC (internal funding from QMUL). Anna Xambó joined a couple of months after it started, and it was brilliant to share the responsibilities. The group is very efficient, it gets large results from small expenditure.

In the first year, we were trying to understand which formats worked best. What did we want to do? We tried pub meetings, workshops, and groups to provide support. Initially, we were quite a small group, with just five to ten people at most attending meetings. By the end of the first year, we had thirty-five people on the mailing list.

In the second year, we asked members what they were interested in and received further funding from ERIC. We got used to announcing events well in advance so people could organise their time better. We understood that those with caring responsibilities need daytime events (e.g. afternoon tea). We also found that younger participants, such as PhD students, enjoy lighter “fun” activities; for example, we ran a session of painting in the dark with UV paints. This allowed people to build a contact network in a relaxed environment.

We are still trying to understand what people want. The School of Biological Sciences (through Laura Crucianelli) joined later to expand the programme and co-ordinate larger events. We are also collaborating with IT Services’ Women in Tech group. We are co-organising a coffee morning in February across many different departments at QMUL. A small budget allows us to cover some fun events that help women to network. We are also thinking about wider diversity initiatives beyond a sole focus on women.

Give me some example events that you participate in.

We run some sporty events, such as yoga and Zumba, which take place during the working day and provide a good opportunity to network. We also organise simple activities like coffee mornings, which are easy to arrange but allow people to chat. We screened the film Hidden Figures in Arts One, and we also held a silent disco. We also run more serious events, such as a workshop with Paul Curzon on public engagement, and another with an actor to help develop communication skills that are useful for presenting at workshops or while teaching.

What are your plans for the next year?

From March, we will be running coaching sessions for Lecturers and Senior Lecturers who identify as women. These will be small-group coaching sessions focused on particular topics, delivered by Claire Revell, and will help participants develop professional skills. We found that people bond more when they are at a similar career stage, as they can share comparable experiences and learn from each other with support from a coach.

Initially, the focus was just on EECS, but this is broadening. We have already involved CBBS through Laura Crucianelli, are working with IT Services, and are in discussions with SEMS.

We are also working with Claudia Garetto, who leads EDI within the faculty, and who helps us connect with colleagues in Mathematics. Our ambition is to become faculty-wide, but this is happening naturally and organically. This expansion has helped us build a wider network: Anna connected with a PhD student, I found collaborators in Australia, and it helped me recruit demonstrators for my course.

Antonella Torrisi, a PhD student, has helped significantly with organising events and has been invaluable in getting things off the ground.

Alvaro Bort took a look at the new training for inclusive research. It’s a resource for researchers at any stage who want their grant proposals to reflect inclusion and diversity. It was created by C-DICE (Centre for Postdoctoral Development in Infrastructure, Cities and Energy) but is not limited to researchers in this area. The training can be accessed here: https://www.cdice.ac.uk/online-training-resources/

Tell me about this training; who is it for?

Academics in any area writing research proposals who want advice about tuning their proposal to include elements of equality diversity and inclusion (EDI). Anyone in academia could take the training, even PhD students, who want to create a proposal that pays attention to these aspects.

How is the training delivered?

The training goes through a step-by-step guide for researchers preparing a proposal. It teaches you to tailor your research proposal to include these aspects. It is very different to institutional EDI training which focuses on legal aspects and workplace behaviour. It focuses on different sections of the proposal and gives you advice on how you can include EDI aspects in each.

How was the training structured?

The training took me two hours. It was broken into six modules. There are videos and quizzes. It can be done all at once or in sections pausing when you need more time.

What are the main things you learned that will change how you will write proposals?

I learned a lot about data gathering and how to be inclusive in data gathering to avoid biased processes. I also learned the difference between being active and passive in my assumptions. For example if my survey should only be taken by over eighteen year olds I could passively assume that all QMUL students are over eighteen but this turns out to be incorrect I need to actively ensure there is an age check. When you are collecting data you need to be proactive in order to include minorities that may not engage with your research for various reasons. For example, a survey about green energy might attract certain groups and exclude others implicitly if you don’t seek to engage them.

How will it help you write research proposals?

There is a template and checklist that helps you systematically when you are preparing a proposal. It can help you organise your thoughts and how to talk about impact with EDI in mind. Impacts of research can be positive or negative and not all groups may be impacted in the same way. Showing you consider that can be an important part of a well written impact statement. You can also shows that you have thought about how to mitigate negative impacts.

Lianganzi Wang describes her experiences with HerART hosted by The EECS Women in Higher Education Network (WHEN)

Introduction to HerART 

In this session, I introduced HerART (www.art-woman.com), a nonprofit website established in 2012 as China’s first and only platform dedicated to documenting and studying women’s art. The website functions as a comprehensive database with three key components:

Historical Archives:

• Traces over 1,800 years of Chinese women’s artistic development.
• Features rare Tang Dynasty stone rubbings, Yuan Dynasty paintings, Ming-Qing era artworks, Republican-period pieces, and modern female art.

Academic Resources:

• Publishes research articles, exhibition records, and institutional collaborations.
• Includes a specialized course on History of Women’s Calligraphy and Painting developed by HerART’s founder at a Chinese university.

Modern Adaptation:

• Expands accessibility via the WeChat official account @女性艺术家 (Women Artists) for mobile users.
• Maintains the original website as a historical repository while updating new content on social media.

HerART aims to promote women artists and their works, helping the public understand the language, context, and societal significance of women’s art. It focuses on re-examining women’s roles through artistic discourse, supporting female artists’ growth, and exploring ways to elevate the value of women’s art. All content remains freely accessible to scholars and the general public.

My Volunteer Experience 

My name is Lianganzi Wang, and I’m an MSc student in Sound and Music Computing at Queen Mary University of London. My background merges music technology and computer science. Currently, my research focuses on adaptive, data-driven game audio, leveraging real-time in-game parameters to dynamically shape player immersion. Beyond academia, I have a passion for women’s growth. As a senior volunteer for HERArt, a nonprofit platform dedicated to female artists, I’ve devoted nearly 3,000 hours to maintenance, redesign, and exhibition planning.

As a HerART volunteer, I gained two key insights:

Art as a Lifelong Practice:
Many artists featured on the platform began their creative journeys at unexpected stages of life, challenging conventional notions of “success timelines.” This inspired me to integrate music into my technical career.

The Fragility of Preservation:
Digitizing artworks and interviews underscored how easily women’s artistic legacies can be lost. My tasks included organizing exhibitions and promoting international artists through WeChat.

While HerART primarily focuses on Chinese women artists, its recent inclusion of global creators reflects a growing effort to connect diverse perspectives.

About WHEN

The EECS Women in Higher Education Network (WHEN) fosters a supportive community for individuals identifying as women across academic levels—from PhD students to senior researchers. By promoting collaboration, mentorship, and policy advocacy, WHEN advances diversity, equity, and inclusion in fields like computer science and engineering. Learn more about our mission here.
For further exploration of HerART’s collections and research, visit www.art-woman.com. 

Daniel Gill, a PhD student answers some questions about MINDS and Neurodiversity.

What is MINDS?

MINDS stands for Mutual Inclusion through Neurodiversity in Science. It’s a network for researchers, neurodivergent people, and neurodivergent researchers. As a neurodivergent researcher, I am proud to be able to conduct research for and with members of my community. Through MINDS, we want to promote inclusive practices through encouraging and supporting researchers to work with neurodivergent individuals, highlighting good practices, and providing a platform to empower neurodivergent people to have an input on research that directly impacts them.

What does MINDS do?

We will be running workshops and have received funding from QMUL’s ERIC fund. The idea is to bring together researchers (both neurotypical and neurodivergent) and neurodivergent people from outside academia to promote the value of neurodivergent people in research and to foster understanding. Small group discussions will be led by expert speakers (both academic and non-academic backgrounds). Participants can form networks, create connections and learn about the research being done. Neurodivergent people can learn about research related to their conditions. Researchers can learn about working inclusively and reducing boundaries for neurodivergent individuals.

Who is behind MINDS?

Daniel Gill is a first year PhD student in EECS studying human computer interaction through the lens of neurodiversity. He wanted to use his privilege as being an autistic researcher to help foster connections between research and neurodivergent communities, and, in particular, he was concerned by language in neurodiverse research that are extremely offensive such as comparing neurodivergent people with “healthy controls” or fixing their “malfunctioning circuitry” to take examples from recent research papers. 

Dr Ekaterina Ivanova is a lecturer in Human-Machine Interaction (since January 2023) and researcher in multimodal human-robot interaction and user-centred design of medical technology. Her long-term research goal is to develop truly useful robotics systems for medical applications with a focus on human users by considering and integrating factors from robotics, clinical rehabilitation, and neuroscience. She also a founder and co-organiser of Women in Higher Education Network (WHEN) at EECS.

Why start MINDS?

Neurodivergent individuals are often experts in their own condition – in much the same way a builder would be intimately familiar with their trade if they’d have lived with it since birth. Yet, some research fails to thoughtfully include neurodivergent individuals – missing out on the valuable insights that come from lived experience: the minutiae of daily life, a differing perspective on the world, and a challenge to deficit-based perceptions.

Events coming up

2nd April talk for world autism awareness day by Daniel Tammet at Queen Mary: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/daniel-tammet-nine-minds-narrating-neurodivergent-experience-tickets-1144259734669?aff=oddtdtcreator

The first MINDS workshop is now open for sign-ups – it will take place on Thu 3rd April, from 4-7pm. More details on the Eventbrite page: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/minds-neurodivergence-in-research-workshop-tickets-1253071102399?aff=oddtdtcreator

The full list of speakers will include Prof. Nelya Koteyko for the keynote talk, plus Emma Hayashibara, a neurodivergent PhD student.

June: second MINDS workshop. 

How do I find out more?

MINDS website https://mindsintech.org.uk/ Contact Dan directly d.a.gill@qmul.ac.uk

Claire moved from professional services to part of lecturing staff recently.

Could you tell me about your academic position and the history behind it?

I am not a computer scientist or electronic engineer, but I am now a lecturer and took up this post in January. I am the Project Coordinator for our final year and MSc project modules and this semester I have also been teaching a second-year degree apprenticeship module called Reflective Practice for Technology Professionals. I’ve been working in EECS for nearly sixteen years and prior to becoming a lecturer spent 14 years as the EECS industrial placement manager and just over a year as a teaching fellow as part of the faculty degree apprenticeships team. I managed all the programs with industrial experience and was also module organiser for these, so I had existing experience of learning and teaching. I was given the autonomy to develop learning materials related to employability and skills development and from this I also got involved in the development of other modules including the precursor to what has now become Professional Research Practice.

How does your background in professional services help with your teaching?

I have a broad understanding of what happens on the professional services side of things so I know who to go to and what to ask. With the project coordinator role this kind of detail can be very important. I think my PS background helps me to be organised too, and I feel I can’t teach a module well without a well-organised structure behind it. It is important to know that everything is in place to enable my teaching.

It feels like it was almost a gradual move from professional services to a lectureship?

Yes, over the years of being a module organiser I got increasingly involved with embedding things I cared about into the curriculum. For example, I started working with Usman Naeem on his “Web Technology” module and helped develop a piece of coursework that was related to skill development. The students were encouraged to create a portfolio that in addition to meeting the technical requirements of the module also showcased their skills. From this work Usman and I founded the mySkills initiative which is a framework that embeds employability tasks into the curriculum and encourages students to reflect on the skills they gain from modules and other activities. It is about their personal brand. In the first year they create a LinkedIn profile and a github page and we encourage them to attend a networking event. They are also asked to reflect on a set of questions about the technical and non-technical skills they learned from each module. Students can find themselves bouncing from one deadline to another without making connections between modules. mySkills provides the opportunity for them to step back and consider how modules connect and how the things they are learning feed into their personal and professional development more broadly.

What are the most important skills you feel you bring to the teaching environment?

I am an accredited coach and have undertaken training and qualifications with Queen Mary and independently. Since qualifying I have become part of the QMUL coaching network where I volunteer to coach colleagues across the university. I have learned a lot about one-to-one coaching and how beneficial it is to provide someone with the time and space to reflect on what’s going on in their lives and what they want to change or build upon. This feeds into my teaching as there are a lot of similarities between good coaching and good teaching especially in terms of empowering people to take responsibility for their own learning and development and the importance of reflection. These skills have also made it easier for me to build rapport with students whether on a one-to-one basis or in a group setting.

You mentioned “reflective practice for technology professionals”, I don’t really know what that is.

Degree apprentices are already employed and in addition to gaining the academic knowledge needed to be successful on their degrees they are also required to demonstrate competency across a range of professional skills and behaviours. The apprentices I teach are on the software engineer and data analyst pathways. Through the module they are encouraged to reflect on what being a ‘technology professional’ means to them both from an individual perspective but also as part of an organisation and as a community beyond the workplace. This includes the application of theory to practice and vice versa, so they are asked to consider for example, how software engineering methodologies they are introduced to in their modules apply to their actual experiences at work. We also look at things like leadership, innovation, ethics and sustainability.

Tell me about the ethics and sustainability teaching?

I do not teach the basic principles of ethics as this is covered more fully in other modules. Instead, we focus on what being an ethical professional means to them in practice. The students on degree apprenticeships face real ethical issues in their day-to-day jobs so they have meaningful experiences to draw from and mull over. Similarly, with sustainability the students are asked to reflect on and share how sustainable development goals are demonstrated by their organisations and what part they as individuals currently play or might play in the future in influencing these.

Your class size is around sixty. How do you assess reflection with such a large class size?

Reflection is quite a tricky thing to assess! I am looking for evidence they have thought deeply and critically about the topics they choose to write about. For example, if they choose the assignment about ethical practice, they will need to focus on very specific situations that they were exposed to at work and explain what they learnt from these and how this has shaped them as a professional. I would also be looking for evidence of them learning from mistakes and thinking about what they could do differently if they were in a similar situation again.

How do you fit in with our teaching team?

I left school at 16 and didn’t go to university until I was 32 so sometimes, I find it hard to believe I am now a university lecturer! I am grateful for the support and encouragement I have received from my colleagues and know that my contribution is valued even though I am not a typical EECS academic. I think that the 16 years I have spent working in the school have served me well as I have gained a good understanding of our students and what their needs are especially in relation to their skills and employability. I really enjoy working with EECS students too and can’t imagine working with any other discipline now.

During a recent teaching trip to Beijing in October, Dr Yan Sun, Dr Jonathan Loo, and Dr Michaela MacDonald had the privilege of attending a groundbreaking contemporary ballet performance by Intradance, a pioneering dance company from the Netherlands. What made this performance especially significant was the inclusion of dancers with a wide range of disabilities, demonstrating not only their extraordinary talent but also how inclusivity can enrich art and human expression. This unique performance, taking place in the 798 Cube art gallery exhibiting Yunchul Kim’s Earthing project, bridged the worlds of art and science, providing a powerful reminder of the importance of diversity in all fields.

The performance resonated deeply with us as a powerful illustration of how EDI values can shape and enhance our lives, even in disciplines like dance that might seem far removed from an engineering background. The ability to overcome their physical limitations and create something truly beautiful underscored the critical role that diversity and inclusivity play in all environments, whether in the performing arts or in professional and academic spaces like ours. It highlighted the need to embrace diverse perspectives, fostering an environment where individuals of all abilities can thrive.

This is an interview with Giorgia Pigato from QM Academy.

Could you say a little bit about yourself and your job?

I have been at QMUL for over two years working in QM Academy as an education advisor and work on PGCAP to improve practice and help people to get qualifications in teaching. I support staff through advanced HE fellowships where I am a mentor. I am also a reviewer for the SEED award. QM academy delivers webinars and workshops on different teaching areas and I regularly run a webinar together with Disability and Dyslexia Service and the Neurodivergent Student Society: Developing Inclusive Education for neurodivergent learners. It can be booked on QM training platform https://cpd-training.qmul.ac.uk/totara/dashboard/index.php

What is this SEED award?

The SEED award is a recognition programme for students who do peer teaching or work with students to improve teaching practice.
https://www.qmul.ac.uk/queenmaryacademy/students/seed-award/

What is the starting point for teaching ND students?

I have gone through a learning process in recent years. We need to focus on changing the context and the environment. We begin with understanding that there is huge learners’ variability in our programmes and we should have an idea of what challenges those individuals face. However, not every ND student will want to share their diagnosis and some may be undiagnosed. The range of learning differences is very wide and hence it is difficult to generalise. Traits that autistics students show might be the opposite of those for students with ADHD. We need to think of proactive inclusive design even before we step into the classroom and not only on individual adjustments.

If I am teaching a big class what are the most important things I can do as a lecturer?

Set expectations and be clear in your communications. Sometimes we take things for granted, for example that students know what is expected in terms of engagement, attendance, participation, behaviour and workload. A variety of formats to communicate can be useful: e.g. use QMPlus announcements but clearly repeat these in class. A video introducing ourself as a lecturer with a short intro to the module can help some students feel at ease. A statement about inclusivity can also students feel welcomed. [Note: example inclusivity statements are shared at the bottom of this interview.]

For example assessment criteria can be confusing for some students. I recorded a short video for assessment criteria using accessible language to explain more clearly with examples. Very long texts with information buried within this can really disadvantage some students.

We mentioned some specific issues like ADHD and autism how would you change your teaching if those students are present in your class?

We should consider making changes even if we do not know students with those conditions are present. Autistic students process senses in a different way and might really suffer if rooms are extremely crowded or poorly ventilated. Audio might be experienced in a different way. Use a microphone even if you are not asked because it may be hard for students to come forward and ask. Some behaviours may seem disruptive like wearing headphones, doodling, crochetting or not making eye contact. It is good to make students feel these behaviours are OK as for some students these activities can help alleviate stress. For students with ADHD you can insert short breaks into long sessions. If these be embedded and will help those students to understand and change the rhythm. For example a few minutes to talk to students next to them about the class could be a beneficial break. But it is important to announce these things in advance. Rather than saying “any questions” and getting no response asking students to write a concept they found hard and one they found easy. Letting students have material in advance can make some students with neurodiversity more comfortable. We offer lots of practical strategies in our webinars.

With classrooms sometimes we don’t have control of where we teach: for example ventilation or overcrowding?

In this case we just need to be aware that while we cannot control it we need to understand that some students might experience stress because of this. It is important to realise in some cases they are not over-reacting. I am working with the neurodivergent student society and their suggestions are reasonable and easy to implement: material given in advance, when there is a video then turn on text captions, make sure you are audible and use the microphone where possible. Group work can be very stressful for them (but a lot of students find this in general) so we need to be aware of this when we consider the option of group work and set the expectations here.

What about one-to-one settings when you are interacting with a PhD student or a project student who may have ND issues?

It could be that a student has not shared a diagnosis with you or even is undiagnosed. It is important to create the atmosphere where the student is comfortable to share either the diagnosis or the ways they prefer to interact which can help them. Ask the question “what can I do to help in this situation”? Dyslexia and Disability Support services at QMUL can provide advice to staff and students.

What do you say to people who worry about making things too easy?

My observation is that some colleagues worry we would lower academic standards if we are too inclusive. I can understand why people might say this but the really important point is that we do not have discriminatory barriers for certain groups while keeping learning challenging. Learning does require challenge and overcoming difficulties but these difficulties come from the concepts being taught they should not come from lack of knowledge or discrimination.

This is the inclusivity statement on my module:

“We are committed to creating a course that is inclusive and accessible. If you are encountering barriers, please let us know as soon as possible so we can determine if a design adjustment can be made. We are glad to consider creative solutions as long as they do not compromise the learning goals.

We are looking forward to working with you”.

This is inclusivity statement that I share in the Developing inclusive Education for neurodivergent learners:

“We care about your learning experience and success in this course. Everybody learns in a different way, at their own pace. Respect other people’s ways to do things. Together we’ll develop strategies to meet both your needs and the requirements of the course. If there are aspects of this course that prevent you from learning, let us know as soon as possible how we can help.”