Awarding Gap Seminar series: Decolonising learning and assessment: insights from student and educator experiences

DMU Education Academy’s Awarding Gap seminar series: Decolonising learning and assessment: insights from student and educator experiences

Sign up now to the DMU Education Academy’s online Awarding Gap seminar series, taking place on Wednesday 25 June, 12noon–1pm, via MS Teams. The session titled: Decolonising learning and assessment: insights from student and educator experiences, will be hosted by sector-leading expert Louise Taylor.

Louise Taylor, PhD, is a Professor of Education and Student Experience at Oxford Brookes University, where she teaches psychology in the School of Psychology, Social Work and Public Health. She is a National Teaching Fellow and Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, recognised for her leadership in teaching and research to support student identities and inclusion. Her research applies psychological theory to understand what makes successful learning and teaching, both in the contexts of the marketisation of higher education and ethnicity degree-awarding gaps.

Louise has published in leading journals including Studies in Higher Education and Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, and is Senior Editor for the Journal of University Teaching and Learning Practice. Her teaching toolkit ‘Balancing Students’ Identities as Learners and Consumers’ was published by Advance HE and is freely available for educators to use to support conversations with students about their identities. She mentors a number of staff in learning and teaching focused career pathways and supervises PhD and EdD Professional Doctorate students on teaching and learning related projects. Follow her on Linkedin and Bluesky @ Louise-Psychol, and see her webpages for more information.

In this session, Louise will share insights from two projects aimed at understanding and supporting students from the global ethnic majority. The first project interviewed students about their experiences of learning and teaching in higher education, and the data was analysed and interpreted using a universal psychological needs framework (Deci & Ryan, 2000). The second project focused on educator experiences of learning and teaching during Ramadan, when Muslim students are likely to be fasting. Louise will discuss the findings from both projects and discuss implications of the data for supporting educators to decolonise their learning and assessment processes.