STEMinar Series: eSTEeM Scholarship Showcase February 2024

Location: Via MS Teams
Contact

New for 2024, the eSTEeM, Learning and Teaching, and Equality, Diversity, Inclusivity and Accessibility (EDIA) Teams are bringing together their webinar series under the STEMinar Series banner. STEMinars will be held fortnightly, alternating between Tuesdays and Thursdays.

An investigation into running taster tutorials within prisons for non-OU students and an evaluation of how we can better help SiSE students generally

Colin Blundell

This project originally aimed to conduct Maths and Engineering specific taster tutorials within prisons in the North West of England for prisoners not currently studying with the OU. As an Associate Lecturer having taught face-to-face in prisons for a number of years (pre-COVID) and noticing that there was a lot of interest within prisons, there were many aspects of study putting prisoners off from applying. This project set out to evaluate what those barriers were and what could be done to improve this. The focus of the project altered due to the pandemic, however the second part of this research evaluated, by having several Students in Secure Environments (SiSE) only tutor groups, some of the issues we have when dealing with SiSE and more importantly suggest ways we can improve this.

E&I Disability Champions

Elouise Huxor, Theodora Philcox and Lisa Bowers

The Disability Champion Pilot Scheme was designed to offer a more straightforward route for ALs to find information and a dedicated support space. A space with direct forum support, that ALs could share their concerns and their strategies for dealing with particular learning needs. The presentation offers an insight into how the project developed, its structure, findings and impact. We will also comment on lessons learned and how the design of the project iterations was guided by the ALs Disability Champions and the AL cohort within the U101 community.