This film gives a brief overview to Accelerate, and an introduction to the project’s first training event Accessible Pedagogies held at Bath Spa University.

Hosted by Prof Ian Gadd and Jenny Dunseath, the Accessible Pedagogies training event set out to explore different kinds of accessibility and how pedagogical practice can foster inclusivity. It examined how the pandemic exacerbated existing challenges and created new challenges for accessibility.

With introductory sessions led by faculty from BSU’s Schools of Education and Student Support team with particular specialisms in accessibility, inclusivity, disability studies, and student engagement, training sessions set out to explore issues of accessibility in teaching Higher Education by sharing how we understand and interpret accessibility across institutions and by considering the following questions:

What are the different kinds of accessibility?

Who are the disadvantaged and underrepresented student groups in Higher Education?

The Accessible Pedagogies event provided an opportunity for partners to share insight into their respective courses and institutions, and to begin to explore how pedagogical practice can foster inclusivity. All sessions centred on accessibility and exploring disadvantaged and under-represented student groups as the core aim of the project.

Accessible Pedagogies was the first of four training events held in Bath, London, Dublin and Poland. The training activities are integral to the development of the project and inform the intellectual outputs: all training activities feature in the methodological guide (IO2), they all inform the development of the online training course (IO3), they significantly shape the development of the immersive ecosystem (IO4)

Biographies

Bath Spa University is a leading UK university in creativity, culture and enterprise, with teaching and research strengths in arts, humanities, social sciences, sciences, education and business. Bath Spa University was recently crowned one of the top six creative universities in the UK by ‘Which? University’ Guide, with activities such as music, theatre, dance, choirs and visual arts playing a large part of university life.

Prof Ian Gadd: Project Manager Accelerate. Head of Development for European Projects at Bath Spa University and Academic Director of the Global Academy of Liberal Arts (GALA)

Jenny Dunseath: Academic Lead is a Reader in Fine Art Sculpture..