Co-creation of a course about neurodiversity in HE, including lab-based scenarios
A senior lecturer co-created a course about neurodiversity.
The course is intended to improve understanding and awareness and to empower and give agency to neurodiverse students to ask for adjustments. Early indications are that the course is helpful both for staff and students, particularly in terms of providing practical, tangible approaches to improving inclusion, such as group work contracts and expectation-setting, provision of quiet spaces and comfort breaks. The intention is to make the course openly accessible as a template for any university to use.
The course includes a pre-course questionnaire to assess people鈥檚 awareness and understanding of neurodiversity. The main part of the course covers what neurodiversity is, terminology, aspects of autism, dyslexia and mental health issues, the legal protections which exist and reasonable adjustments. It also considers the social and medical models of disability. It discusses the barriers neurodiverse students may encounter, such as in group work, presenting, or oral exams. It also considers lab-based scenarios, including sensory overwhelm in the lab due to chemical smells, very bright lights and noise.
The project arose from disproportionately low National Student Survey feedback from students with a non-specific learning difference. Neurodiverse students were experiencing particular issues with inclusivity and assessment; usefulness of feedback and sense of belonging. A series of focus groups was carried out, facilitated by neurodivergent student researchers. The overwhelming feedback was that there was a lack of understanding and a lack of empathy among students and staff about neurodiversity. Cross-institutional funding was secured from two universities and the RSC, which enabled the co-creation of the course.
Knowing what to ask for is part of how we're trying to help students, so it鈥檚 not like 鈥榠f you can't handle it, you're not welcome in 深夜福利国产精品鈥�. It's trying to give them the language to know what to ask for and what that might look like. Staff don't know what to offer in terms of reasonable adjustments, so we're telling staff what they could do to move towards equity, not saying that we can magically get there, but some of these things might help to minimise the differences.