Together apart: nurturing inclusive, accessible and diverse connections within the Canterbury Christ Church University (CCCU) community during COVID-19

Richmond-Fuller, A. 2020. Together apart: nurturing inclusive, accessible and diverse connections within the Canterbury Christ Church University (CCCU) community during COVID-19

This presentation will focus on fostering a sense of belonging and community through inclusion, accessibility and diversity in Computing within the School of Engineering, Technology and Design (ETD) during the COVID-19 lockdown and beyond.

In particular, I will focus on building teaching and learning communities by working towards co-creating collaborative spaces for creative exchange by students through Blackboard and Sharepoint, and MS Teams for staff members to share good practices to improve teaching and learning outcomes; co-creating accessible environments where everybody’s potential is recognised and nurtured through a combination of support and challenge.

What strategies foster a sense of belonging and community in learning and teaching? What strategies can be employed to motivate and engage our diverse student body to collaboratively co-create and provide peer-feedback to one another as they worked together on achieving learning outcomes?

How can staff members support one another to engage students and improve achievement outcomes?
The Health and Wellbeing Framework outlines our CCCU value of integration of excellent teaching, research and knowledge exchange. To work towards achieving this, I will also outline co-created collaborative spaces and initiatives both within our school of ETD and inter-departmentally.