Show, Tell and Talk – Developing a sense of belonging with 1st year students (in-person event)

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Students wishing to attend this event can register on Eventbrite.

This in-person workshop, open to all staff and students, taking place in Wills Memorial Building’s, Old Council Chamber will demonstrate two very different examples of how a sense of belonging can be developed with incoming 1st year students.  

The session will be chaired by Professor Alvin Birdi (Associate Pro-Vice Chancellor for Education Innovation and Enhancement) and includes contributions from Dr Steve Bullock (Associate Professor in Aerospace Engineering) and Angela Parry-Lowther (Senior Lecturer in the School of Management) there will be an opportunity for informal discussions in the final 30 minutes of the session. Further details: 

Steve Bullock – Opening doors: understanding our intake in order to support transition to university  

Understanding our diverse entry routes is critical to supporting students in their transition to university, and in ensuring equitable access and opportunity. This session gives a STEM perspective that aims to be transferrable to the wider institution.

Constraints and motivators in the secondary sector have evolved significantly over the last decade – we’ll be taking a look at these to understand a little more about current and future intake from all backgrounds.  

We have introduced and evolved routes into Engineering for students from BTEC and Access routes, which were not previously supported. Diverse intake requires diverse support – this session will detail the interventions, from recruitment and selection to in-year academic support, that we have employed to open up our programmes to wider entry, outline the rationale for the approaches taken and include successes and missteps. 

Steve re-joined Bristol twelve years ago after teaching in inner-London schools, leading the Faculty of Engineering’s widening participation work for six years, and has been Programme Director for Aerospace. 

Angela Parry Lowther  

Will provide an insight into the benefit of integrating reflection into a core 1st year unit as part of an assessed piece of work, to provide students with tools to help them gain perspective and feel empowered to implement change and gain support if needed. In this core unit students are introduced to: 

• The theory of reflection 
• Highlight how and why we use it 
• Consider the benefits and challenges 
• Why use reflection as an assessed piece of work 
• Review the different models available 
• Reflect on previous student’s experience and feedback.