Top 10 Tips for Digital Inclusion: MicroCPD

Top 10 Tips for Digital Inclusion - 10 handy tips for making online personal tutoring more inclusive and accessible to students. This guide is freely available to reproduce and distribute. 

1. Acknowledge Names and Identity – encourage students to display their preferred names and pronouns, and suggest they upload their picture to their profile.
2. Using Video Cameras - encourage students to have cameras on, recognising that this is not a requirement and the choice is theirs. Explain that we seek to replicate the classroom experience where we can all see each other when we engage.
3. Use Live Captions - make video calls more accessible by enabling the live captions feature where the technology allows.
4. Establish Clear Mutual Expectations - collaboratively set netiquette/engagement expectations, including for breakout rooms. Ask students to agree with these.
5. Encourage Participation - use polls in group tutorials to encourage engagement and interaction. Remember that polls can be anonymous.
6. Encourage Small Group Interaction - for group tutorials, use breakout rooms to give students time to talk and interact in a small group.
7. Structure Activities with Guidance - structure small group activities so that students are aware of what is expected of them and what they are required to do.
8. Use Asynchronous Messaging Technology – integrate the use of online message boards into group tutorials (e.g. Padlet) so students can participate in a more structured manner and contributions can be saved and shared.
9. Be Present - aim to visit breakout rooms during discussion and encourage conversation.
10. Allow for Technical Issues - be mindful of students’ internet connections as they may drop in and out.

HEFi, Personal Academic Tutoring Gateway - https://canvas.bham.ac.uk/courses/26512 

Inclusive Educator - https://canvas.bham.ac.uk/enroll/F7P7DH Personal examples/experiences of inclusive personal tutoring could be shared with others through the discussion board. 

Lochtie, D., McIntosh, E., Stork, A. and Walker, B. (2018) Effective Personal Tutoring in Higher Education. St Albans: Critical Publishing. 

Remote Teaching Resource, Personal Academic Tutoring - https://canvas.bham.ac.uk/courses/42894/modules#module_289012  

Thomson, S. (2020). Lights. Camera? Action. Digisim: Musings of a Digital Simplitist.

United Kingdom Advising and Tutoring UKAT (2020) https://www.ukat.uk/

University of Liverpool (2020) Webinars: Cameras on or off. Available at https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/media/livacuk/centre-for-innovation-in-education/staff-guides/webinars-webcams-off-or-on/webinars-webcams-off-or-on.pdf

University of Sussex (2020) Encouraging engagement in breakout room activities. Available at https://blogs.sussex.ac.uk/tel/2020/11/10/encouraging-engagement-in-breakout-room-activities