CAISE Approaches

CAISE mission is to embed the Queen Mary Principles for an Inclusive Curriculum in all programmes in the Faculty of Science and Engineering. These principles focus on how students can be supported to develop themselves. The principles are: Empower, Co-create, Diversify, Enable, Develop, Reflect, Value and Encourage.

In order to achieve this mission, we recognise various different approaches to implement the Queen Mary Principles, the CAISE Approaches. These approaches are complementary to the Principles, and describe inclusive practice not from the perspective of how students are supported, but what staff can do. This can be useful to get started, or when staff may struggle with identifying principles. STEM academics, in particular, may struggle with the educational and student-focused language used in other subjects. Taken together, the Queen Mary Principles and CAISE Approaches can provide a framework to facilitate identifying inclusive education practices and enable design.

CAISE differentiates approaches in inclusive education and pedagogy depending on whether we focus on students directly, or we design and take action focusing on supporting staff to develop their own practice.

A. Focus on students

  1. Removing barriers for specific groups of students (e.g. diversification of the curriculum, showcasing diversity in STEM research and practice)
  2. Removing barriers in the subject: Highlighting "rules of engagement" in the subject. (e.g. feedback on ways of thinking in the subject, authentic practices, decoding "scientific thinking" / "engineering judgement" for learners)
  3. Inclusivity as an Intended Learning Outcome (i.e. teaching inclusion)
    1. Inclusion as subject-specific ILO (e.g. inclusive design in engineering, biomedical sciences, etc)
    2. Inclusion as a Graduate attribute (e.g. inclusive team-based learning practices and peer-assessment)
  4. Co-creating education with students

B. Focus on staff

  1. Staff development for approaches above (A1-4)
  2. Staff educational development approaches tailored to STEM academics
  3. Staff scholarship development (i.e. staff development for pedagogical research) tailored to STEM academics