OpenTEL: Show & TEL Tuesday 4th May (09:00 – 13:00) Link to Recording
Agenda
09:00 – 09:25: Welcome and Introduction: Eileen Scanlon
09:30 – 10:00: Presentation 1: Module structure for student success Gerald Evans and Dot Coley, Learner and Discovery Services
10:05 – 10:35: Presentation 2: Younger students at the OU: background, motivations and early experiences Maria Aristeidou, Institute of Educational Technology
10:35 – 10:50: Break
10:55 – 11:25: Presentation 3: Where next for the Disability Disclosure Chat-bot? Nick Freear, Institute of Educational Technology
“We are told we lack aspirations. No, we don’t. We lack opportunities.”
–Sumeya Loonat, 2021
The Open & Inclusive Special Interest Group from OpenTEL featured presentations from two external speakers in an online seminar on Wednesday, March 24th, 2021. The speakers covered interrelated topics about language, race, mental health, and financial hardship in higher education. Sumeya Loonat, a senior international student lecturer in the Business and Law faculty at De Montfort University, was the first to deliver her presentation on ‘Language and Learning: Breaking Barriers to Success’.Sumeya’s experience as an English teacher for Academic Purposeswhoprovides academic support for international students has contributed to her research on the intersectionality between language and race. Under the Equality Act 2010, race can mean colour, nationality or ethnic or national origins. Sumeya’s PhD focuses explicitly on students of colour who use English as an additional language within a teaching and learning context.
She has identified key barriers bilingual students of colour face in higher education, including: