Creating community & engagement

A useful selection of blogs, videos and other resources on the theme of creating communities. This includes resources to help you think about support for students who are marginalised or under-represented in higher education.

An important part of the Cohort Lead roles is helping student feel they belong in their academic communities and that they matter.

Here is a useful selection of blogs, videos and other resources to give you some ideas about how to achieve that:

Useful resources for Cohort Leads

'Building community while teaching’ - UoE Engage Network session, Wed 5th April 2023 - Crispin Jordan, Lecturer, Biomedical Sciences Video Recording April Engage session - Media Hopper 

Teaching Matters Newsletter July 2022 – Building Communities

Teaching Matters blog - Building Community theme

Working in partnership towards a whole school community - blog post, Sam Fawkner, Emily Birtles and Giulia Pinton

Care as mattering - blog post, Dr. Omar Kaissi

How to grow peer support, community and belonging for online students - blog post

Student SharePoint: Supporting, informing and engaging with our students - recorded talk on Conference paper Sam Fawkner, Emily Birtles & Jiangning Li - Moray House School of Education and Sport

Fostering a Sense of Belonging at our University – a guide for our Schools (PDF)

Inclusion and widening participation

Resources to help you think about support for students who are marginalised or under-represented in higher education. Feeling part of academic communities might be harder for students who are marginalised or under-represented in higher education.

Here are some resources to help you think through how to support all students in your cohort lead role:

Staff perspectives on embedding inclusiveness in internationalised classrooms - video of short Conference talk - Omolabake Fakunle, Velda McCune & Yifang Xu This short talk starts at around the 26-minute mark of the video.

Supporting the Transition into Higher Education (HE) in Widening Participation (WP) Medical Students  video of short Conference talk -  Maha Arif. This short talk starts at the 30-minute mark of the video.

I sat, a solitary student, in a crowded University classroom. An open book and empty cup on the marble table-top Video of storytelling session. Neil Speirs and Gabriele Negro. This recorded session starts at just after the 25-minute mark of the video.

Commuter Students, Living and Studying at Home and Engagement with the University -  Video of short Conference Talk. Sheila Riddell. This short talk starts at around the 19-minute mark of the video.