Please join us in WBW 2/21 (refreshments provided), or on Teams. For those who can’t come in person, the online meeting link is here: Click here to join the meeting (Meeting ID: 355 437 777 062, Passcode: kHibrU)

Teachers at all stages of education encounter a diverse range of students, including some with differences that are commonly labelled as forms of disability, Special Educational Needs (SEN), or other associated terms. Academic ecosystems tend to normalise and prioritise certain assumed ways of learning, of teaching, and of existing in educational spaces. This leads to the disablement of some who cannot conform to the norms of the system.

There are tensions between conflicting conceptions of disability within official policy, pedagogic practice, and personal experience. In this interactive seminar I explore some of these tensions from angles including: teachers' conceptions of SEN, disability and diversity; and experiences of ableism in academia. There will also be a 'focus group' discussion around staff perceptions and practices around inclusive teaching and learning, with opportunities to share thoughts, concerns, recommendations, ideas, etc.

Dr. Finesilver will first present a brief selection of her work-in-progress on disability inclusion and anti-ableism in the HE context. Then there will be time for group discussion on the use of inclusive teaching practices within ECS. If members consent to the use of anonymised comments for research purposes (optional of course!), Dr. Finesilver will record these for potential inclusion in an upcoming paper on disability-inclusive pedagogies in HE. (information sheet)

About the speaker:

Dr. Carla Finesilver is Senior Lecturer in Mathematics Education and Inclusion at ECS. She works mainly in the areas of mathematics education and disability inclusion. Through research, teaching and EDI leadership roles, she aims to make mathematics, STEM subjects, and education in general more inclusive, accessible and relevant for diverse learners, particularly those who are marginalized by traditional educational structures. Carla specialises in qualitative research, often working with multimodal data, microanalytic methods, and designing bespoke methodologies for data collection and analysis. Carla's teaching is spread across multiple modules and programmes. Prior to her academic career, Carla spent 10 years as a classroom teacher at various secondary schools in London, including as Head of Mathematics (and one of the founding staff) of a specialist school for students with Specific Learning Difficulties. She has contributed to national guidance on dyscalculia.

Recent publications

• Finesilver, C., & Healy, L. (2023). Inclusive approaches to Special Educational Needs and Disabilities. In Becoming a Teacher: Issues in Secondary Education (6th ed., pp. 246–259). McGraw-Hill Education (UK).
• Finesilver, C., Healy, L., & Bauer, A. (2022). Supporting Diverse Approaches to Meaningful Mathematics: From Obstacles to Opportunities. In Y. P. Xin, R. Tzur, & H. Thouless (Eds.), Enabling Mathematics Learning of Struggling Students (pp. 157–176). Springer International Publishing. doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-95216-7_8
• Finesilver, C. (2022). Beyond categories: Dynamic qualitative analysis of visuospatial representation in arithmetic. Educational Studies in Mathematics. doi.org/10.1007/s10649-021-10123-3