So I woke up today to learn that the @A2SchoolsSuper has called a snow day. After a four-day weekend. And with tomorrow an "asynchronous" day (i.e., no real school again).

Which might sound reasonable after a storm, except -- there IS no in-person school in Ann Arbor.

So - what is the deal with the AntiBlack 'awarding gap' in UK higher education?
@Wonkhe @officestudents @nusuk @UWankings @BantshireUni
#BlackAwardingGap #highered

What do students think about their university experience?
#BlackAwardingGap #highered

A student-deficit approach is a fundamental reason why efforts to eradicate the gap have failed, such that despite ↗️ access to HE for Black students, their experiences, assessment and opportunities remain disproportionately affected (one of the ways in which whiteness works⬇️)

UK higher ed, far from being immune or removed from structural inequalities, often actually reproduces them. In this context, white supremacy is the social structure, and the University the institutional operation.
But what is whiteness? Here's some helpful terms ⬇️

Aside from dismantling the institution, and starting over in a different and reparative way, there are things we can do at the intrapersonal, interpersonal, institutional, and community level to address it. Such as, manifest an anti-racist pedagogy ⬇️

THREAD: Remote Teaching
I’ve spoken to a few people recently about our remote teaching approach and thought I’d share some of our ideas here for anyone who many find them useful.
1. We use Google Classroom and post lessons which include videos, Google Forms and any other docs

2. Classrooms are set up so that lessons are saved as ‘Topics’ each week. The Topic is named as Term/Week/Date for easy navigation. This is consistent so that Classrooms all look similar to pupils to provide a sense of routine - just like you would in a lesson

3. We have a dummy Classroom which all teachers can access which includes Classrooms for all subjects - this gives us a ‘pupil view’ to make it easier to help if parents ask for support and means we can share lessons across subjects and direct to good models

4. We chose to collapse our timetable rather than continue with our own classes. Our suggested timetable is at least 5 hours per day but includes more Art, Music, PSHE than our usual timetable as we felt that was appropriate to support pupils at this time

5. In most subjects, one person looks after the whole year group. This includes making lessons, looking after the GC, dealing with Qs, & giving feedback for that year group. Subjects have a max. of 3 lessons per week/year group supplemented with Bedrock Vocab & other platforms.

Grade Awarding 2021 - a thread.
1. For pupils and parents; it sounds daft but there isn’t much you can control right now. Teacher will play the main role in awarding grades, and there may well be some time or formal exam for subjects. But we don’t know exactly what yet.

2. What we do know is that all work pupils have done, their resilience over such a difficult time, their drive to keep going will make a difference to them. It’s never been more important for pupils to keep going, and keep engaging with the provision a school provides.

3. To our pupils? Have faith that the work you are doing will pay off. Please don’t lose heart right now. We love you lots and we all want you to excel. We are always here for you.

4. For school leaders - we need to build a year story. Right now they need a narrative that stresses the need to keep engaging in lessons. A letter every two weeks won’t get that job done. It’s never been more that pupils and parents feel connected to a school and we have clear

5. Communications cycles. Media - twitter/YouTube etc are vital tools for keeping our pupils and parents connected to school. This news cycle is vital for building a cultural expectation of what will happen when pupils set foot again in our school buildings.

As you may know, asides sharing graduate school opportunities, I like to share practical insights and directional content that will give you a sense of what you are missing or not missing.

Serving you below:

HOW TO LEVERAGE "OPO" for grad school applications 👇

- A THREAD

2) OPO is an initialism coined from "Other People's Opportunities". This means you will be leveraging opportunities specific to others to your advantage. After this thread, you will stop asking:

"Can you share scholarships for Atmospheric Social Law"? 😂

(you get the drift).

3) PROCESS:

A) Once someone shares an opportunity. Say @olumuyiwaayo, @Jamaticulus or @AaronAkpuPhilip or myself shares an opportunity on our timeline, the first thing to do is to locate the name of the university and the country it is located.

4) (B) Type the name of the institution on Google and locate the website of your department. Often times, if there is a mass recruitment by the institution at the time you saw the ad, its likely there is something for prospective student looking to get into your department.

5) If otherwise, that is, if the ad you saw was particular to the advertised field, the leverage you have is that you are informed about the institution and you have the privilege to dig faculties.

(C) List the names of probable supervisors on the department's website.