Dr. Emma Davies discusses how she operationalised restorative practices by co-constructing an alternative assessment with her students, when exams were cancelled during the first English lockdown of the Covid 19 pandemic  

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Title:  Debating the power of restorative practices for the Higher Education sector.

With Dr Elaine Yerby, Dr Emma Davies and Rebecca Page-Tickell pfhea. In conversation with Dr Gabriella Buttarazzi, Centre of Excellence for Learning and Teaching at the University of East London

There is a strong evidence base of the need to recognise the powerful skills that lie behind conflict resolution. The importance of understanding the triggers and impact of stress on the working life and of the benefits of learning how to manage conflict in all its different guises. We discuss how, by moving towards restorative practices, we can train students and staff to use mediated dialogue to locate harm in ways that will enable the individual to take active accountability of the harms that they have caused. However, restorative practice travels beyond the allocation of blame and feelings of shame. The use of mediated dialogue enables individuals to appreciate their inherent agency to act in ways that empowers them to restore justice to their community. Restorative practice actively seeks dialogue, to rebuild the status of the individual and regain harmony and sense of belonging to the institution. In this discussion, restorative practices are posited as ‘teachable’ skills and framed as the empowerment tools that can enable Higher Education Institutions to move beyond current traditions that rely on rigid and strict investigational procedures and punitive disciplinaries that seek to blame and punish individuals

With Dr Jo Collins,  Graduate & Researcher College, University of Kent and Dr Nicole Brown  Department of Culture, Communication and Media.  UCL Institute of Education

In conversation with Dr Julia Hope, Centre for the Study of Higher Education, University of Kent

There is a growing recognition that valuable learning often takes place informally, through conversations, social interactions, and projects – a Community of Practice. We consider that the Community of Practice promises to galvanise knowledge sharing, learning and change radically.

We consider how an understanding of what this might mean is shaped by the institutional spaces the communities operate within, community members themselves. We discuss how connectivity is expressed with particular emphasis on the role of the community facilitator for building trust and cooperation, enabling conversations to become active collaboration and co-production. Discussed is Collins, J., Brown, N. & Leigh, J. (2021). Resources Toolkit: Supporting international postgraduate teaching assistants: https://open-education-repository.ucl.ac.uk//580/

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