The AHEAD annual international conference takes place from Monday March 21st-Friday March 25th 2022. This year’s online conference will explore how tertiary education design impacts our health.
AHEAD is an independent non-profit organisation working to create inclusive environments in education and employment for people with disabilities. The main focus of AHEAD’s work is further education and training, higher education and graduate employment.
Conference Sub-themes:
- Safe Boarding for All: The Role of Digital and Physical Accessibility
- The Winds of Change: Agile Student Support
- Navigating Beyond the Horizon: International Mobility, Work Based Learning and Social Engagement
- Testing the Waters: Innovative Student-Centred Assessment Design
- Bending with the Breeze: Flexible Approaches to Teaching and Learning
All questions or queries should be directed to events@ahead.ie.
Tickets are free for students and AHEAD members and €100 for non-members. Check if your institution is a member.
View the programme
Register
The conference seeks to explore the link between education design and student wellbeing. To date, welcome health and wellbeing initiatives have mainly focussed on how to support students to better manage the anxiety, stress and poor physical health they may experience while participating in further and higher education.
The AHEAD 2022 conference shifts this focus to explore how the very design of learning environments can impact student wellbeing, raising a number of significant questions:
- How can education design positively impact student well-being?
- Can we work together across our colleges and centres to reduce any harmful impact on learners without reducing standards?
- Can a combination of universal design of the physical/digital environment, universal design for learning (UDL) in the classroom, and high-quality targeted student supports, create educational experiences wherein all students do not simply survive but have the space and opportunity to thrive?
- How can learners themselves be engaged in these processes of educational design? And how can inclusion and belonging be fostered across the full higher and further education experience?
In exploring the link between tertiary education design and physical/mental wellbeing, the Safe Haven or Stormy Port conference will showcase good practice in proactively and intentionally designing positive, inclusive tertiary education experiences for all, and efforts that include students as partners when doing so.
Bibliography:
- AHEAD (2020). Learning from Home During Covid-19: A Survey of Irish FET and HE Students with Disabilities. Blackrock, Dublin.
- Dooley, B., O Connor, C., Fitzgerald, A. & O’ Reilly, A. (2019). My World Survey 2: The National Study of Youth Mental Health in Ireland. Dublin: UCD.
- Price, A., Smith,H.A., & Kavalidou, K. (2019). USI National Report on Student Mental Health in Third Level Education, Dublin: Union of Students in Ireland.
- Rath, V. (2020) Social engagement experiences of disabled students in higher education in Ireland. Unpublished doctoral thesis, Trinity College Dublin.
