Collaboration across UWCs is often tricky to organise face-to-face, but for three days at UWCRCN, colleagues from Dilijan, Adriatic, Maastricht, and Robert Bosch gathered for a workshop on Differentiation in Approaches to Teaching and Learning (Learning Support).

The workshop was planned and organised by the Learning Support Team from RCN and led by Suzanne Gaskell (Dilijan) and Miriam Nash (Adriatic). These expert facilitators employed differentiation strategies in their sessions, which ensured that all participants could be exposed to our biases, be reminded of the variety of student experiences, and learn at an appropriate pace.

A range of topics and focus points were covered during the sessions, including sharing best practices, the social model of disability, case studies from different IB subject groups, and planning of collaborative ways forward. Two sessions were shared with the entire education staff at RCN.

Perhaps the biggest lesson we will all takeaway is that it is not a student’s ‘condition,’ but instead, the student’s needs that should guide us in planning and teaching; creating opportunities for student autonomy are more likely to succeed than making assumptions about accessibility.

As hosts, RCN colleagues prepared a pizza social evening before the start of the workshop, took visiting colleagues hiking, swimming, and for yoga, and provided a campus tour and the chance to engage with RCN students and staff. Even the Northern Lights made a welcome appearance!

We are hugely excited to have played a small part in creating this professional and trusted network, and we know that all our students will benefit from the ideas for policy and practice that we shared. We all look forward to follow-up sessions hosted by one of our sister colleges!