PROJECT: Relaxed Pedagogy (RelaxPed)

The project ‘Relaxed Pedagogy’ is, if you will, a side project. It is grounded in my interest in critical pedagogies and, from that, crip, feminist, black and adjacent liberation pedagogies. Specifically, the project emerged on the ground when I was looking for ways, as a disabled and neurodivergent lecturer, that my teaching could become more accessible to both students and myself. When I attended one of TourettesHero’s events on ‘relaxed performances‘ at the Battersea Arts Centre (BAC) in 2018, which since then has become a ‘relaxed venue‘, I wondered whether the idea of ‘relaxedness’ could be integrated into Higher Education teaching. This is when I started to experiment with a ‘relaxed classroom’ approach. I wrote two blog posts with Dr Kelsie Acton. Although slowly, I am now working on a journal article on ‘relaxed pedagogy’ or, in short, ‘RelaxPed’. 

OUTCOME TO DATE

Acton, K. & D.D. Huijg. (2020, 19/11). “The problem with accessibility checklists“. LSE Impact Blog. Available on: https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2020/11/19/the-problem-with-accessibility-checklists/ [Blog post]

Huijg, D.D. & K. Acton. (2020, 10/09). “Relaxed pedagogy: Relaxing teaching and learning in the university“. Building the Post-Pandemic University. Available on: https://postpandemicuniversity.net/2020/09/10/relaxed-pedagogy-relaxing-teaching-and-learning-in-the-university/ [Blog post for flipped conference]