Accessing teaching opportunities

One of the opportunities offered by doctoral study is to teach undergraduates and taught masters students. Even if the researcher's goal is not to teach in a university, the experience develops invaluable personal and professional skills and demonstrates them to employers:

• the ability to give effective presentations,
• strong interpersonal skills,
• the monitoring of competence and progress,
• development of confidence and verbal communication,
• the ability to observe and differentiate students' learning needs.

These are all highly transferable to other work roles.

Training is offered within most institutions to those postgraduate researchers who want to teach, both through short programmes and longer courses leading to professional qualifications. But the training and the selection of researchers for part time teaching need to take account of the possible barriers disabled researchers may encounter in the teaching role. Here are some brief snapshots of those barriers and some of the ways researchers have found to dismantle them.

‘I make it part of an exercise that students scribe. So if I'm doing a brainstorming exercise, I'll get them to think things up and then they'll have to write them down...I'll say stuff about them having to participate.’

Postgraduate researcher with dyslexia

‘I make it part of an exercise that students scribe. So if I'm doing a brainstorming exercise, I'll get them to think things up and then they'll have to write them down...I'll say stuff about them having to participate.’

Postgraduate researcher with dyslexia

‘It is difficult when I am) working in subdued lighting, as when lecturing with slides and acetates as I cannot feel the items I am using and rely a lot on vision.’

Postgraduate researcher with mobility difficulties

‘My supervisor said to me, 'If you can't give a talk, you have no future in research.’

‘If I was to try and teach undergraduates here, I think I would struggle. I have taken the CCTV into a seminar and it's OK except I've got a fairly massive time delay so the students would be sitting for longer than they would expect to for me to find out what I'm going to say. ’

Postgraduate researcher who is blind

‘Although I have been able to take up some of these (teaching) opportunities, I have also had to decline some teaching because of the sessions being in inaccessible buildings.’

Postgraduate researcher with a physical impairment

‘(In the laboratory) a lot of the time they have to have the lights switched off so if people ask questions, I can't lip read them now. Two teams use a laser, one uses a white light. To get a decent image they need a black background with the light shining through whatever they are getting an image of. Each group has a table lamp, so if they are working on the equipment or reading something, they are not interrupted by the lights being off... Basically I have to try and stand so that the lamp is shining as much towards these people as possible when they are asking me stuff.’

Deaf postgraduate researcher who lip reads

Each postgraduate researcher will have a unique experience of teaching. Training for teaching and giving presentations needs to reflect the diverse approaches researchers will have to employ if they are to be effective teachers. Those responsible for that training need to be aware of individuals' issues and open up teaching opportunities to all disabled postgraduate researchers, enabling them to maximise their own learning as well as that of the students they are teaching.