OUR STORY

FidgetHE (or what would later come to inspire it), originated from one unexpected accidental encounter that I had during my very first teaching experience as a Part-Time Hourly-Paid Lecturer in October 2022. Like every Lecturer’s very first teaching session, the imposter syndrome was rife yet I was confident in the fact that my session plan was thorough and well-rehearsed. Although my PowerPoint slides were text-heavy and my delivery was robotic, the session seemed to be going well and my nerves were in check. That was until we got to the part in the session where I’d planned a reading comprehension activity based on a journal article that I’d printed off for students to read and discuss. Initially, all seemed to be going well until one student started to look anxious before informing me that they could not read the journal article. Naively, I tried to reassure them and asked them to do their best. To my surprise, the student informed me that they couldn’t read the article, not because the article itself was worded in a challenging way, but because they have dyslexia and require any handouts to be on green paper in order to read them. As a Part-Time Hourly-Paid Lecturer, I did not have access to the learning profiles of my students so, this information came as a surprise to me, with feelings of guilt shortly after. The following session, I invested in a green coloured overlay for the student (and others who required it) and from that moment on, the idea behind my ‘inclusive table boxes’ was born. 3 years later, in January 2026, FidgetHE was officially founded.

My ‘inclusive table boxes’ have and continue to expand based on the feedback of my students and their needs. A notable example of this was the inclusion of the noise-reducing ear buds, the idea of which emerged from teaching a Year 2 (Level 5) undergraduate student who was sensitive to sound and would find themselves needing to leave the classroom during group discussions. Such ear buds had a profound positive benefit for this student and enabled them to play an active part in my sessions thereafter.

I do wish to stress however that I am far from an expert when it comes to inclusive practices for adult learners and I don’t claim to be. In fact, I draw on the sentiment of Barbra Cole (2005) here when she advocates for an approach of ‘Good Faith and Effort’ surrounding inclusive practices in educational contexts. That is, I am purely a Senior Lecturer who, by complete chance, learned the hard way about the value and importance of inclusive practices for adult learners and through FidgetHE, wish to provide other Lecturers, teachers, tutors and coaches with a comprehensive, ready-made and tested resource which can help them to proudly foster inclusive practices and a sense of belonging within their own teaching sessions. FidgetHE is by no means the silver bullet to addressing challenges of inclusive practices when teaching adult learners but, from experience, I (and my students both past and present) wholeheartedly believe it is a step in the right direction.

Because adult learners deserve accessible and inclusive classrooms too.