Using lived experience to boost student belonging

Julia Limper, Nakita Oldacre, Emma-Jayne Conway and Anjali Mehta Chandar presented a lightning talk and discussion about using lived experience as a way to boost students’ sense of belonging. They considered the different ways that lecturers may self-disclose, and the benefits and considerations of doing so including the impact on the lecturer. They also considered the sharing of stories from lived experience partners who may join teaching, and the negative impact on student belonging if they only hear polished stories. Slides and the recording of the talk can be found on the University of Reading’s Centre for Quality Support and Development (CQSD) site for the conference:Teaching and Learning Conference 2026. Slides are also available here for all internal and external staff too: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21453020. They are currently in plans to do a longer session on this topic for internal staff via CQSD too