Closing the loop: what schools and universities can learn from each other through a ‘funds of knowledge’ approach 

Credit: Darren Tsang / 1314 Family Style for UCL IOE.

27 November 2025

By Joseph Mintz, Gayoung Choi and Jianing Zhou

As educators, we routinely reflect on how to respond to and meet diverse learner needs within our classrooms. But do we also see and value the knowledge and experiences that students bring with them? Engaging with that question means looking at ourselves, our own backgrounds, experiences and perspectives, and thinking about how those shape what and how we teach. This is especially so when our backgrounds differ from those of many of our students.

Our recent UCL ChangeMakers project explored this question through the lens of Funds of Knowledge (FoK). Developed by González, Moll and Amanti (2005), FoK highlights the cultural and intellectual resources that families from diverse backgrounds bring to learning, challenging deficit views that frame diversity as a limitation. It can build stronger relationships between schools, families and communities, supporting inclusive and context-responsive teaching across educational settings.

Our own study focused on recognising and building on the strengths that diverse and less represented students bring to postgraduate study, while also asking how these same principles might inform classroom practice in schools. In this sense, inclusion was understood not as a set of adjustments added later, but as a way of designing learning so that participation and belonging are possible from the very start.

Our students at the UCL Institute of Education (IOE) are diverse in nationality, language and regional and professional background. Such differences are not barriers but resources. When recognised, they foster richer dialogue, stronger relationships and deeper learning. In higher education, this might mean valuing students’ identities and experiences; in schools, it might mean seeing every child as bringing rich knowledge from home and community. Across both contexts, FoK invites us to teach with learners rather than to them.

Co-producing knowledge

The ChangeMakers project was a collaborative process involving IOE academic staff and master’s and doctoral students. To explore how diversity shapes learning, a series of roundtables were designed as safe and participatory spaces where everyone could share experiences. To help facilitate these discussions, the project team co-developed vignettes centred on themes such as migration, multilingualism and parenting. Each vignette encouraged reflection on how students’ varied backgrounds and lived experiences influence the ways they learn and interact, and the implications of this for teaching.

Composite vignettes, providing short and realistic learning scenarios at the IOE, encouraged open discussion about using home knowledge without necessarily having to directly share personal experiences. Meanwhile, the roundtables offered clearly framed and safe spaces where students and staff contributed equally. This combination generated practical ideas and opened meaningful discussions about identity, belonging and the realities of diversity while addressing issues of power and inclusion in higher education.

These conversations showed that when educators create space for students to draw on their FoK, learning becomes more inclusive and meaningful. During the roundtable discussions, participants often returned to one key idea: the importance of supporting participation through multiple modes of communication. For example, non-native English speakers noted that visual prompts and low-stakes tools such as quizzes or polls help them to participate more confidently. These multimodal strategies can surface students’ knowledge early in a module and help everyone engage more fully in the learning process.

Participants described how this approach encouraged mutual respect and co-created knowledge through dialogue, a principle that holds true across all levels of education from early-years and primary classrooms to postgraduate seminars.

Connecting university learning with school practice

Our project emerged from a need to better support students in our postgraduate programmes. As it evolved, it also encouraged us to consider how the same principles could inform practice in schools. Many of our postgraduate students are practising or aspiring teachers who regularly move between university and classroom contexts and between theory and practice.

This two-way learning, often described as “closing the loop”, helps higher education remain connected to the realities of classroom teaching in schools. Insights drawn from students’ diverse experiences can shape how educators design university modules, while ideas developed in academic spaces can, in turn, inspire more inclusive and responsive approaches in schools. As ’t Gilde and Volman (2021) note, inclusive pedagogy is less about adding new activities than about rethinking how learning relationships are formed across contexts.

Through this perspective, FoK acts as a bridge between sectors, linking teacher education and school practice. It shows that what teachers learn as students can influence how they later teach children, and that what happens in classrooms can enrich reflection and discussion back in universities. When learning flows in both directions, education becomes a shared process of reflection, adaptation and growth.

What we learned

One of the strongest messages emerging from the project is that small, well-framed activities can shift relationships quickly. Students felt better recognised when their experiences shaped examples and discussions, while staff found that FoK-inspired prompts proved most effective when integrated into existing teaching rather than being used as ‘add ons’. Regular check-ins and reflective conversations helped the team adapt ideas without increasing workload.

Through this collaborative process, both staff and students developed confidence in co-creation. For some staff, it offered space to engage with student diversity more deeply and practically. For students, it created opportunities to see their cultural and professional experiences – crucially, when they are comfortable to draw upon them – as legitimate sources of academic knowledge.

Looking ahead

The ChangeMakers project continues this academic year as we share and refine the FoK-informed resources we have developed. These toolkits are being distributed across programmes to support colleagues and students in drawing on learners’ diverse knowledge more confidently and creatively.

Beyond our own programmes, we hope to collaborate with schools and teacher education communities interested in adapting FoK approaches to their contexts. In doing so, we aim to keep closing the loop by sustaining dialogue between theory and practice, university and school, and educators and learners.

Acknowledgements

The project team at the IOE were Gayoung Choi (PhD student), Zihan Li (MA student), Ying Xu (MA student), Jianing Zhou (PhD student), Dr Jie Gao, Dr Eirini Gkouskou, and Professor Joseph Mintz. The project was supported through UCL ChangeMakers.

We would also like to thank the postgraduate students who participated in the roundtable sessions for sharing their insights and experiences, which greatly informed this work.