Context: I decided this summer that I really wanted to revise how I teach, and the corresponding resources I develop and use, be considered from a UDL viewpoint. It’s an area in recent years that has been deservedly growing, with awareness of these approaches becoming more commonplace. The NF/UCD/AHEAD open course on UDL has been one of the most subscribed yet, and in me this term, it had one more person signed up! I’m going to use this platform below to document my learnings as I progress through the course, hoping that it will help and encourage others who may not be in a position to commit to the course, or wait until the next iteration runs.
Click on the various +/- below to expand each point and read about my learnings and redesign activity.
The firstly section details my background and awareness of this space… 1: Developing the National Resource Hub for T&L OER; Accessibility Aware
While at the National Forum, and as part of my work in developing the needs and focus for the National Resource Hub, I interviewed several people from across higher and further education considering those in all institution type and also levels. Hence, this wide ranging interview series provided a true insight across all HE stakeholders. Every interview brought its own unique angle and points to note, however there was one common element across every interviewee - Accessibility and UDL. Everything we developed at the Forum involved taking a UDL/Accessibility, and open licensing, approach. Win-Win on so many levels.
2: The UDL OpenCourse; kicking things off in Week 1
I am so excited about being on this course, it is something I know 100% is the right thing to do and I’m so keen to learn more. I’ve taken and acted on one specific point from the course’s student feedback videos today, and reached out to my own students on how I can do more to support around this. It has come up in class discussions earlier in the term, so looking forward to working with them to identify and create supportive solutions. 3: Diary from Week 2 of the course
Multiple means of representation; the ‘what’ of learning; recognition networks
4: Diary from Week 3 of the course
5: Diary from Week 4 of the course
Big next step!
The course’s focus now turns to the redesign activity….it’s something I’ve been tipping away at already but am so much more aware of aspects of it now. 6: So What Was My Redesign Activity?
How it came about....
Coming back from my secondment, I was very keen to work with my students more. I like to think I always have, but perhaps this year I hoped to delve a bit more in to this space. In parallel, UDL was very much on my agenda based on my time at the Forum. In the opening sessions of the module, I asked the students for some feedback around how I could support them more. This was such an important activity (via menti). The feedback was helpful and ultimately became my to-do list! One point really resonated with me: "More Accessible Notes" It really (really) hit home. Complementing this, as well as supporting my main cohort of learners, I've become really focused on supporting students with learning agreements as best I can. Remembering, there is no average student...so I want to help all across various levels - removing barriers and promoting engagement.
Hence my redesign activity was very much based on the above focus and interactions:
1. Improve the accessibility of my slides, notes and handouts [my primary Focus]. 2. Engage with more multiple means of engagement to support learners. 3. Employ means to receive and obtain feedback and ideas with students.
Considering Contrast
Contrast is one aspect that I feel we can all work to improve. I came across this concept with the National Forum when creating infographs, and the need for the work in this space. A colleague of mine at the time, Dr. Brian Gormley, mentioned an online contrast checker to me and I've never looked back since! So I started to apply that in this instance, both in my powerpoint and on my notes website where my students can access content.
I've so much more yet to learn and explore on my UDL journey, but reflecting on my teaching practice this term holisticly, I do see see numerous ways I am engaging with the CAST guidelines (indicated in red above). As I said, a lot for me to do yet, but I'm so much more in tune with this now than I was at the beginning of my UDL open course experience. A wonderful journey to take this past term.
In the next section, I plan to summarise, collate and share what I did to make my PowerPoints more accessible.
7: Key Takeaway & Infograph - How to Make Your Slides and Notes more Accessible for learners
8: Attending a Jennifer Pusateri webinar organised and chaired by CAST
I'm a big fan of professional development opportunities....so when I spotted this webinar on twitter, I was keen to attend (albeit evening time in Ireland with time differences). Learned a lot from the discussion, questions and posts from the speaker and hosts (CAST). I screenshot some points that really resonated.
9: Learner Evaluation re. Impact and Benefit to Approach
So I decided to do an evaluation activity with my students to try and capture if/how my redesign activity was actually supporting them, and if the felt I should continue this body of work - maintaining that +1 activity. I also asked for some general feedback, as you will see below.
Below are some general comments and feedback from the student group, which were lovely to read through. Overall working with your students, finding out how to help them more, implementing aspects of the UDL framework, and then showing them how their feedback led to action to help others, is a wonderful journey to have travelled this term. They inspired me, and I thanked them for that. I'm on to my next +1 already!
10: Some Other Helpful Resources I Came Across
Tools of interest/mentioned in text above
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Ronan BreeEducation Developer,Science Lecturer, Archives
March 2023
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Any opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer.
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