Providing Accessibility in Virtual Education Requires a Process for Professional Development

Yes, we must respect the process.  Crucially though, we must allow the process to work through the functional dynamics of the other 4 Ps: people, places, policies, and programs.  The process begins to break down whenever the other four Ps act with dysfunction. To be effective, all five must be optimally understood and interdependently respected by all stakeholders. Filling any gaps in this systemic reality is the most efficient professional development and pathway to becoming an intentionally inviting Effective School.

Related to equity in education the term "accessible" has been prone to multiple meanings. When considering access for students with disabilities, it is often confused with related terms such as accommodation, adaptation, or assistive technology. For purposes of this discussion, it makes sense to understand and explore what are accessible educational materials (AEM) and Accessible Technologies? Thereafter, you are ready to further distinguish and clarify the meaning in the context of access for students with disabilities and accept the invitation to access the National Center on Accessible Educational Materials resource:  AEM and the Digital Shift. 

Returning to the discussion on providing accommodations and ensuring accessibility, ideally, everyone accepted last month’s invitation to bookmark and become familiar with the National Center on Accessible Educational Materials.  While its free course has ended, all materials including webinar recordings remain available for reviewing, referencing and sharing with colleagues and other stakeholders. Therefore, Making Everyday Curriculum Materials Accessible for All Learners, remains valuable professional development for achieving your goal to ensure accessibility in virtual education.  

If delayed in reviewing this resource, perhaps the following preview would be beneficial:  Due to their physical, sensory, or learning disabilities, many students with disabilities experience barriers to using curriculum materials. Yet, all students should have access to the same curriculum materials.  An intentionally inviting mindset acknowledges accessibility improves the quality of your curriculum and learning outcomes for all learners.

The National Center on Accessible Educational Materials selected five tropics for online modules related to providing accessible classroom materials. The five topics are directly relevant to the curricular materials educators use daily with their diverse students:

• Introduction to Accessible Educational Materials and Technologies
• How to Make Your Documents Accessible
• How to Locate Captioned Videos and Caption Your Own
• How to Find Specialized Formats of Print Materials 
• How to Select Accessible Digital Materials 

Each topic has varied options for independent practice. A Participant can select activities according to the time he or she has as well as the level of commitment desired.  Depending on those choices, the time commitment will range from approximately one to three hours per topic. 

In partnership with the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), Digital Promise recently released a new resource that aims to provide that guidance for designing, assessing, and implementing educator micro-credentials. The linked interactive map, created in partnership with the National Education Association and Center for Teaching Quality, explores micro-credential policies and implementation stories across the nation. Given states, districts, professional organizations, and other entities are revising their systems and policies to recognize micro-credentials for educators, it is worthwhile to note Making Everyday Curriculum Materials Accessible for All Learners is a pre-approved course for the IAAP Certified Professional in Accessibility Core Competencies (CPACC) credential. This provides a solid argument if your district or state has not already pre-approved your work with this course material for CEUs or professional development credits.  

To cite:

Anderson, C.J. (April 30, 2020). Providing accessibility in virtual education requires a process for professional

development  [Web log post] Retrieved from http://www.ucan-cja.blogspot.com/

Embracing Diversity in the Virtual Delivery of Educational Materials

           During this abrupt evolution in how we need to effectively teach, the National Center for Accessible Educational Materials should be considered an invaluable resource. The mini-course http://aem.cast.org/about/new-educator-training.html should be widely shared. You are intentionally invited to participate. 

      Administrators are encouraged to accept completion of the mini-course: “Making Everyday Curriculum Materials Accessible for All Learners” for CEU or professional development credit.  Such prudent acceptance would encourage many more teachers to participate.  Large scale access and learning would increase knowledge of what is available but also promote delivery of educational materials through diverse modalities that optimizes accessibility.  Participate can also increase the embrace of diversity as differences rather than deficits. 

      Many rural areas with poor connectivity and urban families living in poverty experience Internet access issues.  These families need flexibility and accommodation.  Yes, telephone communication, postal service, and campus drop-off/pick-up provides alternatives.  Combining locations for free breakfast and lunch programs with academic materials pick-up and delivery would help many families.    

      In this day and age, it is crucial to recognize each system is bound by Five Powerful Ps: people, places, policies, programs, and processes (Purkey, 1999).   The effective instructional leader's research-based instructional process CAN be trusted when seeking to align with people, places, programs, and policies that demand innovative delivery of instruction.  An educational process led by principles of effective teaching for all with help create a virtual learning environment approaching nirvana (LEAN) rather than exacerbating frustration, anxiety, and tension (FAT City).  In this regard, YOUR research-based process can be trusted.  

      The virtual delivery is what will require innovation, flexibility, and diligence. However, if a mindset grounded in intentionality, care, optimism, and trust (I-CORT) prevails in your instructional delivery then the FAT will more likely be cut out and a LEAN approach would advance the learning for all mission.  As intentionally inviting, effective educators, our goal should always be to invite every human to reach her or his full potential.  

To cite:

Anderson, C.J. (March 30, 2020). Embracing diversity in the virtual delivery of educational materials.  [Web log post] Retrieved from http://www.ucan-cja.blogspot.com/

Implementing a Disability Studies Approach to Inclusive Education

 

            The effective inclusive classroom exhibits diversity, creativity, flexibility, and compatibility between students.  Instruction provided by the teacher sparks achievement by all regardless of the students’ diverse current level of academic achievement and functional performance.  The successful “differentiated classroom” (Tomlinson, 1999) includes instructional staff that consistently:

·       Studies the diversity of students for planning purposes

·       Utilizes assessment processes to inform instruction as an ongoing process

·       Caters to multiple areas of intelligence

·       Uses data, whereby student success is measurable: recording where the student began and ended

·       Includes student choice-making to link their interests with instructional relevance

            Teachers need to transmit information to students in clearly stated objectives as efficiently as possible.  To optimize student success in the least restrictive environment (LRE) a disability studies approach to inclusive practices (Valle & Connor, 2011) will be helpful.  To begin, teachers need to effectively incorporate the Nine Principles of Universal Design for Instruction:

1. Equitable Use: Teaching techniques that serve all students of varying abilities.  For example, using Text to Speech software for hard of hearing students.

2. Flexibility of Use: Meeting each student’s preferences and abilities through differentiated teaching design.  For example, providing students with choices that suit their preference in presenting work (verbal presentation or written paper)

3. Simple and Intuitive: Planning the teacher’s presentation to promote understanding regardless of student’s knowledge, experience, language skills, or current concentration level.  For example,   express clear oral or written instructions.  Asking students to read aloud or paraphrase instructions to be sure they understand expectations.  Another example is presenting clearly stated outcomes through teacher-provided rubrics

4. Perceptible Information: Communicating information successfully regardless of the child’s sensory abilities.  For example, allowing students to audiotape the class or providing large print for visually impaired students

5. Tolerance for Error: Planning for different learning paces and skills.  For example, providing one on one tutoring to help students build necessary skills.  Reading Recovery or Reading Rescue are two early intervention programs that emphasize 1:1 interventions.

6. Low Physical Effort: Reducing the need for students following instruction to exert physical effort.  For example, within an environment, desks and chairs should provide enough space for a wheelchair to move with ease and without barriers.

7. Size and Space for Approach and Use: Allowing adequate space for approach, reach, manipulation, and use, regardless of the student’s size, mobility, and posture.  For example, varying desk sizes to ensure suitability for taller students or providing smaller chairs and desks for more petite students.

8. A Community of Learners: Encouraging interaction between classmates during instructional activities.  For example, planning for group work, class discussions, and peer teaching.

9. Instructional Climate: Creating an inviting and comfortable classroom environment that optimizes learning and time on task.  For example, expressing respect for diversity with a class motto displayed prominently on the classroom walls

            Teachers seeking to implement a disability studies approach to inclusive practices find it essential to follow a process for teaching grounded in universal design for learning:

·       Identify course goals and content.

·       Become familiar in advance with each student and identify diversity within the group.

·       Apply universal design principles.

·       Implement universal design process.

·       Apply universal design assessments.

·       Monitor student learning through formative feedback, including student participation.

·       Modify instruction based on feedback

            Teachers seeking to implement a disability studies approach to inclusive practices effectively utilize Bloom’s Taxonomy for planning and questioning.  Knowledge of Bloom’s Taxonomy allows educators to plan and ask questions that require students to respond with increasingly higher order thinking skills (HOTS).  Planning for students to think critically when responding to questions and using higher cognitive thinking during activities promotes learning and optimizes success with future problem-solving.  

            Teachers seeking to implement a disability studies approach to inclusive practices accommodate all learning styles.  Teachers must plan and utilize different approaches and strategies to optimize learning for all.  By utilizing brain-based learning strategies (Jensen, 1998), teachers exhibit an acceptance that students have diverse learning preferences.  For example, auditory-learners prefer learning opportunities that allow them to hear, visual-learners prefer learning opportunities that allow them to see demonstrations or read material, and tactile/kinesthetic learners prefer learning that allows them to touch or utilize the environment. 

            Teachers seeking to implement a disability studies approach to inclusive practices respect Howard Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligence.  Everyone exhibits strengths and less-developed competencies.  The ideal for respecting diversity in the inclusive classroom is to identify each student’s strengths and planning to utilize these areas to increase motivation, build relevance, and mitigate frustration or anxiety when increasing skills related to less-developed competencies.  “We succeed in enterprises which demand the positive qualities we possess, but excel in those which can also make use of our defects” (de Tocqueville, n.d).  Eight areas of diverse intelligence identified by Gardner (2011) include:

1.     Verbal-Linguistic

2.     Visual-Spatial

3.     Logical-Mathematical

4.     Bodily-Kinesthetic

5.     Musical

6.     Interpersonal

7.     Intrapersonal

8.     Naturalistic

            Teachers seeking to implement a disability studies approach to inclusive practices recognize that students may exhibit a preference for learning environment and conditions.  Knowledge of these preferences help teachers predict, to some degree, which learning environments will be most effective for diverse students.  Effective teachers consider room temperature, desk and seating arrangements, wall design, lighting, sound, and other factors that may impact each students overall comfort.  

            Thoughtful and purposeful planning create conditions for success.  Planning pyramids, curriculum maps, and calendars, allow delivery of instruction throughout the school year that reflective recognize the diversity of students and need to link to relevance.  Planning backward from the destination point to the starting point is a proven strategy (Covey, 1989).

To summarize, each student presents unique strengths, preferences, and needs.  Students will differ in cultural background, performance level, learning pace, learning style, areas of interests, and other flexible variables.  Classrooms designed around the students increase their involvement.  Teachers seeking to implement a disability studies approach to inclusive practices willingly provide different activities that range from simple to complex, thereby addressing each student’s needs.  Careful and purposeful planning of long-term, medium, and short-term outcomes allow teachers to more effectively deliver and assess instruction.

            Since the authorization of PL 94-142 (1975) a student with disabilities has the civil right to be placed within his or her least restrictive environment as appropriate to his or her needs (IDEA, 2004).  General education teachers will increasingly have more diverse children, some with mild or moderate disabilities in their classroom.  Effective inclusive classroom teachers must be prepared for the challenges of diverse students.  Educational planning is a starting point within the teaching process.  Teachers seeking to implement a disability studies approach to inclusive practices adapt strategies to meet the needs of students with disabilities.  For example, planning for alternate modes of communication is one way a teacher accommodate diverse students.  When a child is currently less capable of responding to a writing task, the teacher can elicit his or her response verbally, through speech to text software or through a private conversation.  When a teacher reviews any student's IEP and uses formative data to understand that child’s present level of academic achievement and functional performance, subsequent goals and objectives for all students are more valid, reliable, and realizable.   

References

UDI Online Project. (2009). Examples of UDI in online and blended courses. Center on Postsecondary Education and Disability, University of Connecticut, Storrs. Retrieved from: http://udi.uconn.edu/index.php?q=content/examples-udi-online-and-blended....

Valle, J., & Connor, D. (2011). Rethinking disability: A disability studies approach to inclusive practices. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

To cite:

Anderson, C.J. (November 22, 2015) Implementing a disability studies approach to inclusive

               education.[Web log post] Retrieved from http://www.ucan-cja.blogspot.com/