APA Talking Teaching: Accessibility and UDL

by Christina Hendricks

This post developed from a Blog Contributor who presented for the Talking Teaching discussion series hosted by the APA Committee on Teaching.

The APA Committee on Teaching Philosophy set up a series of online discussions about teaching and learning in philosophy during the past few months, and I facilitated one in April on accessibility and Universal Design for Learning. I believe that designing our courses, assignments, presentations and class discussions in a way that is as accessible as possible for as many students as possible is both an ethical imperative and foundational to supporting effective student learning. Though there will always be a need for academic accommodations for some students to ensure full access, there are quite a few things instructors can do in the design and delivery of their courses to make them more accessible at the outset.

Often when people think about “accessibility” this brings to mind the idea of making things accessible to people with disabilities, but we can also approach it as part of inclusive teaching more broadly. The Inclusive Design Research Centre at OCAD University in Ontario, Canada defines “inclusive design” as design that considers the full range of human diversity with respect to ability, language, culture, gender, age and other forms of human difference.” Design is inclusive to the degree that it is accessible to as many people as possible, given these varying dimensions.

In addition, the Inclusive Design Research Centre describes disability as “a mismatch between our needs and the design features of a product, built environment, system or service,” in line with what is often called the “social model” of disability. They emphasize how such mismatches are experienced by everyone at some points in their lives. For example, low colour contrast on a website between text and background can make reading difficult both for those with low vision and those who are looking at a laptop screen while outside in the bright sunlight. Elevators in a building are needed for those who use wheelchairs as well as those who are carrying many things in their hands or moving heavy objects. So making course activities and materials more accessible can benefit multiple people in many kinds of circumstances.

This is part of the idea behind Universal Design for Learning, which is inspired in part by Universal Design. According to the Centre for Excellence in Universal Design, Universal Design is the design and composition of an environment so that it can be accessed, understood and used to the greatest extent possible by all people regardless of their age, size, ability, or disability.  This is not a special requirement, for the benefit of only a minority of the population. It is a fundamental condition of good design. If an environment is accessible, usable, convenient and a pleasure to use, everyone benefits.

Universal Design for Learning (UDL) applies this approach to teaching and learning. The Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST) has developed a comprehensive set of UDL Guidelines centred around providing multiple options for three aspects of teaching and learning:

• Engagement (“the why of learning”)
  • Providing multiple options for recruiting learners’ interests, helping them to sustain effort and persistence, and supporting the development of self-regulation.
• Representation (“the what of learning”)
  • Providing multiple options for perception (e.g., several ways of accessing visual and auditory information), support for understanding language and symbols, and support for comprehension (such as activating background knowledge, highlighting patterns).
• Action and Expression (“the how of learning”)
  • Providing multiple options for physical actions required for learning, for ways to communicate and showcase learning, for supporting executive functions (such as developing goals and steps to reach them).

In the Talking Teaching session, we discussed examples of how one might provide multiple options in these areas. For example, to promote self-regulation, one can ask students to use a rubric to reflect on what they have done well and what they could improve for the next time. Options for perception include ensuring that digital documents and websites are able to be read by screen readers, that images that provide essential information have alternative text, and that videos and podcasts have text transcripts. In addition, where possible, it’s helpful to point students to several options for accessing information, such as by pairing texts with videos or podcasts that address the same topics.

We spent a fair bit of the discussion talking about options for action and expression. For students who are not comfortable speaking orally in class for various reasons (including anxiety or speaking English as an additional language), one can turn to technological solutions for including their questions or opinions in discussions. One participant in the Talking Teaching session said that he uses the Q&A features on Google Slides to allow students to ask questions during a presentation that he can choose to show to the rest of the class or address in some other way. There are also other tools with a similar function, such as Mentimeter or Sli.do. Or one can do a pencil-and-paper version at the end of a class meeting with “one minute papers.”

One faculty member in our discussion teaches a course that emphasizes oral communication and public presentations, and we talked about how one might support students by offering the option of presenting to a small group before doing so in front of the whole class, and even allowing students to present through pre-recorded videos or podcasts that they could edit before submitting (so long as this still fulfills the objectives of the course).

We also talked about how we can provide multiple options for students to showcase their learning, such as offering a choice between different kinds of assignments they might do: they could choose to write a traditional essay, or perhaps create a podcast or video, a short story or comic, or something else of their choosing. This also can help with student engagement by encouraging them to choose a mode of expression that fits both the topics being studied and their own strengths (or alternatively, new skills they want to develop).

This led to a discussion of how to assess such varying artifacts, and one discussant shared that she has combined elements from some VALUE rubrics from the American Association of Colleges and Universities to good effect for such purposes. It is possible to evaluate different modes of communication by focusing on the quality and clarity of what is being said/the argument being made in various modes. One can also ask students to submit, along with their artifact, a summary statement of what they were trying to get across and why they chose that mode of communication, how it fits with the content of what they were saying (e.g., here is an assignment I gave in a fourth-year course, in which students were required to submit such a statement).

One participant in the discussion remarked that he had already been doing a number of the things suggested through a UDL approach without thinking about them in this way. It’s not surprising to me that many of those who care deeply about student learning are already engaging in practices that help to make their courses more accessible and inclusive! There is often more we can be doing, though, and the resources below are some good places to start.

Resources:

The Taylor Institute for Teaching and Learning at the University of Calgary has an excellent Guide to UDL in Higher Education.

The Centre for Teaching, Learning and Technology at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver has produced a two-page guide to creating accessible digital documents and media. Portland Community College has a handbook on making accessible documents and media; see their Accessibility of Online Content website for further guidance.

The University of Washington has a short guide for making your lectures and presentations accessible, with links to more detailed information.

Christina Hendricks is a Professor of Teaching for the Department of Philosophy and serves as the Academic Director for the Centre for Teaching, Learning, and Technology at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.