Webinar 6 ( Competence goal 7b)

 By: Abeeda Khan

• Competence goals: You create accessible study material.
• What is physical, mental, social, cultural and attitudinal accessibility and study material ?

A basic summary for accessible material is:

• Universal design for learning (UDL)
• Making your learning materials accessible
• Providing alternate formats of materials     

Accessible materials ensure that individuals with disabilities can access the information contained in your materials. 

These same changes will help all students, regardless of ability, with a variety of learning needs. For example, changes to how you structure text can help students for which English isn't their first language. 

Simplifying the navigation of  course in Canvas can help students using mobile devices as well as students who are low vision or blind. 

Adding captions helps students with hearing loss as well as students who are new to a content area and key terminology.

As teachers, we can make our lessons and classrooms more inclusive of all learners including those with disabilities. Technology is a vital tool in facilitating such inclusion, but is used most effectively as part of a wider and more holistic inclusive approach. In this reflection, I would like to introduce some of the available tools and approaches that can be easily incorporated into the resources and materials teachers create for their classrooms.

Universal Design for Learning:

Many of the tools and techniques are founded on notions of Universal Design, designs that are not explicitly intended for one or more sets of learners but instead are designed to be inclusive of as many learners as possible. When combined with assistive and accessible technologies, teachers can ensure that every learner has access to the same materials. Any learner might experience a temporary disability that hinders their learning for a period, it is realized that universal design benefits all students.

1. Provide multiple means of representation:

Learners differ in how they perceive and understand information when presented. Those with differing needs and disabilities, or from diverse language and cultural backgrounds may each learn most effectively when content is presented in different ways or formats.

      2. Provide multiple means of action & expression

Everyone differs in the ways that they navigate learning and express their knowledge, approaching tasks quite differently. Some prefer to express themselves in text but not speech, and vice versa. Action and expression require the development of strategy, with practice, and organization, and learners can differ in their capacity for each. 

    3. Provide multiple means of engagement

All learners differ in what engages or motivates them to learn. This can be influenced by many things including neurology, culture, relevance, familiarity, subjectivity, and background knowledge. Some learners find spontaneity and novelty engaging while others prefer routine. Some like to work alone, while others prefer to cooperate and work alongside peers. There is no single means of engagement that suits all learners in all settings, so providing multiple options for engagement is helpful.

Furthermore, Implementing UDL is based on the idea of creating learning materials that are accessible.

As well as addressing barriers to learning that might arise as a result of a disability, offering content and resources in a variety of formats and presenting content in different ways can help address those students who have a preference for one form over another. Such alternatives may also respond to the neurodiversity of a group of learners.

Visual:

Those with a preference for visual learning tend to enjoy looking at and observing things. They find that pictures, diagrams, and infographics are a good way to understand information and may like to present evidence of learning in a graphic format. When taking notes, they may add visual connections between key points or draw boxes around an idea to emphasise it.

Auditory:

Those who prefer an auditory approach to learning tend to focus on sound and listening to information. They prefer to listen to a document read out, or a person speaking rather than work directly with the text. Even when making their own notes they may prefer to speak out their thoughts as they write, and dictation tools on a tablet or computer are often very effective. When presenting their ideas, they may prefer to work with shorter written notes and to speak out their ideas verbally, and the opportunity to present work as a speech or video recording may work well for them.

Tactile learners:

Tactile learners seem to learn best through physical experience and doing things, such as through acting out events or by touching, feeling and handling to understand concepts. Where such a preference is strong there may be a preference for activities that draw upon movement extensively. 

Building activities and creating safe environments that allow a student to move around the school or classroom, such  as scavenger hunts or following clues, can be effective ways of helping them to build links between information sources and ideas.

Text or reading learners:

Many learners still prefer to assimilate and produce ideas and content through the written word. They may prefer to use text to record their thoughts in diaries or notebooks and read widely.

Most schools and classrooms are well established to support those with this preference. It is the closest to traditional classroom learning, and may include writing essays, undertaking research, and reading. 

Accessibility fundamentals:

The following fundamentals on accessibility can be applied no matter the software program  document type or material a teacher  is creating:

Ensuring clear and concise use of language:

• Keep your sentences short;
• Use active verbs;
• Use words that are appropriate for the reader;
• Don't be afraid to give instructions;
• Avoid nominalizations;
• Use lists where appropriate;
• Avoid acronyms where possible, and write out the full term;
• Avoid jargon, and link all difficult to understand terms to a glossary;

Make all content easy to see and read.

Use of fonts, colours, contrast, size, layout, headings.

The format and layout of text can make a large difference to the accessibility of your document, especially for learners with low-vision and learning difficulties.

• Use a legible font-size
• Choose 'sans serif' font types as they are easiest to read
• Ensure text and background color contrast of at least 3:1
• Structure your document using headings, built-in styles, bullets and lists

Always add image descriptions.

To make images in your documents accessible to people with little or no vision, teacher can add written text that sits behind the image as support. These are referred to as “alt tags” or “alt text” as they provide an alternative to the image in text format.

 Alt tags or alt text can be added to images in all major programs and save them in the format for the students. Students who are given access to download the document or access the materials in a web format, will be able to use a screen reader to hear the alt-text read aloud. 

Making videos accessible.

Videos are a valuable resource for your students that can act as an engaging tool to enhance learning. Using accessible videos and tools or making a video accessible is crucial for  students who have visual or hearing impairments, but can have much more comprehensive benefits. Closed captions for instance are vital for students who cannot hear, however will benefit all the students. 

Sharing materials in advance

Sharing  materials before  teaching the  is helpful for all students. They can become familiar with what you want to teach and think about what they do not understand and what questions they might want to ask. When we think of accessibility in a broad sense, sharing resources in advance is especially helpful for those whose first language isn’t English and those students who need more time to process the content.

Offering alternative formats of materials.

Having developed a content to be more accessible, teacher can add an additional tier of access by allowing  students to choose what format they would prefer to access the materials. Often students have personal preferences, which might include large print, audio only, different coloured paper or backgrounds, or they might choose to listen to your file as an audio recording with or without the text in front of them.

Teachers make a difference in creating inclusive classrooms. Many of the tools and techniques are part of the technology we use every day. Designing for accessibility of  lessons and teaching materials is a huge step in designing learning for all, and will have a benefit for learning outcomes of  whole classrom.

References

• https://accessibledigitallearning.org/resource/making-lessons-accessible-to-all-learners/
• https://dcal.dartmouth.edu/resources/teaching-methods/creating-accessible-materials