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Deep Dive
Presentation and choice fuel accessibility — in-person or remote
Being mindful of resource design also contributes to inclusive spaces that promote the success of all students.
Lauren Barack
Sept. 9, 2020
At Canyon Creek Elementary school in Farmington, Utah, Rachel Steenblik
has been working with K-6 students for the past two years. Like most
schools, the shift to remote learning at Canyon Creek was quick. But as
an elementary special education teacher at a Microsoft Showcase School,
Steenblik had access to tools, from Immersive Reader to Flipgrid, that
she believes helped support all her students — regardless of need for
accommodations.
That’s crucial to Steenblik, as she is focused on opportunities that
give every student a chance to engage with learning material equally.
“If kids have access to the curriculum, they can show their full
potential, which enables them to become full learners,” Steenblik said.
With the COVID-19 pandemic showing few signs of ebbing, millions of
students are facing another semester of at least part of their school
week online.
Educators, then, are keen on how lessons can be inclusive for all
students, accessible from any point of entry. And there are steps they
can take and questions that can be asked before adopting material to
use in the classroom, even remotely, to help all students reach
learning goals set for the coming year.
Presentation and design matter
For Steenblik, the work starts with adopting tools all students can use
equally and don’t project accessibility or accommodation. Adopting
technologies that appear to be designed for certain children is likely
to turn some of her students away from using them, she said.
“My kids would rather go without the tools than stand out,” she said.
“So if I teach them these tools, and they’re the only ones using them,
they stick out like a sore thumb. They don’t want to be different. So
my thing is let’s use these with all students — and the teacher should
be using them and implementing them in the classroom, too — so not just
kids who need them use them, but everyone. Because it makes tasks
easier for all of them.”
Katherine McAlvage, assistant director of course development and
training at Oregon State University’s Ecampus in Corvallis, Oregon,
suggests educators actually start by thinking of how students will need
to access material they’re using before they send it out. As part of a
four-person team with the ECampus, McAlvage is not only helping
educators at the university adapt to remote teaching, she is also in
close contact with local school districts in the area to support their
efforts as well, she said.
She encourages educators to design lessons around keyboards rather than
a mouse, for example, to be cognizant of students who have physical
accessibility needs. Another tip — one of five suggestions from a quick
reference guide the university hosts online — is to use heading styles
when writing out lessons, as screen readers will delineate headers such
as a new chapter title or topic aloud.
Advocate for representation in materials
Mary Rice wants to assure educators that transforming an entire year of
lesson plans overnight is a bit unrealistic. Instead, the assistant
professor of literacy at the University of New Mexico believes
educators and curriculum instructors should make this journey one step
at a time.
She encourages educators to start by examining new material they want
to adopt every year through four distinct lenses, including making sure
they’re meeting legal standards, which technology can help to address.
But teachers should also consider whether the content they’re adopting
is engaging enough that students will want to interact. Third, they
should read through to see if online programs are transparent about the
data being collected on users, and, finally, check that the material
itself is inclusive in terms of its content.
“I’ve been through thousands of pieces of online learning material,”
Rice said. “A lot is of girls watching boys do science. No one is
overweight, ever. Or they never depict someone with a learning
disability. It’s terrible. Young people wouldn’t want to engage with
that, because they’re not represented, or represented well.”
Provide students with choices
One way to give students more pathways into lessons is to actually
create multiple options that all lead to the same learning goal, said
McAlvage. That process also gives students more choices to demonstrate
their own learning by allowing them to pick from options that perhaps
engage them more, or options that feel more accessible to them.
“Really look closely at the instructional content itself and the
assignments,” McAlvage said. Giving students choice, she said, improves
not only accessibility but also students' motivation and commitment to
learning. "One challenge we see in remote environment is
self-regulation," she added, saying students may not want to sit for
hours doing worksheets or watching videos. "Maybe they could choose to
watch a video or read an article or a story, and have options on how to
complete that assignment. You’re creating choice.”
In one way, McAlvage believes remote learning may actually end up
benefiting select students, particularly if educators create multiple
choices and avenues, with some that dovetail to the particular learning
style that allows individual pupils to excel.
She notes, for example, that when students are in a classroom, there
can be a timing issue. A teacher will give a lesson often at the start
of class, and then students break apart into small groups or work on
their own to complete that assignment. But some students may need more
time to process the original information and may want to hear that
lesson two or three times more to process it before they can move
forward.
Online, today, that’s easily possible through a video that be watched
multiple times, or a written lesson that can be read or read aloud more
than once. And these are options educators can provide without ripping
apart their curriculum or even changing what they want students to
learn overall.
“We’re not saying throw out learning goals and objectives,” McAlvage
said, adding that the goal is still to tie together teachers'
objectives with the materials. “But there are lots of different ways to
get students to that ultimate goal objective, and giving them multiple
ways to get there is going to support their learning.”
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