Category: Blog Posts

Key Terms:

The Universal Design for Learning (UDL):

As an educator, it is important to consider how you can make your curriculum and coursework readily accessible to all learners. The Universal Design for Learning is a framework of education that highlights the accessibility, equity and inclusion of all learners. The Universal Design for Learning is composed of three main principles namely, multiple means of engagement, representation, action and expression.

The three principles of UDL

1. MULTIPLE MEANS OF ENGAGEMENT: give students the opportunity to engage with the course content, activities and assessments in numerous ways. This includes creating different opportunities for students to develop intrinsic motivation for the material and reflect on their own learning
   • Examples: allow students to choose their own topic for the project.
2. MULTIPLE MEANS OF REPRESENTATION: provide learners with numerous ways to access information and course content.
   • Examples: offer course content in numerous formats such as videos, podcasts, readings or lectures.
3. MULTIPLE MEANS OF ACTION AND EXPRESSION: allow your students to show their learning in numerous ways. Students all have different strengths and allowing them to showcase their learning in a fashion that aligns with their strengths and interests will allow them to succeed.
   • Examples: allowing students to choose between essays, exams or creative projects for their assessment.

This framework encourages educators to be flexible and offer numerous opportunities to present the material and allow students to showcase their learning through different forms of assessment. I like to think about UDL through the example of ramps. Ramps are a great accessibility tool for individuals in wheelchairs, but it also makes schools and public facilities more accessible for others as well. Ramps are useful for individuals who have strollers, small children, are on crutches or have mobility issues or ride a bike to work and need to bring it inside. UDL works under the same premise, by reducing barriers and creating accessible learning environments and curricula, we can help all students succeed in their educational journey.

How to Apply the Universal Design for Learning in Educational Settings

Face-to-face classroom environment:

UDL is an incredibly broad framework and can be applied to create accessible learning in countless ways. Each student is diverse and have different needs that will influence how UDL will be applied. Below is just a few ways that the three main principles can be used to foster equitable education for students in a face-to-face classroom setting.

• Offer multiple pathways to learn: a simple way to implement UDL is to offer students numerous ways to engage and learn the material. This includes giving visual representations such as videos, audio versions such as podcasts or text versions. For example, if you are teaching using a video, you may consider turning on the captions and offering students a written transcription of the video to follow and/or read to get the information.
  • Possible pathways for learning:
    • Videos
    • Readings
    • Demonstrations
    • Infographics, charts and graphics
    • Podcasts
    • Textbooks
• Provide opportunities for feedback and reflection: teachers can offer students feedback on a regular basis. This allows the students who require feedback to benefit from the additional supervision, but also allow the students who prefer independence to work towards goals on their own.
  • Some ways to offer feedback
    • Do Quizlets, Google forms, IClicker or Kahoots in class for immediate feedback
    • Have marking schedules
    • Have weekly reflection opportunities for them to assess their own learning
    • Offer forms to recieve feedback on the instructors teaching
• Opportunities for assessment: teachers can offer their students different ways to engage with the material that fosters intrinsic motivation. To do this, instructors can offer numerous forms of assessment throughout the course to allow them to showcase their learning in a fashion that aligns with their interests and strengths.
  • Below are a few ideas for assessments:
    • Exams
    • Essays
    • Oral Presentation
    • Posters
    • PowerPoints
    • Podcasts
    • Videos
    • Art projects ( songs, painting, drawings, dances)

Online learning environments:

Online learning can be greatly enhanced by applying UDL principles. Online learning is marked by many barriers such as unequal access to technology, location, time differences, familial obligation, attention difficulties, fine motor skill difficulties and auditory or visual difficulties. UDL can be used to try and reduce those barriers to accessing open and online education.

Applying UDL and Accessibility Principles:

Through this course, I have developed a deeper understanding of the importance of inclusivity and accessibility in learning environments, and believe that I can recognize the ways that different courses and instructors in my past have failed to emphasize equity in their curriculum. The first thing that comes to mind when I think about the accessibility of courses in my past, is my English course that shifted to online during the peak of Covid-19. This course was not executed in a fashion that aligned with the UDL principles. The teacher sent out one email at the start of March outlining our responsibilities–that being to buy Pride and Prejudice, read it, and submit four essays on a topic of our choosing before the end of June. He offered no resources regarding course content, he had no website, he did not send us a PDF of the book nor did he offer office hours or rubrics for the papers we were to submit. With reflection now, I see how this course may have been heavily inaccessible for students with learning disabilities, family obligations, financial struggles, lack of familial support or simply require additional direction or supervision. Below are a list of a few ways I believe the course could have been improved to aid students as they navigated the material and created a more equitable learning environment

Ensure Accessibility in Online Settings:

With the shift towards online learning, it is important to be mindful of how accessibility can be greatly influenced by individuals’ access to digital resources. The digital divide is the gap between individuals who have access to reliable internet and digital resources and those who do not. This divide greatly influences an individual’s ability to access digital resources when in education. As instructors, it is important to take the means to recognize how we can try to overcome these boundaries and aid students in their learning. For example, I taught an online course on coaching one summer that relied predominately on Zoom meetings and virtual communication. The students were from all over North America and some experienced difficulties with internet connection and access to the online platforms required for the course. To overcome this, I sent out recordings of the Zoom calls, the PowerPoint slides and transcriptions of the video to ensure all students were able to access the resources. That is just one example of how instructors can use alternative strategies to ensure students have access to digital resources.

Some ways to ensure that learners have adequate access to digital resources and reduce the digital divide:

1. Use Affordable or Connected Resources: a way to increase access to digital resources is to make use of digital resources available through the university or the school district. For example, many school districts and universities utilize Microsoft 365 to complete homework assignments and distribute course material. Utilizing the resources made available to you, will allow students to readily have access to the material
2. 1:1 Take-Home Technology: many districts and communities support technology access programs such as splitting the price or reducing the price of inexpensive devices such as chrome books. As an instructor, finding opportunities within your community that reduce the price of technology increases students’ ability to access resources.
3. Offer Suggestions to students for places with High-speed internet: many individuals may not have reliable access to internet in their own homes, but may be able to walk, bus or drive to locations with better internet access within their community. By sending students a broad list of locations that could be in their community such as schools, libraries, community centers and coffee shops that have high speed internet, it may allow them to find locations within their community to complete their coursework.
4. Offer Alternatives for Engagement: when possible, instructors can offer their students resources, course materials and homework in multiple formats such as PDF’s, Word Documents, Google Docs and other platforms. Many courses rely on online textbooks and sites, by offering resources that can be used without internet, such as PDF’s students will still be able to complete the work without high-speed internet.

Ethical Considerations in Digital Interactions:

Maintaining ethics and digital citizenship is a huge part of interacting in online settings. Ethics in digital spaces include acting responsibly online, maintaining morals, and values, and involves considerations of fairness, respect, and security when interacting with others. Ethical behavior is important when in social settings such as Instagram, Snapchat and Facebook or when in educational environments such as discussion forums or course sites. As an individual who engages in digital interactions, it is essential to be mindful of your responsibilities when interacting with others. Personally, I take ownership of my online interactions by trying to think of the possible impact of my actions before I post by questioning how I would react if someone else acted similarly. That is just one way of realizing your ethical responsability online.

Key Takeaways

• The Universal design for Learning is a framework that encourages equitable and accessible learning for all students
• Teachers can ensure equitable access to online and digital resources by using affordable resources, finding community technology access programs and offering their students numerous ways to engage with the material
• When interacting online, users have the ethical responsability to be kind, compassionate, and respect information ownership.

Key Terms

Pedagogy and Networked Pedagogy

Pedagogy

Pedagogy is the study of teaching methods encompassing the way an instructor teaches, to the way they choose to engage their students, to the way they assess them. Pedagogy is not just what we teach, it is also how and why we teach it the way we do to support students learning. I will be the first to admit, that I struggle to fully comprehend the comprehensiveness of pedagogy. I understand pedagogy as the art of teaching— how an educator can create a meaningful, engaging and holistic learning experience for their students whilst simultaneously creating an environment that fosters curiosity and growth.

Reflecting on my own experiences as a learner, I can acknowledge a few strategies of instruction that have directly influenced my comprehension of classwork material, namely, direct instruction and collaborative learning. Despite being two very different ideas, both greatly add to my comprehension. Direct instruction, a strategy that focuses on structured, sequenced and clear instruction, is beneficial as it allows me to develop a base understanding of material before applying it further. For example, if I am in a clinical psychology course, it is beneficial to learn the criteria of bipolar disorder from my professor before then applying it in a case study. Succeeding direct instruction, I greatly appreciate collaborative learning—the strategy of using groups to enhance learning through working together. This strategy of instruction allows me to converse with other students to solidify and expand upon the information covered in class. For instance, collaborative learning in a clinical psychology class, could be completing a case study and conceptualization on an individual with bipolar disorder.

If I was to translate this knowledge and experience into teaching practices, I think I would try to create a learning environment that supports both direct instruction and collaborative learning. I would offer students the opportunity to learn material through lecture to ensure clarity in guidance, but also allow them to engage in group discussions, group projects, think-pair-share or case study analysis to support interpersonal development and knowledge comprehension. Surpassing those basic strategies, I also think a hugely important part of pedagogy is offering students the opportunity to engage in the material that aligns with their needs. For example, I think it is important to  offer auditory, visual and kinesthetic opportunities to engage with the material.

Networked Pedagogy

Branching from the pedagogy that is used in face-to-face instruction, an instructor can employ networked pedagogy as they instruct in online environments. Networked pedagogy is an approach to education that emphasizes connection between people, resources and ideas through leveraging tools such as social media, blogs or podcasts. I believe that network pedagogy can be harnessed and greatly improve the learning experience of students as they undertake virtual learning. By asking students to use social media or blogs to showcase their learning, teachers are offering students the opportunity to interpersonally engage with the material and showcase their skills in a setting they are used too. Many students use social media in their free time, and by offering them the opportunity to complete assessments using social media, they can develop additional digital literacy skills they can use in their personal life.

Technology offers students the opportunity to be flexible in their communication and allows interpersonal connection to be more accessible for many students. For example, discussion forums allow students to find others to do group projects with or can use them to make study groups and social media such as Instagram or Zoom allows students to connect with one another outside of class or when meeting in person is not possible. For example, with the snowfall, my group members and I have been able to meet over zoom to discuss our projects and my study group for my psychology class have been messaging questions we have about the material as we study for our exam next week. Technology can be used to remove the circumstances that inhibit communication and support connection between students.

Learning Theories

Constructivism

There are numerous learning theories that influence the way a teacher frames their classroom and coursework. As we learned in the video above, Constructivism is a learning theory that emphasizes the active role of the learner in building their own understandings of material. Before this course, I was not aware of constructivism and the emphasis this theory places on active learning and social construction stood out to me. I think the constructivist approach can be applied to online learning beautifully as virtual courses allow the flexability for students to showcase their understandings in so many different ways and are not locked into the face-to-face exam format. In an asynchronous course, an instructor could include some of the practices below in accordance with the constructivist approach

• Discussion forums: can create a direction for discussion, but allow students the space to include personal experience, interpretations, reactions and opinions into the response. This also allows students to find their own information and knowledge and report it back to the rest of the class to enhance everyone’s learning. For example, creating a discussion post that asks students to find a case study on business management then explain it in the discussion forum
• Alternative assessment options: allowing students the freedom to choose what type of assessments they want to hand in that supports their own learning. For example, if I am teaching a course on business management, I can offer the opportunity for students to submit a formative essay, a Mock interview on the topic, an engaging podcast or blog segment to showcase their learning and understandings.
• Open-ended topics: giving the students the opportunity to choose the topic for study that aligns with their own interests and their own level of knowledge.

I believe that having an understanding of the constructivist approach will allow me to create a learning environment that better supports students intrinsic motivation to create their own understandings. Many students are driven by grades or efforts on a report card, but creating an environment that fosters active participation by the students may make them inclined to seek out knowledge

Roles of an Online Instructor

A virtual class is only as good as its instructor, making it essential that an instructor is competent, and efficacious in an online environemnt. Being a student who has undergone numerous online courses, it is important for instructors to be mindful of what qualities they can bring to the course that can support or inhibit their students’ abilities to learn. Below is a list of numerous qualities that are essential for an instructor to develop to foster a productive and successful learning experience for their students.

There are lots of things instructors do that inhibit or reduce the quality of their students education. Below is a list of qualities to try to avoid as an instructor.

Digital Spaces

Digital spaces are places where people can interact, communicate, learn and collaborate on the internet. These spaces are virtual, interconnected, dynamic and flexible in nature. Some benefits of digital spaces are increased connectivity, improved collaboration, enhanced access to information and increased efficiency. Some possible challenges are cybersecurity, information overload, social isolation and digital inequalities.

I believe to positively contribute to digital spaces it is important to be mindful of the content, and tone of what you say. Similarly to in-person interaction, to positively contribute it is important to be respectful, kind, supporting, and talk about appropriate and culturally sensitive topics.

Key Takeaways

• Pedagogy is the science of teaching and includes what you are teaching and how you do it
• Network pedagogy is a technique that supports the connection between people and resources through technology
• Constructivism is a learning strategy that can be efficaciously used in an online setting by creating open-ended assignments and discussion forums.
• There are many qualities such as clarity, empathy and presence that supports being a successful online teacher

References

• What Is Collaborative Learning? Theory, Examples of Activities
• Direct Instruction: What is It? What are Its Key Principles? – Education Library
• Pedagogy | Methods, Theories, & Facts | Britannica
• http://www.vccaedu.org/inquiry/inquiry-spring-2007/i-12-Carwile
• Constructivism Learning Theory & Philosophy of Education
• Six Characteristics of a Great Online Education Teacher | Walden University
• Characteristics of Poor Teachers
• EDCI 339 (A01) Module 2 – University of Victoria – EdTech
• What is a digital space? – California Learning Resource Network