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Keynote at the DCUTL2020: Reflecting on inclusive teaching in a post-pandemic landscape - Embedding UDL in the design of innovative blended learning for the 21st century
The keynote session at the Dalhousie Conference on University Teaching and Learning explored the relationship between inclusive teaching, Universal Design for Learning (UDL), and the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. It highlighted the gains and challenges faced during this transition, emphasizing the need for proactive inclusive strategies in post-pandemic education. The discussion included insights from past experiences and the urgent necessity for institutions to adapt and implement UDL principles effectively in their teaching practices.
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Keynote at the DCUTL2020: Reflecting on inclusive teaching in a post-pandemic landscape - Embedding UDL in the design of innovative blended learning for the 21st century
- 1. Reflecting on inclusiveteachingina post-pandemic landscape- EmbeddingUDLin the designof innovative blended learning for the21st Keynote - Dalhousie Conference on University Teaching and Learning – Blended Teaching for Engaged Learning May 4th and 5th, 2022 – Halifax #DCUTL2022
- 2. Objectives of theSession • Examine the original ambivalence of online and blended learning scholarship towards UDL • Explore the radical changes the COVID pandemic has triggered in this landscape • Assess the gains and hurdles encountered during the pandemic in relation to inclusive blended learning • Explore three examples of successful UDL reflection having occurred during the pandemic • Acknowledge remaining challenges present in the implementation of UDL in post- pandemic blended teaching and learning
- 3. Land Acknowledgement • Iam honoured to live and work on the unceded and ancestral territory of the Syilx Peoples
- 4. Format of Keynote •It is always difficult to be fully interactive when online. It can also be challenging to be entirely UDL in short presentations. • I have nevertheless tried to incorporate as many inclusive features as possible: • Use of interactive activities with Menti.com. Will not switch screens in the interest of time but will talk to the results of the polls. • Will also be monitoring the conference hashtag #DCUTL2022 through the session and for the rest of the day (@Ffovet)
- 5. Format of Workshop(contd.) • We will also have approximately 15 to 20 minutes at the end of the session for questions. You can also use the chat function throughout and the facilitators will inform me during the talk when questions pop up. • Happy to engage with all participants one on one beyond the session via email or social media. • The slides of the presentation will be available on SlideShare immediately after the workshop (and appear on my LinkedIn and Twitter accounts). I will integrate the Menti slides for your use.
- 6. Personal lens andmethodological stance • Unique positioning as a scholar: have been both an Accessibility Services manager and a faculty member • Was involved in large scale UDL implementation from 2011 to 2016 across a campus – experienced this process in its full complexity • Have also been Academic Lead/ Program Head at UPEI and RRU, and have needed to guide contract faculty around inclusive teaching and the use of UDL. • Act as a UDL consultant with colleges and universities in Canada. • My research and scholarship focuses on UDL • I will be drawing from these multiple and varied perspectives
- 7. What is UDL? •It can be difficult to define • There is an overwhelming volume of resources online • In a nutshell, it is the translation of the social model of disability into classroom practices • According to the social model of disability, disability is not a label or inherent characteristic of the individual, but rather amounts to a tension/ lack of fit between individual embodiments and the design of experiences, spaces or products • UDL assumes learners diversity is the norm • Encourages intentional inclusive design from the get-go • Uses three principles/ dimensions to achieve inclusive design: multiple means of representation, multiple means of action and expression, multiple means of engagement • UDL is therefore a reflective lens on practices
- 8. Encouraging growth ofthe UDL model • Growing but sporadic interest around Universal Design for Learning across the post- secondary sector in most jurisdictions over the last decade. • Particular early hubs of activity in Norway, Ireland, Belgium, Canada and the US • Encouraging energy • No doubt that the notion that inclusion must be achieved through proactive inclusive design rather than through retrofitting and accommodations is finally gaining in popularity and visibility • Accommodation and retrofitting models are cracking at the seams. Represent an approach to equity and access to learning that remains grounded in deficit model views of diverse learners. • Accommodation and retrofitting model is also expensive and unsustainable. • Differentiation is problematic in higher education – as the only viable alternative • This conjuncture offers UDL a strong role as optimal framework for inclusion in the tertiary sector and for the implementation of recent EDI policies.
- 9. Post-secondary faculty’s ambivalentrelationship with UDL • Faculty often have a complex stance vis-à-vis UDL and its implementation in class. • UDL work has entertained an ambivalent and complex relationship with the rest of the scholarship on post-secondary teaching. • Overlap between the UDL literature and scholarship on online teaching and learning is complex. It is prima facie obvious & rich, but in the field it has been difficult strategically to get buy-in for UDL from practitioners and researchers traditionally involved in technology rich pedagogy. • Accessibility, Inclusion and Learner Diversity have often been dismissed by e- learning scholars and practitioners.
- 10. Online teaching’s ambivalentrelationship with UDL • Perhaps too much euphoria around the potential of technology as tool to emancipate marginalized learners and to amplify their voices? • Took the emergence of critical digital pedagogy before the field accepted the double edged potential of technology: as both liberator and tool of stigmatization • The result is that a fair body of literature on e-learning, until recently, ignores accessibility and learner diversity altogether. • No natural allegiance between UDL advocates and e-learning researchers (journals, conferences, research collaborations, etc.)
- 11. And then cameCOVID…
- 12. Interactive activity -How has the COVID pandemic changed attitudes towards inclusion and UDL? • We will use Menti to quickly poll you as participants. • I will generate the Menti code synchronously as otherwise it resets if not used immediately • Visit www.menti.com and use the code that will be generated during the session • Do you feel that the COVID crisis has: • (1) improved awareness of accessibility and inclusion, and made UDL more appealing • (2) made accessibility and inclusion more challenging, and has been detrimental the buy-in for UDL #DCUTL2022
- 14. Methodological stance • Athree-pronged methodological process: • Discussions with accessibility personnel and UDL advocates/ stakeholders in qualitative interviews • Wider dialogue with inclusion and UDL advocates in interactive virtual events throughout the pandemic • Discussions with instructors, instructional designers and accessibility personnel about MH and inclusive design in HE that was impacted by the pandemic and unfolded it within it
- 15. Observations and Analysis •Some gains/ facilitators • Instructors have globally embraced their role as designers of the leanring experience • They are increasingly aware of the impact of bad design on student experience • They are more receptive than ever to the relevance of UDL • There have been more widely and openly shared resources related to UDL • Some new hurdles • The UDL discourse is more diluted and less easy to identify • Some confusion between UDL strategies and simple technology integration • The reflection around UDL is perhaps not as systematic as it can be – engagement in particularly has generally been ignored during the pandemic. Focus has been on ‘multiple means of representation’ and ‘multiple means of action & expression’
- 16. Observations and Analysis(contd.) • Some gains/ facilitators • Noticeably growing international dialogue around UDL. Ironically, there has been less travel but more opportunities for the global sharing of knowledge (e.g. launch of the ADCET platform in Australia) • More advocacy related to UDL from the student body itself • Widespread understanding that many of the lessons learnt during the COVID pandemic in relation to UDL need integrated into f2f teaching in the post-pandemic landscape • Some new hurdles • There have not always been adequate points of contact for faculty seeking to adopt UDL strategies – most key stakeholders have been oversolicited and exhausted • Instructors themselves are more receptive to UDL but also burnt out and less open to innovation. COVID exhaustion is real. • Many students feel that despite growing UDL efforts, there have also been significant accessibility issues (proctoring practices for example).
- 17. Final Assessment: Awindow of opportunity • There is a key role for UDL to play in the post-pandemic reflection around the online & blended learning and inclusion. • Some important lessons can be drawn from the pandemic pivot but these lessons will not be learnt/ integrated without a conscious and intentional analytical recap taking place. • What did we learn about online accessibility? What did we learn about the design of these online experiences? Where did we go wrong? Where might UDL be useful as a framework. • UDL can represent a simple, user-friendly, common-sense, and progressive pathway towards designing fully inclusive online experiences. In that sense UDL has a key role to play.
- 18. Final Assessment: Awindow of opportunity (contd.) • The pandemic has offered opportunities for awareness. We have to be weary, however, of organizations’ and practitioners’ natural tendency to return to status quo, in a pendulum movement, and to avoid change altogether – even after a period of forced disruption. • A lot of innovative, creative, and transformative practices developed and tried out online during the pandemic are not inherently accessible and inclusive: constructivism, social constructivism, critical pedagogy, active learning, etc. • UDL allows us to find the ‘happy place’ – the overlap between these pedagogical approaches and the central need to be accessible and fully inclusive
- 19. Interactiveactivity–Whatpracticeshaveyou developedfroman inclusivedesignmindsetduringthepandemic? • Wewill use Menti to quickly poll you as participants. • I will generate the Menti code synchronously as otherwise it resets if not used immediately • Visit www.menti.com and use the code that will be generated during the session • What are the practices that you have developed from an inclusive design mindset perspective during the pandemic which you would like to retain and develop in a blended post-pandemic model? #DCUTL2022
- 28. Spending a littlemore time on case studies, through the lens of the three UDL principles • We have a few minutes to be more specific and examine examples of practices which evolved through the application of inclusive design during the COVID pandemic. • We will examine an example using each of the three UDL principles as a lens: • Multiple means of representation • Multiple means of action and expression • Multiple means of engagement
- 29. Multiple means ofrepresentation • Starting this reflection with an anecdote • Early attempts to shift lecture style delivery to the online space have proved catastrophic • They have also shown the limitations of the traditional lecture format in f2f delivery • Has led to rich, innovative and often successful experimentation to vary the ways course content is presented to students. • The three hour lecture is not dead but it has been irrevocably rethought and reinvented. • This reflection can be framed, supported and guided by UDL.
- 30. Multiple means ofaction and expression • The most noticeable example of how the pandemic has triggered a reflection around multiple means of action and expression is the rethink which has occurred around assessment. • After well publicized failures trying to shift summative assessment to online spaces, faculty have become authentically involved in reshaping assessment altogether, seeking to move away from the regurgitation of content towards genuine demonstration of gained and mastered competencies.
- 31. Multiple means ofengagement
- 32. Multiple means ofengagement • The shift to online teaching during the pandemic, combined with the inclusive design lens, has led many instructors to re-consider how they conceive and define learner engagement. • Many Zoom catastrophes have led to a collective acknowledgement that online engagement is not just about being on camera. • It leads to a wider reflection around the fact that being present in f2f class is not evidence of student engagement either. • Rich and far reaching initiatives have been developed over the last two years which fit well within the UDL mindset: flexibility around synchronous presence, objective of deeper more meaningful engagement with class content, importance of student voice in the way engagement is delineated, etc.)
- 33. So… does thismean things are lookingup for UDLwithin blended learning in a post-pandemiclandscape?
- 34. Not so quick! •We will use Menti to quickly poll you as participants. • I will generate the Menti code synchronously as otherwise it resets if not used immediately • Visit www.menti.com and use the code that will be generated during the session • Do you feel that: • (1) You are fully able to maintain and perpetuate the reflection that you have carried out around inclusive blended learning during the pandemic now that we are returning to normal? • (2) you are too tired, over-solicited, and busy to reflect effectively on how to continue the work you began during the pandemic on inclusive blended learning? #DCUTL2022
- 36. Pressing danger • Dangerof the thirst for a return to ‘normality’ • Danger of a pendulum swing in large HE organizations which tend to want to return to the status quo • The status quo in HE was not ideal. Pre-COVID, there were singificant resistance to UDL; there was also a great deal of haziness in instructors’ understanding of what UDL represents; there was some hesitation too as to which stakeholder should drive UDL implementation across campus (Senior administration? Teaching and learning centers? Accessibility centers? Instructional designers?) • This is a key moment in the process of UDL implementation in HE: campuses have the opportunity to capitalize on these experiences or to revert back to their pre- pandemic ambivalent positioning vis-à-vis UDL
- 37. Preparing students asstakeholders
- 38. Preparing students asstakeholders • ‘Transitional friction’ is a very tangible reality whenever we hope to shift students to more authentic learning • If not proactively addressed, this can backfire and endanger attempts to implement UDL • Students must become active stakeholders and partners in this process
- 39. Strategic hurdles • Caveat:Pre-existing tension around the strategic process of UDL adoption in HE • There were organizational issues related to UDL adoption across campuses, before the pandemic • Often UDL adoption has been over-focused on evidencing pedagogical benefits; it has neglected management of change from a strategic and organizational perspective (Fovet, 2021) • There has also been a lot of confusion as to which stakeholder should be in charge of the implementation drive. This often leads to territoriality. • There is a need to plan UDL implementation with an eye on an ecological understanding of the contextual variables that come into play • The COVID pandemic has not eliminated these strategic hurdles. The process of management of change needs to be proactively mapped out – even more so now
- 40. Need for anecological lens on UDL implementation across institutions
- 41.
- 42. References & Resources Black,R. D., Weinberg, L. A., & Brodwin, M. G. (2015). Universal design for learning and instruction: Perspectives of students with disabilities in higher education. Exceptionality Education International, 25(2), 1- 16 Boothe, K., Lohmann, M., Donnell, K., & Hall, D. (2018) Applying the Principles of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) in the College Classroom. Journal of Special Education Apprenticeship, 7(3). Burgstahler, S.E. (2015) Universal Design in Higher Education: From Principles to Practice. Harvard Education Press, MA Dalton, E. M., Lyner-Cleophas, M., Ferguson, B. T., & McKenzie, J. (2019). Inclusion, universal design and universal design for learning in higher education: South Africa and the United States. African Journal of Disability, 8, 519 Dean, T., Lee-Post, A., & Hapke, H. (2017). Universal design for learning in teaching large lecture classes. Journal of Marketing Education, 39(1), 5-16 Fovet, F. (2021a) Developing an Ecological Approach to Strategic UDL Implementation in Higher Education. Journal of Education and Learning, 10(4). Fovet, F. (2021b) Anger and Thirst for Change among Students with Disabilities in Higher Education: Exploring Universal Design for Learning as a Tool for Transformative Action. In C-M. Reneau and M.A. Villarreal (Eds.) Handbook of Research on Leading Higher Education Transformation with Social Justice, Equity, and Inclusion. IGI Global. Fovet, F. (202c1) UDL in Higher Education: a Global Overview of the Landscape and its Challenges. In F. Fovet (Ed) Handbook of Research on Applying Universal Design for Learning Across Disciplines: Concepts, Case Studies, and Practical Implementation. IGI Global
- 43. References & Resources(contd.) Fovet, F. (Ed.) (2021) Handbook of Research on Applying Universal Design for Learning Across Disciplines: Concepts, Case Studies, and Practical Implementation. IGI Global Fovet, F. (2020) Universal Design for Learning as a Tool for Inclusion in the Higher Education Classroom: Tips for the Next Decade of Implementation. Education Journal. Special Issue: Effective Teaching Practices for Addressing Diverse Students’ Needs for Academic Success in Universities, 9(6), 163-172. http://www.sciencepublishinggroup.com/journal/paperinfo?journalid=196&doi=10.11648/j.edu.20200906.13 Griful-Freixenet, J., Struyven, K., Verstichele, M., & Andries, C. (2017) Higher education students with disabilities speaking out: perceived barriers and opportunities of the Universal Design for Learning framework. Disability & Society, 32, 10 James, K. (2018) Universal Design for Learning (UDL) as a Structure for Culturally Responsive Practice. Northwest Journal of Teacher Education, 13(1), Article 4. Kennette, L., & Wilson, N. (2019) Universal Design for Learning: What is it and how do I implement it? Transformative Dialogues: Teaching & Learning, 12(1) Nieminen, J.H., & Pesonen, H.V. (2020) Taking Universal Design back to its roots: Perspectives on accessibility and identity in Undergraduate Mathematics. Education Sciences, 10(1). 2020, 10(1), 12 Novak, K. & Bracken, S. (Eds.) Transforming Higher Education through Universal Design for Learning: An International Perspective. Routledge
- 44. Contact details • FredericFovet (PhD.) • [email protected] • @Ffovet • www.implementudl.com #DCUTL2022