Hello, students. I've been invited to, uh, say a few words to you about the perspectives on universal design applied to teaching and learning. Uh, this is a spotlight, uh, so it'll only be about 10 minutes, and my name is Sheryl Burgstahler. Um, I am the director of Accessible Technology Services and the DO-IT centers, uh, at the University of Washington. the access technology service that serves our campus to make sure our technology, that would be websites and-and-computers and software, all of those items are accessible to people with disabilities. That might be students, faculty and staff, and visitors here on campus, whereas, the DO-IT center which stands for Disabilities Opportunities Internetworking and Technology is an outreach program funded by external grants um, that we, uh, obtain through the DO-IT center here at the University of Washington. Um, and so, um, this little snippet, my little presentation is funded by one of our grants which is called Access Engineering. So I'm gonna talk about perspectives on universal design as it's applied to teaching and learning, Uh, just as a summary, we're looking at post-secondary education. There are two basic approaches to providing access, uh, to faculty, students, and staff with disabilities. Uh, most often, we provide accommodations. So, after the fact, we provide a sign language interpreter, um, documents in alternative formats, extra time on tests, and so forth once a person is identified as having a disability and something is not accessible to them in its current form. What I'm talking about today is another angle which is being proactive called universal design and that, uh, answers the question what can we do proactively? So, if a person with a disability wants to engage in this course or this activity, or th-access a resource, that they can without receiving an accommodation. So universal design does not eliminate accomodations, but, um, if applied properly, it should reduce the need for them. So, what's universal design? Well, it's: This definition comes from the Center for Universal Design. Universal design was first applied in the physical environment like the homes and-and uh, pr-products like, uh, electronic mixers and so forth. Um, later applied to technology, that's when I get involved with universal design, so, the design of IT, um, so, that's-it's, uh, usable by anyone trying to use it including people with disabilities, um, and then, uh, more recently, by a-applied within classroom settings by faculty members, and we do a lot of work here too in applying it to student services. Now, terminology, we can sometimes get, um, get stop-stopped by because people are using different terms, and so let's just take a look at some terminology. Uh, we've talked about universal design. Um, inclusive design is usually used, uh, to mean the same thing. Uh, sometimes I hesitate to use inclusive design terminology because inclusion is a term that is used for a different purpose within K-12 education. Inclusive-inclusion. in that case, is, um, our efforts in this country to provide a-a free appropriate education for every child, where universal design and inclusive design in post-secondary education uh, has to-is applied to those who are eligible to be in our programs or to use our resources. Uh, barrier free design is usually used as a synonym for in-inclusive design or universal design, um, often in-in, uh, India and other countries. Design for all, also used, uh, primarily in other countries, but in United States as well, to mean pretty much the same thing as universal design. Uh, an accessible design. Sometimes that's just a synonmyn-synonym, but what I think of when I think of accessible design is I see the emphasis on people with disabilities, so, access for people with disabilities, where inclusive design or universal design includes other people like english-language learners and others that might ex-um, experience some accessibility issues with the design of something we're creating. And then, usable design. Uh, this is a concept where we want to make sure that, uh, let's say technology is accessible, technically accessible, but also that someone can actually use it productively in what they're doing. You, uh, you would think that we can just assume that, but that doesn't always happen. Sometimes products are made to be accessible, but they're, technically, not very usable for many people. So, when I think of universal design, I'm thinking of a product or an environment that has three primary characteristics: it's accessible to everyone, it's usable by everyone, and it is inclusive, in other words, it doesn't segregate individuals with disabilities to access that resource, uh, in a special class or on a special website and so forth. Universal design, another characteristic of it is it's available on a continuum. In the physical environment, uh, to the left of our screen, you see a picture of the entrance, uh, with several steps. Uh, not very accessible to some people, uh, for instance, people using walkers or people using wheelchairs. The middle images so-shows a ramp that's placed next to the steps is, um, a typical approach to access. Uh, one disadvantage of this approach is even though it's accessible to somebody using a wheelchair, it's not very inclusive because that ramp isn't wide enough for someone to walk side-by-side with that person using the wheelchair, so the wa-person who's walking would have to be walking before them or after them, so, that's not very inclusive. The far picture on the right shows a ver-very gradually sloping ramp up to a building. That would be more inclusive and thus farther along on the continuum toward universal design. Everyone then goes to the same entrance. Off to the right, there are some steps, but the primary exit-en-entrance and exit uh, is the one that is fully accessible. Uh, it's not just that it's around, but it's quite wide, so people can walk side-by-side. Um, taking another example, uh, if we take a look at videos. If a video presentation is uncaptioned, that's accessible to most people but not to a lot of people including people who are deaf, but also people who are english-language learners and really benefit from the spelling of words on the screen. If we hire an interpreter for a deaf students, that makes it more accessible to that deaf student if they happen to be using the video, um, when that s-when that interpreter is present. Uh, so, if the faculty member put a video on their website for students to use at any time, um, that deaf student does not have full access to it. So, we can caption the video and that makes it more accessible and usable, uh, for people with disabilities including deafness, but also for english-language learners, and just simply for someone who wants the spelling of the words that the speaker is using. We can, um, also make the video more accessible to someone who can't see the image, usually because of blindness, but it could be because of a very slow internet connection, that we provide audio description for that video which is an extra track of sound where a speaker can describe visual elements of the video that cannot be, uh, accessed by the other audio and the video itself, so it adds that extra description for someone who can't see the screen. So, universal designs on a continuum. Uh, we can apply universal design on a post-secondary campus to create accessible or inclusive physical spaces, services, teaching and learning activities, our topic for today, and technology. I like this quote from a Buddhist monk. Universal design, uh, as applied to instruction and learning, uh, forces us to look at how our course is designed r-rather than just looking at a student doing poorly and saying, well, I guess they didn't study enough or whatever. but trying to create a-a successful course for all students. Universal design for learning is terminology coined by the organization called CAST, um, and if you- a tip for universal design for learning is to provide multiple means for representations, so the way that the content is being represented, um, by visuals, by text, um, video, whatever. Also look for multiple ways of engagement, uh, the engagement of the content with the participants, uh, but also with each other. And multiple ways for action and expression for the student to, uh, project their voice into a class and take action, uh, in various ways. And so, this, the CAST Center Universal Design for Learning, um, is widely promoted, particularly in K-12, and it's, uh, it has been developed with a, uh, a review of a lot of, um, uh, research, mainly in the K-12 environment, much of it in language arts, to support these multiple ways for re-representing, engaging, uh, and action and expression uh, in order to reach students that have different learning styles, um, including those that, um, might also have a disability. In the DO-IT Center, we are usually using the terminology universal design of instruction, we often-we refer to universal design for learning as well, and they have a similar, um, definition. Um, I think universal design for-for instruction, as we define it, goes a little further to des-to include physical spaces and so forth, but when we design a course, we provide students with multiple ways to gain the knowledge in UDI, multiple ways to engage with each other and the instructor, and multiple ways to demonstrate their knowledge. And so, to gain knowledge, we might have videos, we might have text, we have images, um, and so forth, to help them gain knowledge. And to engage, we might have, um, asynchronous communication like email, we might have, um, ways to engage on a discussion board, ways to talk to the faculty member one-on-one, and so forth, and then they have multiple ways to demonstrate knowledge. Uh, in a test, for instance, you would have multiple choice questions and maybe a short, uh, essay or short answers, you have multiple ways within an instrument to test their knowledge, but you also might have multiple ways in projects for them to show what they've learned like a portfoliio of some sort, or del-uh, designing a presentation on the topic of the course, or, um, writing a paper, and so forth. The, um, the thing to remember is what-whichever terminology you use, UDI or U-UDL, and there're others as well, all of them have to do with proactively addressing varying english-language skills, diverse cultural backgrounds, and hidden as well as invisible disabilities, um, abilities and disabilities. Uh, so it helps to address some of the issues faced by, for instance, a student with a disability who did not disclose their disability to the disability services office on a campus, um, but they would benefit from universal design. So, just a few examples of universal design applied to teaching and learning. Um, making the expectations really clear is a big one. What do you expect the students to do? If they're gonna give a presentation, give an outline of what it is you want them to do and be sure to cover in that presentation. So, expectations clear provided orally, but also provided in writing on a website or hand out or whatever, use large bor-blo-bold fonts. If you notice, I'm doing that on the, uh, powerpoints that I'm using today. Uh, I don't know if, uh, any of you have visual impairments, but usually large bold fonts, high contrast, uncluttered overhead displays, um, uh, will benefit individuals that might have difficulty seeing the content on the screen if there isn't much contrast and the fonts are small. Sensor fonts are-are being used as well, which are easier to read. Uncluttered overhead, uh, display, the background is ju-really plane in my presentation here, but the-the uncluttered displays are particularly important to someone with a visual impairment but also someone with attention deficits uh, that may, uh, where all the other material on the screen is just creating a distraction. Uh, this happens sometimes with a whole bunch of vide- of, uh, images in a collage type, um, arrangement on a screen when you're trying to focus on the, um, the-the agenda um, bulleted list that is on the same page. And then speaking aloud cont-content. It's not good to just, uh, re-read the content, um, but, I'm making this presentation today fully accessible to someone who is blind, and to do that, I have to make sure whatever I provide to other people in a visual form is spoken so they can access it as well. Repeating questions that students ask. This, uh, tends to be in a on-site class. Um, we've all been in a situation where someone asks question, they're not using the microphone, you can't hear what the question is, and the instructor just answers it but doesn't give context. Uh, so, instructor should, at least, if they're not providing a microphone for the student asking a question, repeat what the student asked and then give the answer, Provide multiple ways, uh, as I mentioned, to gain knowledge, to demonstrate knowledge, and then use multiple senses as well. So you have something you can see, something you can touch is also, uh, valuable. Avoid unnecessary jargon, and, if you use jargron or acronyms, make sure that you define the terms. Provide your materials early. Uh, this is so if there is an accessibility, um, challenge in other wor-, an-an example would be if you're using an inaccessible PDF, uh, document that that student has enough time to get an alternative version, an accessible version from the disability services office. And provide materials as much as possible in accessible electronic formants. Uh, that's something that takes a little time to learn but, um, just a simple example, a PDF that's just a scanned im-image will not be accessible for som-someone using a screen reader to read aloud the text. This might be a person who's blind, it could also be a person with dyslexia or some other condition that impacts their ability to read, and so, it's important to use optical character recognition basically when you're-when you're creating, uh, PDFs because then the screen reader can read the text in the document because it's presented in a textual form. And, minimizing time constraints-constraints is good. I know in my teaching experiences, I often, um, especially teaching mathematics, I often underestimate how much time I should provide the students, so, um, I, uh, have- when I've taught a math class, tried to create my test and then reduce it significantly in la-length to allow for that extra time. And know to ar-know how to arrange for accomodations. If there's someone in your class that, uh, has asked you for an accommodation, uh, you can ask them if they've talked to the disability services office so that you have some idea how those accommodations can be arranged at your institution. So, why do you use universal design? Well, I think of universal design as an attitude, that you're just always thinking about making things inclusive. It's a goal. The goal of teaching a class is to make it inclusive to every student that should enroll in it. You may not meet the goal completely, but at least it will be more accessible and they'll need fewer accommodations if you don't take those steps, and it's a process that you go through thinking about the diversity of people with disabilities and other conditions that might be in your class and how you can make sure your class is welcoming and accessible to them. Universal design values diversity of course, equity of course, but also inclusion. You want this the students to be able to work together uh, regardless of their, um, ability. Universal design promotes best practices and does not lower standards. It's not about lowering standards. You might provide some scaffolding, helping students learn to take notes or giving that outline for giving a presentation, but it's not to lower the standards, it's to help students reach the standards. It's proactive and it can be implemented incrementally, you don't have to do everything, we have a lot of checklists on our website, I'll point to in a minute, um, that you can look at, and there'll be a checklist, and you can just go through the checklist and see what you can do now, um, and see mi-w-what, uh, you might be able to do later as an instructor. And, universal design is set up to benefit everyone and minimize the need for accomodations. One step further, I mentioned I'd-I'd tell you a little bit about access engineering, uh, that often isn't covered in universal design, um, courses and that is, uh, including accessibility and universal design content in courses such as engineering and other courses, In our Access Engineering, uh, program, funded by the National Science Foundation, we have come up with ideas and guidelines for including universal design in your course. Uh, an example would be if you're teaching a course in engineering and you're designing issues- you're designing robot-robots, uh, make part of the assignment that that robot that they're designing needs to be acces-accessible to someone who's-who's blind or someone who has a hearing impairment, uh, or someone with certain types of mobility impairments. Uh, if we do this in our courses, uh, then, in this case, engineering faculty uh, will ultimately know about accessibility and can-can teach the next generation, and practicing engineers will know how to make the products they design accessible to everyone. So, you might want to check on our a website to learn more about that. The resources I wanted to point you to, the Center for Universal Design in Education is the one that I direct thro-through the DO-IT Center, uw.edu/cude. Then there's Universal Design for Learning on Campus, and this is the CAST group, uh, that have a website that you can, um, see the applications of universal design for learning to a post-secondary campus. The url is udloncampus.cast.org/ home#.WondUGaZMu8campus So, uh, the third ref-reference is Universal Design in Higher Education: From Principles to Practice, which is a book ca-uh, published by Harvard Educational Press. Uh, so you might wanna look at those, uh, resources. You can, uh, Google them, um, and, again, I listed the URLs so everyone, um, who can't see the video uh, has access to that contents, an example of universal design. So, that's, uh, sums it up. Uh, as you can see, I take a wide angle view of universal design, and not just applying it to instruction or learning activities, but to student services to physical spaces, to technology, pretty much everything we do in higher education, um, and, uh, and we ca- the outcome then is that everything that we create is more welcoming and accessible to a broad audience. So, thanks for inviting me to be a part of your class. It was fun.
