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After completion of this lesson, participants will be able to:
Approximately 40-60 minutes.
Department chair, faculty, staff, teaching assistant, student, or other department member who has experience working with students with disabilities. This presentation may be presented by, or co-presented with a staff member of a campus unit responsible for providing academic accommodations for students with disabilities.
For further preparation for this presentation, consult The Faculty Room at http://www.washington.edu/doit/Faculty/Strategies/Universal/.
Today we will be discussing principles of universal design of instruction and how to use these principles in your instruction for the benefit of all students, including those with disabilities.
The objectives of today's presentation are to... (Paraphrase objectives on visual.).
At our postsecondary institutions today, we attract a diverse student body.
Students in your classes come from a wide variety of ethnic and racial backgrounds. For some, English is not their first language. There are many types of learning styles and strengths represented, including students who are primarily visual or auditory learners. In addition, increasing numbers of students with disabilities are pursuing postsecondary education.
Their disabilities may include spinal cord injuries, loss of limbs, Multiple Sclerosis, Muscular Dystrophy, Cerebral Palsy, hearing impairments, visual impairments, speech impairments, specific learning disabilities, head injuries, psychiatric disorders, Diabetes, Cancer, and AIDS.
The probability that you will have a student with a disability in one of your classes is high. According to the National Center for Educational Statistics, Postsecondary Education (1999), 6% of all undergraduates reported having a disability. Among these 6%, 40% reported having a learning disability, 8% reported mental illness or emotional disability, 14% reported orthopedic or mobility impairment, 6% reported being deaf or hard of hearing, 4% reported vision impairments, and 9% a speech impairment. In addition, one in five undergraduates with disabilities (19%) reported having another health-related disability or limitation.
You and your students share the goal of learning in your classroom. But, how can you design instruction to maximize the learning of all students? The field of universal design can provide a starting point for developing a model for inclusive instruction. This body of knowledge can then be applied to instructional design and help you create courses where lectures, discussions, visual aids, videotapes, printed materials, and fieldwork are accessible to all students.
Designing any product or service involves the consideration of factors that may include aesthetics, engineering options, environmental issues, safety concerns, and cost. One issue that designers often overlook is that of "universal design."
Universal design is defined by the Center for Universal Design at North Carolina State University as "the design of products and environments to be usable by all people, to the greatest extent possible, without the need for adaptation or specialized design."
At this center, a group of architects, product designers, engineers and environmental design researchers collaborated to establish this set of principles of universal design to provide guidance in the design of environments, communications, and products.
Let's discuss the meaning of each principle.
When designers apply these principles, their products and facilities meet the needs of potential users with a wide variety of characteristics. Disability is just one of many characteristics that an individual might possess. For example, one person could be five feet four inches tall, female, thirteen years old, a poor reader, and deaf. All of these characteristics, including her deafness, should be considered when developing a product she might use.
Making a product accessible to people with disabilities often benefits others. For example, sidewalk curb cuts, designed to make sidewalks and streets accessible to those using wheelchairs, are today more often used by kids on skateboards, parents with baby strollers, and delivery staff with rolling carts. When television displays in airports and restaurants are captioned, they benefit people without disabilities as well as those who are deaf.
(Discuss examples of things you would consider if you were designing a microwave oven, toaster, building, or other product that would be universally accessible.)
Universal design principles can be applied to many products and services. In the case of classroom instruction or a distance learning class, a goal should be to create a learning environment that allows all students, including a person who happens to have a characteristic that is termed a "disability," to access the content of the course and fully participate in class activities. This topic is summarized in your handout entitled Universal Design of Instruction.
In the short videotape that we will now watch, we will see an example of the application of universal design principles to distance learning instruction. The videotape itself is universally designed, including open captions and audio descriptions for viewers with hearing and visual impairments, respectively. Your handout, Real Connections: Making Distance Learning Accessible to Everyone, summarizes the content of the videotape.
As demonstrated in the videotape and handouts, considering universal design principles can lead us to a list of guidelines that can be applied as you develop on-line and on-site courses. They can apply to lectures, classroom discussions, group work, handouts, Web-based instruction, fieldwork, and other academic activities.
When universal design principles are applied to the design of Web pages, people using a wide range of adaptive technology can access them. For example, people who are blind often use speech output systems to access computers. These systems read aloud text that is presented on the screen; they do not read graphical images. Therefore, to provide access to Web sites for students who are blind, we must be sure to include text descriptions for content presented in graphical form, such as pictures, animated images, and image maps.
Let's create a list of examples of how principles of universal design apply to classroom or distance learning instruction. What are some of the diverse characteristics your students might have?
(Encourage discussion. Consider English as a second language, different cultures, blindness, no use of hands, etc.)
What are some examples of instructional methods that employ principles of universal design and make your course content accessible to people with a wide range of abilities and disabilities, language skills, and learning styles?
(Encourage participation and include all or some of the following examples. Make a list or create a transparency, PowerPoint slide, or flip chart. This activity could be conducted in small groups followed by group discussion.
Now, let's summarize how you might employ universal design principles to make specific classroom activities accessible to all students. Consider the following activities: (Encourage discussion and sharing of examples.)
Does employing universal design principles in instruction eliminate the need for specific accommodations for students with disabilities? In a word, "no." There will always be the need for some specific accommodations, such as sign language interpreters for students who are deaf. However, using universal design principles in course planning will assure greater access to the content for most students and minimize the need for specific accommodations. For example, designing Web resources in accessible format as they are developed means that no redevelopment is necessary if a blind student enrolls in the class. Planning ahead can be less time-consuming in the long run.
An instructor can preserve academic instructional integrity when employing universal design principles or when providing instructional accommodations for students with disabilities. Course content and evaluation standards are the purview of the instructor. Disability accommodations should not alter instructional content or evaluation standards. The student with a disability should face the same intellectual challenges as other students.
To assure that the same content is presented to every student in the class, it is helpful to distinguish the academic content from the instructional methods used to deliver the information.
When instructional objectives and academic content are separated from the method of instructional content, it is easier for the instructor to think about how she can provide the information in a variety of modalities, which may benefit the entire class. The goal is to modify the methods and procedures for a student with a disability while preserving the educational content and evaluation standards of the course.
Let's look at examples for separating essential instructional content in an academic class from the methods used to deliver and evaluate content.
(Ask participants to give examples from their classes.)
For example, testing objectives and content should be considered separately from testing method. Tests should be designed to measure the level of mastery in a subject area. For a student with a disability, you may need to use an alternate method that tests for the same level of mastery as is used for other students. In other words, you change the testing procedure to evaluate mastery of the same content as that expected of other students. To fail the student who knows the content but has difficulty with a type of testing methodology because of his disability, is as unfair as passing a student who does not know the material.
Universal design of instruction can benefit all students. For example, captioning course videotapes, which provides access to deaf students, is also a benefit to students for whom English is a second language, to some students with learning disabilities, and to those watching the tape in a noisy environment. Delivering content with multiple modes of presentation can benefit students with a variety of learning styles.
(Consider having participants discuss a case. Case #6 on page 77 in the Presentation Tips section of this notebook would be appropriate.)
Employing universal design principles in everything we do provides information and access for all individuals regardless of learning style, language, or ability.
Here are some resources that might be useful to you as you work to maximize effective communication with all students in your classes. (Elaborate.)
For comprehensive information on accommodations, a wide range of case studies, frequently asked questions, and general resources, visit The Faculty Room at http://www.washington.edu/doit/Faculty/. This resource was developed at the University of Washington as part of a nationwide project to provide resources to faculty and administrators so that they can make their courses and programs accessible to all students. You can link to this resource from ____ (Arrange to make the link from your campus/departmental disabled student services home page before the presentation.). Consider linking to this Web site from your departmental Web pages for faculty.
Thank you for your time today and for your interest in finding ways to ensure that all of the students in our programs have equal opportunities to learn, explore interests, and express ideas.
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