ERIC TREKELL: Welcome back.
We may have some folks to join us.
I know that a lot of folks communicated
when they registered they may have
to drop in and out for classes, or meetings, or things
like that.
But, at this point, we're moving on to our next session.
Just to clarify, the thoughts that you
collected in your breakout rooms,
we're not doing report outs.
Those will be incorporated into a proceedings document
that Elizabeth manages and puts together for us--
Elizabeth Woolner one of our colleagues.
And so, you will get those thoughts
and all that shared out.
But what we'd like to do today, I've
invited some of my former colleagues--
current colleagues as well.
I used to be a disability services person on a community
college campus, and we've invited a few folks
to serve as a panelist.
Hope Stout is Director of Access and Disability Services
at Pierce College.
Bryan Fauth is Director of Accessibility
and Student Support Services at Cascadia College, which
shares a campus with one of the UW Bothell campus, as well.
And then Craig Kerr, Director of Services
for Students with Disabilities at Edmonds College.
So I've asked each of our panelists
to start out, start us off with providing
any further introductory information they'd
like to share about themselves and their backgrounds,
and then to share some experience that you've
had related to an neurodivergent student--
neurodivergent students' learning
experiences, or a situation on their particular campus.
So they're each going to give a presentation for five,
seven minutes--
somewhere around in there.
They are all very aware of the fact that I keep them on task.
So I'm not stressing too much about the time,
but we're going to invite people to ask questions once they've
all wrapped up as well.
So Hope, why don't we put you on deck first?
HOPE STOUT: Oh, I get to go first?
OK.
Hi, I am Hope Stout.
My pronouns are she/her/hers.
I am the district director for Access and Disability Services
for the Pierce College District in Pierce County,
Washington-- so just south of Seattle in Tacoma.
And I have been in this field, I want to say, about 16 years?
It's been a while.
You know it's been a while if you've lost track of time.
Yeah, and I want to thank Eric for asking me to come.
I really appreciated it, and I see some faces I know.
And so, hi to you all.
So, Eric asked me to maybe talk about a student who
I have worked with in the past who is neurodiverse.
And so, I had to think about who I wanted,
if I wanted to pick somebody who we would think
of as a stereotypical autistic student,
or if I wanted to maybe go in a different direction
and pick a student that maybe you guys wouldn't have
even known was neurodiverse.
And that's the way I decided to go.
And I wanted to talk about a student who
was actually a female student.
One of the things I wanted to touch base with you
is that female students, due to gender bias regarding autism
in females, are very, very often misdiagnosed as having
a mental health issue, or their diagnosis comes much later,
so they don't get the early intervention they
need to address some of the features of their autism.
And the student I had was such a student, a female student.
I'm going to call her Vanessa, and she was a late diagnosis.
She had, for many years, been receiving inappropriate mental
health treatment.
But as a result, she came to the college
with really, really poor--
I don't want to say poor, but not helpful
compensation techniques and coping skills.
And as a result, she also had a really hard time
articulating her barriers, not only to our office,
but to those faculty and instructors
that she was working with.
And so, we had to really work with her
to develop an ability to self-advocate,
which was a real big challenge when she really barely
talked to other people without bursting into tears.
And when she got to college, what
we noticed her big struggle was that she, like everybody else,
was really invested in-- she wanted to know expectations.
She wanted to know expectations up front, but in a way
that may not be considered average
within the student population.
And when she didn't know the expectations in advance,
she became very anxious, and engaged
in ruminating behaviors that spilled over oftentimes
into the first few weeks of the course,
until she was able to kind of feel her way out and establish
what the expectations are.
And unfortunately, if the expectation still
didn't get clear, it could continue for quite a while
into the quarter.
So one of the challenges we had was, because she's female,
and because her autism manifested in a different way,
she was really good at a skill that we call masking,
which you see quite a bit in women that have autism,
where, as I mentioned, the behavior does not stand out
as a stereotypical autistic behavior
pattern with necessarily the flat affect,
or the struggles with communication.
She didn't have those things.
Her thing was this ruminating, and she would often
break into tears in class, which her instructors mistook
for other things.
And she became labeled as high maintenance, which
was really, really unfortunate.
So after a couple of quarters of this real big struggle, and her
needing to connect with instructors,
but not being able to self-advocate for her,
we sat down and we talked.
And she indicated that if she could talk to the instructors
before the first class started and establish the expectations,
that she felt that she would be able to walk
into the class in a better space.
And so, we, for a couple of quarters,
took the initiative to--
when she identified the classes she wanted to take,
we arranged for a meeting that was facilitated by my office
to help her communicate with the instructors,
and understand expectations so that she
was able to walk into class that first week and get to work.
It also was very good for the instructors
to understand where she was coming from,
and what they might be seeing is not what was really there,
and it wasn't a deficit-- it was just a difference.
And so, we did that for a couple quarters
before she took on that responsibility for herself.
And then about a year and a half into her tenure at Pierce,
I found out that not-- she had taken it one step further,
but she had started to actually interview instructors
before she even enrolled in their classes
to determine what the expectations of the class
would be, whether the instructor was willing to collaborate
with her to address some of the issues that might come up.
And that went on, and this student
went from being a student in my office in her first quarter
who could have barely talked to anybody,
could barely advocate for her needs,
could barely express her needs, to with the help
of her instructors for just that understanding
that they were in the time that they were willing to give her,
and to step outside of what might
have been their traditional view of a student.
They were able to create a student who
had self-advocacy skills, and actually went on
to become the vice president of our student activities
board, which is tremendous growth.
But it shows the kind of growth that instructors
can have-- not just academically,
but if they just take that time to connect
with the student in their mode of communication.
So that's kind of my story.
ERIC TREKELL: Thank you so much, Hope.
Appreciate that.
I'm so glad that you focused on a female student.
Bryan, I'm going to ask you to share next.
BRYAN FAUTH: Good morning, everyone.
Thank you, Eric, for inviting me to be part of this today.
My name is Bryan Fauth.
I use he and him pronouns.
I'm the director of Accessibility
and Student Support Services at Cascadia College.
And before my position at Cascadia,
I was actually with a state school
in California, Cal State East Bay.
And at Cal State East Bay, there's
a program called the College Link Program, which
is a program devoted solely to supporting
neurodiverse students in college with academic skills,
critical skills, social skills, and interpersonal skills.
And I was able to fortunate enough
to coordinate that program for about seven years.
So I've been able to get a lot of exposure,
and a lot of experience with the neurodiverse population,
and it was a great experience.
But today, I wanted to share experience
with everyone about a student that we've
been working with at Cascadia since fall quarter every day
now During the fall quarter, I got reports
from three different faculty members about a student
in their classroom who was having a very difficult time.
That student was not turning in homework assignments,
was getting very frustrated during class.
And when that frustration would happen,
they'd criticize the instructor for the way the class
assignments were designed.
They would sometimes pull on their hair, being on the table,
and storm out of the classroom.
And the faculty were very concerned
about it being disruptive to the classroom environment,
and also concerned about escalation,
about what would happen one day, the student got really angry.
So there were a lot of concerns, and we didn't know much--
we know anything about the student,
because we kept trying to reach out to the student,
and they would not respond.
I'm also part of the care team at Cascadia,
which works with students facing unique and difficult
challenges.
So that's how I was made aware of this student.
And finally, it took me until--
school started in late September.
It took me about until mid-November
to get a hold of that student.
And it was just by chance that they had their phone on
picked up, because I had been trying
to call that phone for a couple of months now,
and it went straight to voicemail
every time I called up.
So, as they won't connect with the student,
and me with the student, in my care team
meeting with the student, I found out
that the student was neurodiverse,
and was eligible for possible accommodations at Cascadia.
This student-- so it was, we were
coming close to the end of the quarter.
This student was failing all her classes,
hadn't turned in maybe more than two assignments in three
of the classes, and was going to have their financial aid
terminated, and would've lost out on their housing,
because they depended on financial aid for rent,
and would've been basically kicked out of Cascadia.
So there wasn't much that could have been done that quarter.
But we started working with the student, just a small 30 minute
meeting a week on some time management and organization
skills.
The student, I could tell, they were very bright,
but they weren't turning in assignments.
And even though they weren't turning in assignments,
they were still going to every class.
So to me, that was a sign that they wanted to be in school,
and they wanted to do well.
But I think for neurodiverse students--
and this could be applied to any student--
the transition from high school to college
is a very difficult and challenging one.
In high school, there is a lot of support through the K
through 12 system for a student with a disability that
aren't there at the college level,
because of two different laws that exist between the two
different systems.
So after getting an opportunity to work with the student,
I realized that the student could
be successful at the college level,
but just need to know how to do that--
need to know how to access tutoring resources,
and needed to know how to utilize accommodations,
and needed to know how to communicate with his faculty--
with his faculty members So the student
wasn't aware of all these reports
that had been coming in, that they'd
been getting frustrated a lot.
The student felt frustrated in class,
but they weren't aware that they were displaying
these kind of behaviors that some faculty thought were
disruptive.
So going into, luckily, the student
was able to get a financial aid appeal, which
meant they had to get a 2.0 in all of their classes,
or they would have been--
you know, they would have had no other options at Cascadia.
So coming into the winter quarter,
we were able to communicate with the student
faculty about the student may become frustrated
if they do not understand things in a clear and concrete way
and to let them know that, if they are showing signs
of frustration, like yelling, criticizing,
make sure that the student is aware of that,
and make sure that if there is an uncomfortable interaction,
to let the student know that.
I think a lot of times we're concerned
about telling neurodiverse students
when something's making us uncomfortable,
because we're worried about possibly offending someone.
ERIC TREKELL: Bryan, I'm going to ask you to wrap up.
BRYAN FAUTH: Yeah, sorry.
ERIC TREKELL: No worries.
BRYAN FAUTH: So with working with this student
on coping strategies, and developing ways for them
to recognize when they were worried and frustrated,
they were able to communicate with faculty
when they weren't aware--
didn't know what to do, and didn't know when
to-- where to turn in a homework assignment.
Long story short, the student got 2.0s in both
of their classes, and now is doing very well at Cascadia.
And I think that with just the acknowledgement
and the collaboration between different resources on campus,
and the faculty members.
ERIC TREKELL: Thank you.
I think Bryan's story really illustrates
the fact that neurodiverse students in particular--
all students, all of our students at community colleges,
and many of our University students
have such complex situations sometimes,
but neurodiverse students just have
such a more complicated way of learning how to overcome those.
So, it's so complicated sometimes,
and takes a lot of explaining.
Thank you, Bryan.
Craig, I'll invite you to go, and we
will have about 10 minutes for questions after.
CRAIG KERR: I love that Zoom, hey, you're talking,
but you're not talking.
So hi, everyone.
My name is Craig Kerr.
I'm the director for Services for Students with Disabilities
at Edmonds College.
I use he/him/his pronouns, and I really
wanted to welcome you to our session today.
You have had a ton of information
over the last day and a half, and you're
coasting here to the end.
So thanks for staying with us, thanks for being here.
It seems like you got some really good information
from Sara and Marisa about pedagogy,
so I'm hoping that you've been able to reflect on that.
Looks like you got some like real first-person stories from
[? Rhonda, ?] and you've had a student panel.
So you've gotten some really good experiences.
You just had how to communicate with neurodiverse students.
So you-- I feel like you guys have a--
excuse me, all of you--
I shouldn't have said you guys.
All of you have had a really good kind of dose.
Depending on where you are, and your understanding
of neurodiversity or neurodivergent students,
you've either been dunked and you're just like,
oh my gosh, what's going on here?
Or you're like, oh yeah, this is kind
of re-emphasizing some of the things that I already knew.
So I just kind of wanted to do a review,
because I'm going to go in a different direction
than my colleagues, and talk a little bit about what
our offices are kind of charged to do with students
and accommodations.
And so I'm not sure that has been talked about.
I see a smile from Eric, so Eric knows.
Eric and I used to work in the same office together.
So he knows that I will come, and I will think, hm, what's
best to be able to share.
So I kind of wanted to start off a little bit
about the accommodation process.
So students have to come to the SSD--
so ours is SSD, but they have to come to the disability office,
and ask for accommodations.
So some of the students maybe that you've talked about,
or you've had in your classes, either may
have been connected to the disability office, or may
have not connected.
It's their choice as a student whether they connect or not.
So that's kind of a key piece there.
Then we all enter what's called a--
oh my gosh, I just--
it just, whoosh-- the interactive process.
So what that means is that a student will come to us,
and will talk to us about the conditions or disabilities
that they're managing, how that kind of impacts
them in the educational environment,
and then we come up with reasonable accommodations based
on that.
And some institutions also require documentation
from a third party.
So that could be a psychiatrist, psychologist, doctor,
and that's how we form--
that informs the accommodations that
are provided for the students.
Now recognize, too, that in our process of coming up
with accommodations, it has to be
on a case-by-case, student-by-student situation.
So some of you might have had students for two quarters,
and in one quarter they had an accommodation
that was given to you in a letter of accommodation,
or communicated to you by the disability department.
And maybe the next quarter, you didn't
get that same accommodation.
You're like, hey, what's going on here?
I had this student last quarter that had this accommodation.
Why aren't they having this this quarter?
So as disability professionals, what we're looking at
is the learning outcomes for the course, and the students'
accommodation, and how those meet.
So there may be different accommodations
based on how the class is structured,
or the learning outcomes are, from quarter to quarter.
So we're also having to take that into account.
Now, most of us in the disability offices
are not going to tell you what the condition or disability
a student is managing.
Now, there's multiple reasons for that.
One, it's a privacy issue.
So you can all see, because you can see my face,
that I wear glasses.
So think about if I was coming into your class, and all
you kept saying was, hey, the guy with the glasses.
Hey, the guy with the glasses, right?
What you're doing in that conversation
is you're focusing on something that is non-typical,
and so that's going to reinforce to me,
well, I'm this guy with the glasses.
So there's something that's maybe
a little bit off about me.
So one, so it's that idea of, some student's condition
is part of who they are, not who they are.
So that's a really important piece,
because when we talk about both neurodiverse and neurodivergent
students, that's just a part of who they
are-- that is not who they are.
And so, I wanted to make sure that I explained that piece,
too, because oftentimes when instructors or professors want
us to say, well, what's the condition, what happens is,
as disability professionals, we are steeped
in the literature, and the diagnosis,
so we kind of know what that means.
If I express that to an instructor,
or to some staff member, they're going to go, hm, autism.
Autism means Rain Man, or autism means the savant
who can do a penscape of a landscape
after flying over in a helicopter.
Obviously, both of those are true stories.
But there are what's called implicit bias in all of us.
It could be-- obviously, I like the outdoors,
so if I see somebody-- and I like silent sports,
so I like fly fishing, or I like cross-country skiing,
I like snowshoeing.
If I hear somebody on a snowmobile,
I'm going to have some implicit biases about how they might
live, or what they might enjoy.
Right, we all have them.
So we're trying to reduce that implicit bias--
Eric, I'm sorry, I forgot to start my timer.
I have a timer on my phone, but I just got excited and started,
so--
ERIC TREKELL: You got about four minutes.
CRAIG KERR: Oh great, thank you.
And so, I really kind of wanted to focus on our part
in terms of supporting the student as a whole,
because they spend a tremendous amount of class time with you.
So you've gotten the pedagogy, you've
gotten the communication, you've gotten the student real story.
So I kind of wanted to give a different focus
in terms of how accommodations come, about
and how they're communicated to you as faculty,
because oftentimes that is a kind of a--
I don't know if black hole is the correct term,
but a lot of faculty don't understand the accommodation
process, and why students get accommodations the way they do.
So I just wanted to kind give a brief overview of that.
The last thing that I wanted to communicate
was, as both Bryan and Hope mentioned, so,
disability offices are not just for students.
They're are also four faculty and staff members,
and what we often do is we help translate.
So we're kind of mediators and translators.
So I've often had both students approach me,
and faculty approach me going, I am not
communicating well in this situation, and I need help.
So it could be--
I've had instructors that are going
like I have a student who, when we have a conversation,
they jump in, they start on the topic,
and then they start wandering off.
And because we live in the Pacific Northwest, most of us
are Pacific Northwest nice, which
means we're trying to figure out a nice way to get people back
to the topic of conversation.
Well, this particular student had a need
to have direct, concrete instruction to bring them back.
So what I talked with their instructor about was, well,
when that person is doing that, I want you to ask them,
could you please tell me if that's on topic.
When they say no, you say, please get back on topic.
Now, for somebody who is neurotypical,
that might be embarrassing.
For this particular student that was neurodivergent,
that's what they needed is a prompt to go oh, yes, I
need to stay on topic.
And then I've had students that are like,
I need some concrete answers, and I'm
getting some theoretical stuff from an instructor,
and I'm not understanding it.
So I met with the three of us together,
and was able to help them understand how they needed
to communicate to the instructor,
and the instructor began to understand,
oh, concrete, operational communication is
going to be the best.
So I just threw all of that out into the mix.
I'm really interested to know about your questions,
because I know that you've been presented to quite a bit,
is my assumption.
I haven't been in on them.
I know that it's good that you had some breakout groups,
so that you got to talk to each other.
But now I'm very interested to know
what your questions are for us.
So thank you very much for letting me present.
ERIC TREKELL: Thank you for that Craig, and you're right.
That's a deficit-- we didn't address that.
We didn't really talk to anybody about what the process is.
I'm the one who's closest to that on our staff,
so thank you for filling in on that, because it is always
a big question.
At this point, though, we've got about 10 minutes
left in our session.
We've got Hope and Craig.
Bryan may have been pulled off.
They're all taking time out of their workday here,
which I appreciate very much--
I know we all are, but we're in the middle of our quarter
up here.
So any questions, feel free to either raise your hand,
unmute, or post something, and I'll
be happy to read anything in the chat, if we need to.
Anybody have any questions for disability services folks?
And this is the point where I do say, I
did used to be in the classroom, as well.
So I can be quiet and wait.
CRAIG KERR: I just think we did such a great job.
TAMI: This is Tami I do have a question for all
of-- for whoever wants to answer.
We've heard a lot of the faculty who are in this workshop,
and a lot who might be watching this later, are really
accommodating, really open, really receptive to whatever
students need, and really meeting them wherever they are.
What is the balance that y'all see between your office,
the student, the faculty, and the law?
ERIC TREKELL: Anybody want to--
Craig?
And I see you, Crystal as well, for a question later.
CRAIG KERR: Yeah, so this is Craig from Edmonds College.
I'll put my hand down here.
So there was a lot in that question.
So let me first caution--
I'm a bit of a word nerd, so I'm going
to caution faculty using the word accommodation,
or accommodate.
So the reason why I would caution you with that,
I think you can say you can be flexible,
or that you can be supportive.
When the word accommodate either comes into language,
or it comes into email, what we're
looking at when we're looking at accommodations
is that it's seen as--
there is work in the law that talks about students
who are perceived to have a condition or disability, right?
And so when you start using that word,
accommodate, or giving them accommodations outside of what
the disability office has asked you to do,
you're getting the college in the disability office
and a bit of a conundrum because of using that word.
So I don't mean to call you out.
This is a conversation I have with faculty all the time
at the college I work at.
So that would be one thing.
And so, how I tried to approach faculty members,
in terms of accommodations, is--
I might be a little bit more tight on this.
So I ask faculty not to give accommodations
outside of what has been communicated to you
via the disability office.
And the reason why this is, is because once you
start to be flexible with a student,
and another student who is maybe not neurodiverse
starts to ask you, you have to give them that flexibility
to be equal, and have equity in your classroom.
And if it's through the disability office,
and then another student asked for that same flexibility,
you can say, well, it's something
that has been communicated, and this is something
that they have.
If you feel like you need an accommodation,
you can talk to the disability office.
So those are the two things that jump out
to me regarding that question, because it helps faculty not
to get into that-- he or she gets this.
How come I don't?
And then it talks about that wavy line,
in terms of being flexible with students.
Now, I will say that I'm talking about specific accommodations.
I'm not talking about situational things, where
a student may have a situation that comes up that they're not
able to turn into homework, so you are flexible for that.
So I was mainly talking about accommodation things.
ERIC TREKELL: Thank you, Craig.
Anything to add, Hope or Bryan?
If not, we'll go on to the next question.
OK, Crystal Feel free to unmute and--
CRYSTAL: So my question is primarily around suggestions
for how we can support--
how we can best support students who come to us
self-disclosing various diagnoses that they might have,
but they don't have the official documentation in place.
And so, getting them officially recognized
accommodations or supports is difficult. So,
is there an alternative avenue for students
to get those things recognized if finances or access is
a barrier for them in getting whatever required
documentation is necessary?
ERIC TREKELL: Hope, you look like you'd like to answer that.
HOPE STOUT: So when it comes to the documentation standards
for receiving accommodations, at least
in the state of Washington, each school
sets their own standards for documentation,
and qualification for accommodations.
So right now, most of my colleagues
and I in the state of Washington follow what
were called AHEAD guidelines.
AHEAD is our professional organization,
national organization, and it's a three pronged approach
to determining whether a student qualifies,
and what they qualify for.
And the three prongs are students self-report-- so
lived life experience, our professional judgment,
and documentation from an expert.
And so depending on where the student is,
they may not need to provide documentation, or very
little documentation at all.
So what I would recommend is having
a conversation with your AD--
your disability support provider, and ask them
what their criteria are-- because like I said,
we all do it a little different.
But ask them what their criteria are, and then ask them,
if I have a student who self-identifies to me,
but doesn't have current documentation, what services
do you offer?
Do you have referral services?
Do you know of resources that can help
them get the documentation?
Or how old, how new does the documentation have to be?
There are some conditions--
I mean, when you have learning disabilities,
learning disabilities can change.
So sometimes having more recent documentation is important.
But if you have another condition, juvenile diabetes,
that's not changing.
You get juvenile diabetes, you have juvenile
diabetes your entire life.
So do I need a letter saying--
dated two days ago that says you have
juvenile diabetes, or something when you were 15
will work just fine.
Because I'm going to take that, and then
I'm going to talk to you about your lived life experiences.
But I would suggest right off the bat,
talk to your particular person, and find out what they need,
and then go from there.
ERIC TREKELL: Great, great.
Catherine.
CATHERINE: So I teach mathematics,
and I've actually been talking with some people that
teach mathematics, teach physics, teach geology, teach
chemistry about how we aren't really positive how best
to teach for certain topics, like how do you
describe a graph--
how do you teach a student a graph who can't see the graph?
Or how do you teach a student who has dyscalculia?
Or how do you take a student on a field trip
who has a physical disability, who can't
walk through the field trip?
So we actually are proposing to do a grant
to bring together some people to create a community of practice
to do this, and we're just kind of curious
if there are people out there that
would be willing and able to help us, facilitate
and train us, because I don't know anything myself.
ERIC TREKELL: Yes, Catherine I'll
communicate with you about that one-on-one.
OK?
CATHERINE: OK, and is this also something
that the Disability Resource officers at your school can do,
too?
ERIC TREKELL: Yes, they will, definitely.
That would have been the first thing on my list.
Check in-- they'll know how to help figure
out tactile graphics.
They'll know how to help figure out transportation
for a student in a chair.
They'll-- yeah.
But there are trainers at the national level as well.
Good question.
There are some questions, and I do
think we're probably going to go over a few minutes,
if everybody's OK with that.
I don't want anybody to walk away
without having at least some interaction
with their questions.
Chris-- I'll just go ahead and read, Chris, your question.
I'm curious to hear your perspective
on how an interested faculty member could
arrange to meet with students before the term begins.
I know that would help me to be a much better instructor,
if I had some specific tips, hints that I can incorporate.
Anybody have any thoughts on that--
Bryan, Craig, Hope?
Bryan.
BRYAN FAUTH: Yeah, I think that's a great question.
I think that would be if you had a roster of who's
enrolled in your class.
And I think you just send out a general
invite to everyone in the class, because I think, one thing,
that we don't want to single out students with disabilities.
So I think-- and also, having a lot of those conversations
with students, you find out a lot about them.
They may disclose to you that they have a disability,
but don't even know that accommodations
could be possible for them at the college level.
And that could give the faculty member a great opportunity
to refer them to their college's disability support office.
ERIC TREKELL: Great.
So Bryan is suggesting invite any student.
Craig, Hope, do you have other thoughts,
or do think that's it?
Are there additional things, Hope?
HOPE STOUT: Oh, I know that, at least in my campus,
that my office sends out, about a week in advance,
all of the requests for accommodations that we've
gotten prior to the quarter, about a week
before the first day.
And traditionally, schools have kind of
dumped the responsibility for initiating that conversation
on the student in the past.
And what I would recommend is that if you
get those letters in advance, just reach out to the student,
acknowledge that you've got the letter.
Tell them that you would love to have a conversation
to talk about how you can be the best instructor for them,
and connect that way.
Like I said, in the past, it's kind
of all been on the student.
And technically, legally, at the end of the day that's true,
but you guys are--
faculty want their students to succeed.
There is not an instructor on Earth
that wants their students to fail.
And so just taking that extra step
to express your interest in their success.
ERIC TREKELL: Thank you.
Yep.
Last couple of three questions in this.
Then we'll wrap up after this, and take a short break,
and then come back for our last session.
Jan has asked, are we dependent on requests for accommodation
in designing our course?
What about students who are not diagnosed, and doesn't
neurodiversity apply to every person?
Also how do we incorporate, communicate
neurodiversity goals in our learning objectives.
So, quite a few things.
All right, let's-- first question.
Yeah, Craig, go ahead.
First one.
CRAIG KERR: Yeah, so I--
Jan, I wrote something in the chat.
I wrote something in the chat there, Jan.
So a little bit--
yeah.
So if it's specific to hearing impaired or deaf students,
so remember that public speaking, if you're deaf,
is public speaking.
Fortunately, we have sine language interpreters
here with us on the call today, so that
would be public speaking.
So when you're having someone who
has a hearing impairment, or who is deaf,
what you would have-- you would have an interpreter
in your class that would voice for the student who
is deaf or hard of hearing.
And so that's how that would work,
in terms of your public speaking, of course.
The same pedagogy in terms of public speaking
is applicable to students who are able to voice themselves
as it is to someone who is deaf or hard of hearing.
So the idea that I wanted to get across as there is a pedagogy
called universal design in learning, UDL.
I don't know if Sara and Marisa talked about that much
at all and the pedagogy, but that
incorporates-- it's the idea of universal [INAUDIBLE],,
and basically came from engineering and architecture,
where they created spaces, like you're going to the grocery
store now and you don't have to touch anything,
because you have an automatic door.
That's universal design in architecture.
So there is a pedagogy called universal design in learning.
And so, I would encourage all faculty to brush up on that,
to be able to inform their creating
their curriculum and their pedagogy with that in mind.
ERIC TREKELL: Yeah.
BRYAN FAUTH: Yeah, I know about, Jan, you
mentioned classes online.
There's a lot more, I think, often when something's
online to make it accessible-- there's captions,
there's a lot of different tools.
And also, as we learn through remote modality
during the pandemic, interviewing
could be done online.
So I think UDL, universal design in learning principles
can be applied to both modalities.
ERIC TREKELL: Yeah.
I think that there can be a lot of variety,
too, because communication space isn't just
sitting in front of some--
standing in front of a room and speaking.
Maybe recording a polished video is a good option.
Lots of possibilities, but we do need to wrap up, unfortunately.
I'd really like to thank Hope, Bryan, and Craig
for joining us today.
They've been so integral to my own learning as a disability
services person prior to coming to the DO-IT center
and working on these grant projects.
So thank you all so much, and I know
I'll see you all around again.
Feel free to hang around, if you have time,
and I know you may not--