ERIC TREKELL: So thank you, Scott.
Appreciate that.
Our first presentation is titled Pedagogical Approaches
to Neurodivergent Learners in STEM, presented
by Sara Sanders Gardner and Marisa
Hackett of Bellevue College.
Sara is the Designer and Director of Bellevue's
nationally recognized Neurodiversity Navigators
Program.
And Marisa is the Director of the Disability Resource Center.
So I will turn it over to the two of you.
Thank you.
SARA SANDERS GARDNER: Thanks so much, Eric.
I am going to get right into the deck
because we have a completely packed session for you.
So let's do it.
ERIC TREKELL: Well, I thank you for that, Sara.
SARA SANDERS GARDNER: All right.
I also want to turn on the chat so I can see it.
One second.
I cannot see the chat.
Oh, there is the chat.
OK.
Thank you.
All right.
So yes, this is what we are learning,
Pedagogical Approaches for Neurodivergent Learners.
I am Sara Sanders Gardner.
My pronouns are they/them.
Marisa?
MARISA HACKETT: Hi, I'm Marisa Hackett.
She/her.
I'm the Director of the Disability Resource Center
and faculty in our Disabled Students
Navigating STEM Program.
SARA SANDERS GARDNER: OK.
Here we go.
So today we're going to talk about terminology.
Is there a definition for neurodiversity?
Yes, there is.
And we're going to talk about models, pedagogical approaches,
and give you some tools.
So let's get going.
Terminology around neurodiversity.
First thing we want to talk about
is the language that we use when we
talk about disabled people and autistic people.
There are two different main ways to refer.
And used to be people thought that person first
was the only way to go.
But now we know and the American Psychological Association
told us in 2015 that both are good.
So let's look at this real quickly.
Identity first is disabled, autistic.
I am disabled.
I am autistic.
And that describes me.
It includes disability as part of the person
and embraces that disability as one
of the many intersections of identity
that makes up the person.
Many autistic and otherwise disabled people
prefer identity first language.
The blind community, the deaf community
are two large communities that embrace that.
There is also a person first language.
I had to say it's awkward syntax because I was
an English major in college.
It separates the disability from the person.
And this is a reason why some people choose this language.
They don't want that disability to define them.
And they say, my disability doesn't define me.
It shows a desire to be distant from disability.
Many parents and professionals often prefer
person for language, but so do many people with disabilities.
The APA said, as I said in 2015, asked the preference
of the disabled person themselves.
And when you're doing presentations,
writing papers, et cetera, you should
use both interchangeably.
And so there's a couple of symbols here.
The one on the left is the rainbow neurodiversity infinity
symbol, which is meant to represent
the many different types of people, many different neuro
types, many different ways of being in the world that
encompass our community.
And then on the right is probably more known Autism
Speaks puzzle piece.
I put a do not use sign around it,
because many autistic people reject that puzzle piece.
And in fact, research shows that there
is a negative connotation between puzzle pieces
and people.
And so the community at large has asked people
not to use that puzzle piece.
So other things that we should avoid
are euphemisms around disability language.
So as you know, a euphemism is a mild or indirect expression
that is substituted for something
that people think is too blunt or harsh or embarrassing.
So people do this with the word disability quite a bit.
Thank you, Martha and Natalya.
They say on the spectrum instead of on the autism spectrum
so they can avoid that word autism.
They say challenged, or differently
abled, or people of all abilities, or special needs,
or disAbility with a capital A, or they make up
words like diffability, and many,
many, many other iterations.
Again, disabled people get to say how they identify.
So if a disabled person is using these terms, that's fine.
No need to correct the person with the disability.
However, non-disabled people should
steer clear of these words because they land on us
as microaggressions.
So always defer to the preferences in language
use of the person with the disability
and how they identify.
Disabled people own their identity.
And this is very important.
If you are not a member of the community,
you do not get to put labels on that community.
So speaking of that, let's talk about what is neurodiversity.
This term was created by the autism community.
And it is defined by the autism community.
And many other people have tried to define it,
but there is one definition that was created by the person who
created the word.
Her name is Judy Singer.
She is an Australian anthropologist
who was born in Hungary.
I've put a link, when you have the deck you
can go to the links.
At this blog Judy describes exactly what she means by it.
I can only give you a very, very brief information right now.
So it came from the idea of biodiversity.
And that's why I have this picture here
that shows all these different creatures and plants.
Biodiversity refers to every living
thing plants, bacteria, animals, humans.
And sometimes it's in a particular reason or bio
ecosystem, but sometimes it just refers to all living creatures.
The term neurodiversity comes from that term biodiversity
and is an expression comes from intersectionality
as well as one of the many variabilities
that describe people.
It's the virtually infinite neurocognitive variability
within Earth's human population.
So when you use the term neurodiverse,
you are referring to all people.
You are not referring to disabled people,
you're referring to all people.
This is a very important part of the neurodiversity movement,
that everyone has a different way of thinking.
There is not one way and one wrong way or one different way.
Everyone is neurodiverse.
The term neurodivergent was also coined from the autism
community by a multiply neurodivergent person living
in the United States.
Their name their name is Kassiane Asasumasu.
And this is to signify an individual
whose brain functions in ways that diverge significantly
from dominant societal standards.
Very different words.
Neurodiversity is a social movement.
Neurodivergent refers to a person.
And then along with that term came the term neurotypical.
So these are the definitions.
This is where you can learn more about them.
As Sheryl mentioned, there are many things
that fall under this neurodivergent umbrella.
I'm not going to go through them again,
because I got to get through my time here.
So here's a quote from Judy Singer.
"Neurodiversity is a property of the human population of Earth.
While neurodiversity itself is just
an indisputable fact about the planet,
the neurodiversity movement is something else again.
It's built on the idea that just as conserving biodiversity is
necessary for a sustainable, flourishing planet,
so respecting neurodiversity is necessary for a sustainable,
flourishing, human society."
So we need all people, not just some people.
So then Marisa's going to take it away.
MARISA HACKETT: Thanks, Sara.
I'm going to talk a little bit about the models of disability,
which came from disabled communities in the 1980s
originally and have been used in disability studies programs
for a long time.
To start out with the moral model,
and I'm going to start quote "the problem" of disability.
I'm not saying disability is a problem.
It's not, disability is rad.
But there is this idea in society
that disability has a social problem associated with it.
So the problem associated with disability
when you're coming from the moral model of disability
is this idea that there is a moral failing
in your bloodline, from your ancestors,
from your family line, from your parent, somewhere in there.
And this is typically considered an older model,
but it actually does show up currently.
So any time someone is trying to pray away
a disability, that is them enacting the moral model.
But kind of thinking around when people said that autism
was caused by quote "refrigerator mothers"
or the mother being too cold to the child, that
was the moral model.
Thankfully, that is pretty much kind
of tapered out at this point.
And then things like telling chronically ill people,
"have you tried yoga?"
Is also the moral model, where there's
some sort of moral failing with the disabled person.
The medical model is our kind of typically
most commonly used model in current US society,
where the problem with the disability
is centered on the individual person with the idea
that the medical industrial complex or the medical system
is what can fix the disability.
And that individual person needs to be fixed by medicine
or some other medical thing.
So the societal solution is to fix a person
through the medical model.
So still focuses on this idea of fixing disability
and doesn't focus on disability as a normal part
of our human diversity.
And this also, the medical model also reinforces
cultural constraints around what is a typical or right way
of being in the world.
The right way to move your body, the right way to think,
the right way to be in general, the right way
to have feelings or emotions.
So then this brings us to the social model.
The social model focuses from not on the individual
but on society and focuses the societal problem
of disability on how we can fix our built
environment, our culture, our ways of teaching and learning
to change the environment rather than change
the individual person.
So in the social model we would say instead of a deaf person
can't go to the movies because they are deaf,
we would say provide closed captions.
This is where we enter into accessibility, accommodations,
and universal design to fix society rather than trying
to fix the person.
And we're going to play just a couple of minutes
of this video.
Do we have the sound turned on for the video, Sara?
I'm just going to look at the chat real quick
while Sara's sharing the video, because there's
some cool things happening in the chat too.
Neurotypical isn't a bad word, but it
makes neurotypical people feel uncomfortable to confront
their privilege.
Totally.
And then Jade said sort of the same way cis people
get grumpy when we say cisgender in conversations about gender.
Yep, totally.
Cisgender is not a bad word neither is neurotypical,
it just means fit into the norm that society
wants you to fit into.
OK.
STACEY MILBERN: So if you and I go to a building
and there's no ramp, typically people
think the problem is that we use wheelchairs.
Where a social model of disability would say,
the problem is that the building's not accessible.
And it doesn't seem like a radical concept,
but it changes the fundamental way
we think about disability and the work
that we need to do to include people with disabilities.
PATTY BERNE: People often don't understand ability
to be within this kind of context and access
to adaptive devices and where we are located economically.
When I have my access needs met, I'm functionally not disabled,
you know?
But when places have stairs and everything
is built for people that stand so I can't see anything.
It's a really dark environment, so I
can't see anything because as you get older,
your vision changes.
So now I need a lot of light to see things.
In an environment like that, of course, I'm disabled.
STACEY MILBERN: I really like separating out impairment
from disability.
So impairment as, you know, like physical or neurological
manifestation, like what's real.
I have a physical impairment.
And then disability is like what society creates as barriers
because of the impairment.
So like as you're saying, if we're
in a place where my access needs are getting met,
then my impairment isn't so significant.
But when it's not because society doesn't want to,
then that's a problem.
So I think it's important to really think
about disability and the context of what is disabling,
like the environment.
The last building I worked in it was really cool
because it was universally designed,
so all the doors had push buttons
or they would like magically open as you walk up.
Or everything is like automatically at my height.
And in that place, I didn't need a lot of accommodations.
But then in an environment where it's not universally
accessible, where people with disabilities and parents
and all types of folks weren't thought
of in the design process, that's when there's problems.
PATTY BERNE: I'm not saying like it's
easy to live with an impairment.
It's not easy to live, you know, when you have four kids.
It's not easy to live when it's like 20 degrees outside.
For those of us in the Bay Area 55 is freezing.
But I mean, there are times when it's just not
convenient to have a body.
But that's not what oppresses us.
What oppresses us is living in a system which disregards us, is
violent toward us, and essentially
wants to subjugate our bodies or kill us.
That's oppressive.
My body doesn't oppress me, my body is fine.
MARISA HACKETT: We can pause there, Sara.
Thanks.
OK, so that was Stacey Milbern Park,
who was an amazing disability justice activist out of the Bay
Area who unfortunately passed away a couple of years ago.
And then Patty Berne, who I'm going to talk about now.
So Patty Berne with other disabled queer and trans people
of color created the disability justice movement and model
with these 10 principles of disability justice.
So since the models were created in the '80s
and are still really important, it's
also important to kind of fast forward up to where we are now
and think about moving beyond the social model
and into disability justice.
The social model laid a really good groundwork
for disability justice.
The 10 principles of disability justice are intersectionality,
leadership of those most impacted,
anti-capitalist politic, commitment to cross movement
organizing, recognizing wholeness, sustainability,
commitment to cross disability--
sorry-- the solidarity, interdependence,
collective access, and collective liberation.
I'm going to talk a little bit more about intersectionality,
but I encourage you all to check out the website
that talks about the principles of disability justice
more in depth.
Patty is an amazing activist and super important to learn from.
So this is a quote from Patty Berne.
"The first, a primary principle of disability justice
is intersectionality.
We know that each person has multiple community
identifications, and that each identity
can be a site of privilege or oppression.
The fulcrums of oppression shift depending
upon the characteristics of any given
institutional or interpersonal interaction.
The very understanding of disability
experience itself being shaped by race, gender, class,
gender expression, historical moment, relationship
to colonization, and more."
We're going to get this video, but if you
have a chance to take a look at it, it's great.
But it's best in its entirety.
So we're going to move forward in our short amount of time.
So basically like with intersectionality,
we want to be thinking about the role of power and privilege
in any individual person's intersections of identities
and especially in our own when we
are working with neurodivergent and disabled folks.
Societal markers and lived realities determine access
to resources.
People who are perceived to be in privileged groups
are rewarded for their group memberships,
while others are disenfranchised and subject
to regulation and violence.
And then that role of intersectionality.
So someone may be perceived as having one specific identity
because that's the most visible identity that they have.
And there may be additional identities that you are not
perceiving or identifying just by looking at
or a first interaction with someone.
You can go the next slide, Sara, because I
think I'm talking about it.
[LAUGHTER]
Yeah.
That works.
So just something to think about when we're thinking about what
we see when we're interacting with students
and how to get to what else might
be going on for that student, what other impressions
they might be experiencing that we're not readily
aware of in a first interaction or in our first perception
of someone.
So thinking about the student holistically.
Age, disability, religion, ethnicity, social class,
sexual orientation, Indigenous backgrounds, national origin,
gender.
There are other identities as well.
So just to be thinking about both how your identities play
into what you're doing as well as what's
going on for a student when you're thinking
about their identities.
SARA SANDERS GARDNER: And we have these three pictures here.
A transgender student, a student of color with a graduation
gown and their colorful--
I don't know what that's called, scarf on,
and then a female presenting student.
And they're all very different.
And people may have certain thoughts about them
when they see them and think they know them,
but they don't necessarily.
OK.
We're going to move on to Pedagogical Approaches.
And we're going to look back at biodiversity.
"When a flower doesn't bloom, you
fix the environment in which it grows not the flower."
This is a quote by Alexander den Heijer.
Don't know how to pronounce his last name, apologies,
Alexander.
But we want to think about that biodiversity approach
in regards to neurodiversity, which
is all the students in your classes,
not only the neurodivergent ones.
So let's take a look.
The first thing I want to talk about is cultural expectations.
And I'm going to use Edward T. Hall's cultural iceberg
as a model to start with.
So this is to help us understand that not everyone is
communicating and behaving and understanding communication
and behavior the same way.
So Edward T. Hall was a cultural anthropologist
who specialized in nonverbal communication.
And he said when we think about a culture,
we usually think about the surface culture.
Food, music, literature, language.
But what really makes up a culture
are these deep culture areas that a person
has to live in the culture and learn
through nonverbal observation.
These are not didactically taught to people,
nor really can they be because they're all
flexible within that culture and in other cultures.
So things like communication styles and rules.
Facial expressions, eye contact, conversational patterns,
handling and displaying emotions, tone of voice,
notions of courtesy and manners, concepts
of self, time, and fairness, attitudes
towards work and authority, approaches to religion,
decision making, problem solving.
There are potential conflicts in all of these areas,
certainly between cultures.
We all learned that back in Star Trek, the original generation.
But there are also potential for conflicts between people
with nonverbal learning disabilities, which
includes all autistic people and many other people.
When I first saw this slide, this concept,
I was very excited because these are the areas where
we get in trouble all the time.
But so do lots of other people, because people
grow up differently.
People absorb these concepts differently
and they have different ideas around them.
So if you think about--
well, I guess, I'm going to share an example first
and then I'll talk about that.
So here's an example from my life.
In one house on the neighborhood kids
were allowed to jump on the sofa and swear.
And in another house a couple doors down,
you were not allowed to do that or you're
getting a lot of trouble.
So there were lots of different things
where I would get in a lot of trouble.
And so my parents decided I needed
to learn some social skills.
So they got someone to start teaching me social skills.
What do you think, put it in the chat,
unmute yourself, shout it out.
What do you think they taught me in social skills class
about jumping on the sofa and swearing?
Anybody.
STUDENT 1: Never OK.
STUDENT 2: No.
SARA SANDERS GARDNER: Never do it.
Never jump on the sofa and swear, exactly.
So see this nice little person sitting
on the sofa all nice and calm?
What did the other kids think about me after that?
I got some names.
Stuck up.
Goody two shoes.
Teacher's pet.
Don't play with Sara, Sara is going to tell us
the "right way" to do things.
Right, exactly.
So ever met an awkward autistic kid?
They didn't get awkward by themselves,
they got awkward by learning social skills.
So there is a better way.
We need to understand that cultural rules are flexible.
And what someone with a nonverbal learning disability
cannot do is see how these flex.
We can't follow that.
We don't see it.
We don't notice it.
We will never be able to see it.
What we need to learn is self-advocacy.
Someone needed to tell me, oh Sara,
you just don't know when it's OK to do it and when it isn't.
The other kids can see it, you can't.
That's OK.
That's just how you are.
Ask the other kids.
Is this a house where we can jump on the sofa and swear?
Or will you tell me when the parents are coming
so I don't get in trouble?
That would have been fine.
I could have had friends, but no.
Anyway, that is a danger of social skills classes.
These rules are flexible.
If you think about it, these rules
are flexible in your friend groups.
They're flexible in family groups.
They're flexible and work teams.
They're flexible in corporations or institutions.
They're flexible in cities and states and countries.
They're flexible everywhere.
A typical person can flex with them.
A person with neurodivergence often cannot.
So you have some tools as faculty, as staff,
as people who interact with neurodivergent people.
First of all, if someone is communicating or behaving
in a way that is different from your cultural expectations
in any of these areas, your first tool is
most respectful interpretation or as my students,
say think the best of them.
So think, why would a reasonable, kind person
be doing or saying this rather than, oh, that's so rude.
Then, use a tool called manage your stories.
So if you still are telling yourself
a story about why the person is doing it, ask a question.
Are you angry with me?
It seems like maybe you're angry.
Could you say what you said again?
I'm not sure I understood it.
That, by the way, works really well
if someone is purposely being mean to you.
Just say, could you repeat that?
Right?
Repeat and re-word your own statements.
So say, I'm not sure what I said came across clearly.
Let me try to say it again.
Also, own your boundaries.
If someone's standing too close to you, for example,
you don't need to teach them about personal space.
Simply say, I need a little more space.
I'm going to move over here.
You also don't need to teach them
how to handle their emotions.
If you're triggered by someone ramping up or getting loud,
you can simply say, I'm going to go get a drink of water.
I'll be back in a few minutes.
You don't need to add when you've calmed down.
Right?
You just need to take care of your own self.
And then also teach self-advocacy.
So this is everything and included
in nonverbal communication.
Facial expressions, body language, eye
gaze, appearance, how we use our sense of humor.
The important thing to note with these things
is research has shown not only do we not understand you,
you don't understand us in these situations.
You may think we're angry when we're not.
You may not understand our sense of humor.
You may not understand if a student is slumping down
like this, it may be because they have low body tone not
because they're not interested.
This also includes unspoken, implied, or hidden meaning
within spoken communication.
So needing to read between the lines,
not saying what you mean because you want to be kind.
Brené Brown says, "Clear is kind.
Unclear is unkind."
You don't have to change all of your communication
if you don't want to.
But if someone isn't understanding
what you're saying, add some more direct communication
to it.
This varies between cultures and within cultures.
But up to 85% of our communication can be nonverbal.
And here we are, back to Marisa.
MARISA HACKETT: OK.
So I'm going to briefly talk about universal design,
but I think we've got a presentation coming up
that's going to go much more in depth.
So generally universal design is the idea
that we want to set things up for everybody in mind.
So when we're talking about physical space
that's ramps, et cetera.
But when we're talking about learning space,
you can go to the next slide.
SARA SANDERS GARDNER: Go ahead and describe
the picture for a second.
MARISA HACKETT: Oh, yeah.
The, picture that we have up is a brick
building with a ramped walkway heading up
to it with some folks walking.
And one person pushing a wheeled suitcase
and another person pushing a wheeled barrel of sorts.
But it's a space where anyone could propel up depending
on what mode they're using.
OK.
So when we're talking about universal design
for learning the general premise is
that we want to be engaging students in multiple ways,
presenting information in multiple ways,
so including visual, written, pictures, and auditory.
And then multiple ways of expression or assessment
for everything.
And we've got a wheel that says engage, express, and present
information as the three main areas
that you want to focus on providing multiple options for.
OK.
And now another tool that you can use
is TILT, transparency in learning and teaching.
And I am super excited about this as a brand new faculty,
because I have struggled with how do I make assignments
really clear for students?
And this is a really great way to do that.
There are some great examples you can easily look them up.
But the general premise is providing
transparent information to students on the purpose, task,
and criteria in an assignment or activity.
And there are transparent assignment templates online
that have--
you want to say the assignment name and the due date.
The purpose, so what skills or knowledge
is the student expected to get out
of this assignment or activity.
The tasks, so defining what specifically they're doing.
And then the criteria for success.
What does a well-done assignment look
like with a specific grading rubric?
So that the students know how to get full points if they want
that and they can also choose to not get full points
if they want to hit a C.
That is really helpful.
And it looks like Natalya has a comment on it too
and people are putting links in the chat.
Excellent.
OK.
And then another great tool to use is build structure.
So making sure that you're providing structure
so that students understand what's
going to happen, when it's going to happen,
what the expectations for them are.
It supports students in the understanding
of why it's important to work through assignments regularly.
So the understanding of how things build on each other,
why you're doing one assignment before another,
the amount of time and energy that they're putting into that,
the amount of time and energy you're putting into it,
and then the classmates time and the energy.
So everything is just very clearly laid out.
But then it's also important to provide flexibility.
So allowing for late work without penalty.
So providing guidelines for when things should be turned in
to be scaffolded and built upon each other,
but allowing exceptions for that because there are always
situations that students are going to run into,
especially neurodivergent students,
where they may need more time to work on something.
Something may come up life wise.
There may be something in another class that's
more urgent to do.
And believing students when they have
some sort of situation where they need flexibility, right?
So instead of assuming everyone's giving
the dog ate my homework reason, understanding
that students have a large amount of things going on
in their lives and we don't always
know what those things are.
So believing what they're telling us.
SARA SANDERS GARDNER: And I just want
to add a little bit to this page.
And that is that many faculty have moved away
from traditional grading structures
and move to giving one point for every assignment
or just a complete for the assignment.
And also allowing students to choose their grade
at the beginning of the quarter, which indicates
how many of the assignments from each category
they're going to complete or to what level
they're going to complete them.
So these are all different ways to allow that flexibility
as well.
MARISA HACKETT: And then other practices.
So making sure that you're using the student's name and pronoun
and checking to make sure you're using the student's name
that they actually go by, not just
going by a roster that might be outdated.
So there's lots of ways to do this.
Checking a Zoom name if you're on Zoom,
asking students to tell you if they have a preferred name
at the beginning of the quarter, asking students their pronouns,
super important.
And the image that we have up is various different students
with different pronouns on their rainbow colored
shirts, which is great.
Some students have-- some of the figures have lighter skin,
some have darker skin.
There's someone with a head wrap or a turban.
Someone with an afro.
So just an example that any different student
could use a pronoun that you may not be expecting.
It does not matter what the student looks like to you
or how you're perceiving them, you
have to ask someone's pronoun to know what it is.
Meeting with students one-one-one.
So that one-on-one connection to make sure
that you're building a strong relationship with them
at the beginning.
And then monitoring student's progress
and intervening when students are not completing things,
not showing up for class, et cetera.
Many campuses have a place to send an early alert
or report if a student is having a specific struggle,
so that doesn't have to be all you as faculty in supporting,
but the monitoring progress is really important
because no one else is going to know what's going on
with the student without that.
And then I see that Sara put in the chat
that you don't need to do a round-Robin for pronouns
where students are saying it out loud.
So you can ask the question in a more private way,
like how students turn it in on a for class survey
or a first day of class in-class assignment or something
in your online learning system where
they can indicate privately what pronoun they want used.
That can call out students who are trans and may not
be out or comfortable sharing.
And it can be uncomfortable for some students
to do that round-Robin in class pronoun situation.
SARA SANDERS GARDNER: OK.
Now we're going to get to the tools.
We have a few more minutes to go.
So we're going to talk about language and stress.
And we've all been in this situation
where we have had a page to read that is just
a page, a wall of text.
And we've then also been in a situation
where we have a page to read that has white space
and pictures and bullet points.
I know which one I would rather read.
And so the first one now has a new word in the dictionary,
right?
TLDR, too long, didn't read.
So we're going to talk about how to support your students,
all your students, in being able to access
the language and your assignments
and your emails and everything that you do.
This is also for website use.
It's plain language.
It does not mean to use a certain level of vocabulary,
it's written to your audience.
So whoever your audience is.
If they're college students, you should be using college level
language.
But it is a communication that's wording structure and design
are so clear that the intended users can readily
find what they need, understand it, and use it
rather than hiding what we mean within all the flowery words
like people usually do.
So here's an example.
Before, and this is a typical thing
that we see in emails especially,
written in the third person.
The student applicant should be sure to be on time,
submit an official copy of his or her transcript.
Never say that, the word they is very appropriate now.
Two letters of recommendation from professors,
a statement of financial need, a short biographical statement
to our grant's office by April 15th.
This is like a math problem to me, right?
I have to circle everything I have to do.
Check them off in the little sentences.
Afterwards, this is plain language.
To apply, written right to the person,
here's what you need to do.
The deadline is right up front.
Here's your checklist.
I would probably even put a little check boxes, right?
And then where to send it.
You might even put more, but I ran out of space on my page.
So plain language, much more accessible to all people.
And then also, and you can learn a lot more about that
at the link that I put underneath the flowers
on that page also on our last page.
Also, be sure to use your college's learning management
system.
I believe that UW also use this Canvas, which is what we use.
Putting your materials into weekly modules
is very helpful for students.
They can see what they have to do each week.
If you don't have Cidi Labs already activated,
ask your college.
Ask your E-learning department about Cidi Labs.
It helps you organize, but it also
makes everything accessible to students as well.
So if you want to put how you're using Canvas in the chat
to support other people who are here,
that would be super helpful, I think,
so that other people can see.
I put everything in the weekly thing.
I open up the week two weeks ahead
of time so students have a whole week to look through it.
Some students like to organize themselves ahead of time
and maybe even work ahead of time
when they are on a good streak, right?
So it kind of just depends on how that person
manages their disability.
OK.
So then the last thing we want to talk about.
Yeah, thank you, Jade.
Yes.
I wish we had that at our college.
The last thing we want to talk about
is make sure that you are taking care of your own self
and also using community-care, not just self-care.
So we want to look at putting on your mask first.
And so it might be a beautiful mask like this.
You want to think about burnout and demoralization,
they are two different things.
And then making sure that you're taking breaks.
We work a lot.
And so you want to make sure--
oh, that's great, Diane.
You should contact us about that.
So your mask first.
This is a picture of the early days when
we used to wear cloth masks.
But really that phrase used to refer
to putting on your own oxygen mask
first right in the airplane.
But we cannot support our students,
we cannot support our friends, we cannot support anybody
if we're not first taking care of our own selves.
And this includes our whole community.
Reaching out for support, not just like as Marisa
mentioned, doing yoga, et cetera.
You can't deep breathe your way out of a pandemic.
You cannot stretch your way out of terrible class sizes.
You can't individual behavior your way out
of structural problems, right?
It takes a community.
It takes being in communion with others
and really relying on other people and supporting them.
So that whole interdependence piece that we've talked about.
And these are our discussion questions.
So you're going to go to a discussion
groups in about seven minutes.
But I'm going to stop sharing now.
I'm going to share, there's our resources page.
You're going to discuss what would you
like to start doing based on what you've learned today?
What would you like to stop doing that maybe is getting
in the way of accessibility for neurodivergent students
and all students?
And what are you already doing that's working well?
And then what ah-ha moments will inform
your teaching going forward?
So I'm going to stop share.
We've got some great things in the discussion here.
Every task has a note about seeking support and the word
finding support at the bottom of the page.
That's fantastic.
Yeah, I love that.
In Canvas I have tasks that are not assignments.
Yes, like readings.
I add those to the task to do list as well.
Yes.
That's a really great thing to do.
Yes.
About three lessons a week, typical--
yes.
Letting students know how long it
will take to complete something is a really helpful thing.
How long a video is, how long it might take to read something
that you've assigned, a range of estimates, et cetera.
What else did I want to say around that.
Yes, using TILT along with these things is super helpful.
Making sure your assignments are showing up
on the Canvas calendar is also really helpful.
Talking to your students at the beginning
about how to use Canvas.
See what else we have here.
And then also making sure that you're putting links
in all your assignments to other material
that they need to do that assignment.
So not just saying go find the blah, blah, blah.
Put a link to it so they can do it.
Thank you, Kayla, for putting that in there.
I appreciate that.
Look at you with your little check marks and everything.
That is so awesome.
KAYLA Brown: Thanks to Tami for that one.
TAMI TIDWELL: And Sara, I would say-- this is Tami,
I would kudos you for re-stating what's in chat.
Because if some of us need to get up and walk around.
So we're on audio, but we're not being
able to keep up with chat.
It's nice when people re-state what's being said.
So thank you.
SARA SANDERS GARDNER: Yeah.
Anything with a due date comes up on to do list
and you can add to-do list anything that doesn't already
have a due date.
Yeah, that's why to-do list is really important to put
a reading as a student to do.
I found that telling students how long things take often
causes anxiety.
OK.
Brandon, that's an interesting point.
And yes, it would take more time to complete things
with dyslexia.
Marisa and I had this conversation
because I said we should put how long it takes to read this.
And she's like no, it might take someone twice as long.
So maybe thinking about putting that range
and then saying your mileage may vary
or please take into account processing
speeds or different things.
One thing I will say, Brandon, is
I try not to assign things that are going
to take longer than 15 minutes.
So hopefully that's not causing anxiety.
Hopefully that's relieving anxiety.
I'm not going to ever assign something that takes an hour.
Yes, redundancy of links is very important, Natalya.
Yes, all the time.
Just link every darn thing.
You use Canvas at Oregon Coast Community College.
Sort material by weekly modules, related discussion forums,
reading assignment due date.
Yep.
And I use text headers to say like what category
the things are in.
When I use Canvas, my announcements
were all interlinked so from email they'd to-do list.
Oh, can you do that?
JADE: Yes, absolutely.
It's an internal link in that hyper description block.
If you go to links, you can select
internal link or external link.
And then you'll get a list on the side.
And then you can just say yes, I want this to go here,
I want this to go here, I want this to go here.
My students never clicked around.
I was just like you will get-- no, this is organized well
but one of you will feel like you're lost.
So just select it all from your email.
SARA SANDERS GARDNER: Oh my gosh, that's so great.
JADE: Would you like me to grab like a instruction?
All right, I'll be right back.
SARA SANDERS GARDNER: Thank you so much, Jade.
Yay.
You've helped many people because we'll take
this back to our college too.
Not to assume how long things take students are creating
unreasonable expectations.
Right.
Don't tell us the training will take X hours
and then wonder why it took three times as long.
Yeah, true.
I agree, Natalya.
Regarding nonverbal cues, is it important to describe
what you were questioning?
Instead of "you seem really upset" say,
"when you, I think."
For clarification, I teach math.
I assume it will take my students
probably three times as long as me to complete a lesson.
Probably five to six times as long to complete homework.
Yeah, so for some of these longer assignments
I would not put up how long I think
it's going to take someone.
I'm talking about if I'm putting up like a 10-minute reading
assignment.
Thank you so much, Jade.
That is fantastic.
If I put up a 10-minute reading assignment
or a 15-minute video, I'm going to tell them
how long those things are.
But if I've got a whole long thing,
they've got to read a chapter in a book.
I'm not going to tell them how long I
think it's going to take them to read that chapter.
I'm not going to tell them how long I
think it's going to take them to do their math assignments.
I may talk to them about starting
to estimate their own speed so they can plan their time.
Kind of depends on if I'm teaching a freshman
course or later in the year.
But as a suggestion, I walk students
through creating their own task lists for the week.
Estimate time they think it will take.
Yeah, exactly.
It's 10 o'clock.
With some cues for me then assigned task blocks.
I provide blank weekly templates.
Yeah, we do that in our program.
Quizzes, exams open book with no time limit.
Yeah, that's great.
Yes.
Yeah, for sure, Andy and Jan.
When you're talking about a student who
is looking like they are having a hard time
in your class describing what you saw, for sure.
OK.
We are done with our time.
So we're going to let you go to your discussion groups.
And thank you so much for having us.
ERIC TREKELL: All right.
Thank you so much, Sara and Marisa.
Appreciate all of that.
I think we could do a whole day on this topic for sure.