Scheduled at 3:00 pm in Matchless on Wednesday, November 13.
#39749Speaker(s)
- Luis Perez, Disability and Digital Inclusion Lead, CAST
- Joanna Schimizzi, , ISKME
- Melissa Elston, , Alamo Community Colleges
- Aaron Smith, , Alamo Community Colleges
Session Details
- Length of Session: 1-hr
- Format: Interactive/Discussion
- Expertise Level: Beginner
- Type of session: General Conference
Summary
This session will focus on a collaborative effort to promote Universal Design for Learning (UDL) through an Accessible OER Academy, which aims to equip faculty and staff with the skills to create and adapt Open Educational Resources (OER) that are inclusive from the outset, ensuring equitable learning experiences. The session will also feature insights from a cross-departmental team that has embraced UDL principles to transform educational materials and practices with accessible OER.
Abstract
As numerous disability scholars have noted, North American colleges and universities have too often approached disability as an issue to be addressed after the fact, with accommodations seen as a special “add-on” after design processes have already been completed. Universal Design for Learning (UDL), in contrast, focuses on proactive design to uncover and address barriers in the curriculum from the start to ensure all learners have a positive learning experience. The ability to modify resources is essential for designing with UDL principles in mind. Open Educational Resources (OER) are resources in the public domain or with a license that permits free use, reuse, modification and redistributions.
This session will explore the design of an Accessible OER Academy series provided at no-cost to faculty and staff at Institutions of Higher Education (IHE) through cohorts leveraging openly licensed resources as key levers for both adapting existing resources to increase digital accessibility and designing resources that are accessible for learners with disabilities from the start.
The National Center on Accessible Educational Materials (AEM) at CAST is a federally-funded technical assistance center that builds capacity for providing accessible materials and technologies for all learners who need them. ISKME is an education nonprofit whose mission is to make learning and knowledge sharing more participatory, equitable, and open. The AEM Center contracted with ISKME to provide targeted technical assistance to higher education institutions as part of its mandate to address accessibility across the lifespan. ISKME and National AEM Center staff will share about the intentional design of the OER Academy based on UDL principles and accessibility best practices. Participants will also hear from a cross-departmental OER program that is implementing the principles and practices covered in the OER academy as it strives to move from a “retrofit” to a UDL model.
Keypoints
- Explain the three big ideas that are foundational to the Universal Design for Learning framework.
- Use a simple mnemonic (SLIDE) to support faculty in getting started with implementation of accessibility.
- Implement strategies for securing faculty buy in and engagement to improve accessibility of OER.
Disability Areas
All Areas
Topic Areas
Faculty Development & Support, Other, Teaching about Accessibility in Curriculum, Uncategorized
Speaker Bio(s)
Luis Perez
As the Disability & Digital Inclusion Lead for CAST, Luis promotes the creation, delivery and use of high quality accessible educational materials and technologies to support equitable learning opportunities for all students. Luis is embedded with the Postsecondary and Workforce Development group at CAST that works to increase access to middle- and high-income careers for populations underrepresented in the workforce, including people with disabilities. Luis’s perspective is informed by his own lived experience as a person with a disability and multilingual learner.
Joanna Schimizzi
Joanna is a Professional Learning Specialist at ISKME, with a focus on supporting Higher Education faculty and PK-12 educators in finding, evaluating and adapting Open Education Resources (OER). Joanna supports educators in using ISKME’s OER repository, OER Commons, with a focus on adapting resources to meet the needs of all learners. Joanna’s engagement with accessibility is influenced by her continued teaching of 9-12 Biology to students with disabilities and her experiences raising a child with multiple disabilities.
Melissa Elston
Dr. M. Melissa Elston is the Coordinator of Measurement and Evaluation at Palo Alto College in San Antonio, Texas. Previously, she worked in faculty roles at PAC and Northwest Missouri State University, as well as administrative roles in several university writing centers. In addition to assessment, her professional interests include OER design and implementation, faculty development, and UD (universal design) and institutional accessibility measures. Melissa’s perspective is shaped not only by her formal academic training, but by her personal experiences as a multidisabled scholar. Her previous publications on disability can be found in Praxis: A Writing Center Journal and Victorians: A Journal of Culture and Literature.
Aaron Smith
Aaron Smith is an Adjunct Instructor in the Arts at Palo Alto College in San Antonio, Texas. During their time at PAC, Aaron has been instrumental in the transition to and creation of Open Education Resources (OER) for the college’s Art History survey courses and advocates for the creation of equitable and accessible educational programs and materials in arts education.