Accessibility & Pedagogy at the Provost's Symposium

Thu, 27 Sep 2018 19:55:08 -0400
accessibility, blackboard-ally, disability, diversity, inclusion, instructional-technology

The 2018 Provost’s Teaching & Learning Symposium Posters on Transformative Learning Experiences for Diversity & Inclusion will happen on October 12, 2018, 11:30 a.m. – 12:15 p.m.

Two noteworthy presentations:

Making Course Content Accessible: A Blackboard Ally Pilot, Mariann Hawken (Instructional Technology) Are your Blackboard courses fully accessible? How would you know if your course materials are accessible to all students? Blackboard Ally is a tool that focuses on making digital course content more accessible. Integrated into the Blackboard system, Ally provides a robust toolkit to help remediate inaccessible content, provide alternate formats to students, and inform faculty about ways to improve accessibility of their materials. The FA2018 Ally pilot will provide participating faculty with an opportunity to evaluate the system, remediate course content for accessibility, and provide feedback support staff about Ally's future use at UMBC.

Universal Design for Instruction, Michael Canale (Office of Accessibility and Disability Services) Institutions reported enrolling approximately 1.1 million students with disabilities during the 12-month 2016-2017 academic year. An increase of 28% from the 2006-2007 12-month academic year. The types of disabilities reported by institutions are 26% learning disabilities, 24% Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), 15% Autism Spectrum Disorder, 20 % mental illness/psychological conditions, 11% Physical/health impairment, 4% sensory impairment. Only 1 in 4 will graduate with a bachelor’s degree. These numbers only reflect those students who have registered with their student disability service office. Universal Design of Instruction has been defined as: an approach to teaching that consists of the proactive design and use of inclusive instructional strategies that benefit a broad range of learners including students with disabilities. The nine Principles of UDI provide a framework for college faculty to use when designing or revising instruction to be responsive to diverse student learners and to minimize the need for “special” accommodations and retrofitted changes to the learning environment (Scott, McGuire, & Embry, 2002).

Want to stop by and learn more? RSVP through the event link below.