Non-Traditional Students and Inclusive Course Design

Non-traditional students are a growing demographic that is increasing.  Traditionally we considered college students to be between 18 and 24 years old and matriculating fresh directly from high school.  However, today's college students include:

• Parents
• Caregivers
• Full-time employees
• Retirees

With at least 40% of the current undergraduate population being non-traditional (CLASP, 2015), students in the classroom now face challenges that were not considered before such as:

• Social Isolation: The age difference or life experience difference makes non-traditional students struggle. That has significant impact on their success (Wyatt, 2011)
• Interrole Conflict: with multiple roles, non-traditional students have to balance the roles with that of being a student (Markle, 2015)
• Lack of Flexibility: Class times and course work schedules often do not afford flexibility non-traditional students require (Gonclaves & Trunk, 2014)

These general concerns do not even address many other factors, such as economic or race issues, that also may impede student success when not accounted for in higher education. For these reasons inclusive class designs and practices are needed to improve our teaching success.

A fun reminder that helps is that as a college academic, if you are taking the training, you are probably feeling the same pressures as your non-traditional students. Chances are that 40% of your students are feeling the same way you are, however, many may not have the flexibility or finances you have. 

While using Universal Design for Learning will not solve all the challenges non-traditional students face, it does offer a tool to help create learning environments that afford students the flexibility that can contribute to their success. In many ways Universal Design for Learning encourages accommodating environments to coincide with preferences of adult learners, such as allowing students to direct their learning (Wlodkowski, 1993).  By offering flexible learning environments, we are helping develop a more inclusive atmosphere that will contribute to the non-traditional students’ success. This is at least a step in the right direction.

References

CLASP (2015). [Table depiction of ‘Yesterday’s Non-Traditional Student is Today’s Traditional Student’]. Center for Postsecondary and Economic Success. Retrieved from: http://www.clasp.org/resources-and-publications/publication-1/CPES-Nontraditional-students-pdf.pdf

Gonclaves, S. A., & Trunk, D. (2014). Obstacles to Success for the Nontraditional Student in Higher Education. Psi Chi Journal of Psychological Research, 19, 164-172.

Markle, G. (2015). Factors Influencing Persistence Among Nontraditional University Students. Adult Education Quarterly, 65(3), 267-285.

Wlodkowski, R. J. (1993). Enhancing adult motivation to learn: A guide to improving instruction and increasing learner achievement. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Wyatt, L. G. (2011). Nontraditional Student Engagement: Increasing Adult Student Success and Retention. The Journal of Continuing Higher Education, 59, 10-20.

Creating a Shareable Document that Demonstrates Universal Design for Learning Principles

Sometimes you want to create a document or presentation that can show your great content designs the employ principles of Universal Design for Learning and be able to share it with colleagues who may not be able to access your Learning Management System.  A PDF is a great way to do this. 

How do you accomplish this?

Word, PowerPoint, and many other Microsoft products feature the ability to save as PDF and preserve hyperlinks and other media (such as images).  If you format the documents, to include hyperlinks, they will remain active when the document is accessed via a machine with online connectivity. 

How can I do this with a web content document?  

In word, you can follow some simple steps.

1. Copy the text (and paste into a Word Document)
2. Be sure hyperlinks are included.
3. Add images (and be sure to add descriptions).
4. If you have embedded media, you can easily opt to add a screenshot of the embedded image (such as the video).  You can then add a description and a hyperlink in case the viewer chooses to select the image.
5. Use the Accessibility Checker to make sure the document is accessible.
6. Then save the file as a PDF while preserving formatting.

You should note that PowerPoint offers several similar options.

Now all you need is a little practice and you can create PDFs with hyperlinks to web-pages, as well as supplementary multimedia. You can email the files to students or colleagues. Finally, if you are emailing the content and using MS Outlook, you will have much of the same functionality as Word.  This means you could even compose the email message to include multiple representations of the content. You may notice that offering your content in more formats may increase the number of people who engage in your content. This is just an added perk of having a document to share that uses Universal Design for Learning Principles.