Principle of Representation - Guideline 2 - Criterion 1
When developing a course using the first principle of Universal Design for Learning, there
are three specific guidelines to assist us.The second, Language and Symbols focuses on maintaining clarity
about the content provided.
Criterion 1 of this guideline advocates that we clarify
your terms with respect to vocabulary and symbols.
To ensure equity, defining your terms explicitly, such as in a glossary, will assist learners with differing languages, backgrounds, or lexical knowledge. Similarly, remember that idioms, archaic expressions, and slang is not shared by all and some learners benefit from having these defined (although they will seldom admit to this). Consider:
Offering
a space for professional jargon, symbols, and vocabulary that promote
connections in the learners experience and prior knowledge. For example,
you may not know that a tilde could mean an approximate number in
mathematics or is a bitwise not in the programming language C. Did you know what a bitwise not is?
Providing alternative text
descriptions for graphic symbols.
Highlight
how complex equations or terms are composed of simpler parts
Embed support references within
the text for potential terms or symbols that may impede learning
By following these suggestions, your course will assist students communicating and expressing their knowledge, as well as being in line the Principle of Representation in the Theory of Universal Design for Learning.
With lockdowns increasing and all courses going back to virtual learning
during a second wave of this pandemic, there is no better time to work on improving
your online content delivery and knowledge of instructional design. Unfortunately, most instructors are at their
wits end to find time. Luckily there are
plenty of recorded sessions that are available on various topics (from
Accessibility to Working with Groups Online). Having access of the recorded webinars (25-40 minutes) allows educators to view them on their own time.
The following presentation below has links to various webinars to help assist
educators, from beginners to experienced online teachers:
Advice:Selecting Fullscreen allows for better
viewing (see far right corner).You can also download this presentation
in PDF format.Be sure to select the
links to launch the recorded webinar.
Principle of Representation - Guideline 2 - Language & Symbols
The first principle of Universal Design for Learning, ‘provide multiple means of representation”, help promote an inclusive learning environments on many levels. When developing a course and focusing on this principle, there are three guidelines to follow. They are:
Perception
Language and Symbols
Comprehension.
We are now going to take a deeper the second guideline.
The second guideline, Language
and Symbols, focuses on maintaining clarity about the content provided. How
people interpret language or symbols can vary greatly depending on their frame
of reference.For example, a picture may
have two different meanings depending differing cultural backgrounds. When
content is provided in only one representation, inequalities may arise because
not all learners share the same frame of reference. Part of supplying multiple
representations is to clarify the content being presented. As you develop the
material be sure that you can meet the following criteria:
Clarify your terms (vocabulary and symbols).
Support decoding mathematical notation, symbols, and other text.
Promote understanding across languages.
Illustrate through multiple media
By adopting this instructional strategy, more learners benefit.
The alternative representations provided both promote accessibility as well
as add clarity and comprehensibility for all learners.
You sign into Blackboard and you discover that the menu is missing. You can only see the homepage. All your content seems to be missing.
Don't panic.
The menu is only hidden. In Blackboard, if you mouse-over the divider line separating the content
and the menu, you will see an arrow.
This hides the menu to offer more space to show the content. You can
unhide the menu, by mousing-over the side of the window and selecting the
expand arrow. In two shakes of a lamb’s
tail, the menu re-appears.
The hidden menu occasionally occurs in Windows 10, but can occur in other operating systems, and is sometimes browser dependent.
Tip: If an embedded video does not play, sometimes it requires more screen real estate for the play function to trigger. Try hiding the menu, and then try the playing the embedded video.
The three principles of UDL each address specific aspects of learning and how we process information. They are:
Representation: which focuses on recognition networks in the mind
Action and Expression: which focuses strategic network in the mind
Engagement: which focuses on affective networks in the mind
The second principle pertains to how we present information to learner. Essentially, it is about how they are learning. To ensure learning is most successful, offer a choice of multiple expression of the material to be learned.
We all differ in how we approach a learning environment and
how we express our knowledge. Often we approach learning tasks differently
depending on our experiences. We should expect these variations not only
from those with significant physiological impairments, but also from cultural
differences and those with language barriers. Simply, we all vary in how
we approach learning. While some may favor writing and not oral
presentations, others may prefer oral presentations, such as those with severe
dyslexia. Because our actions and expressions differ in our practices,
strategy, and organization, a more inclusive approach is to develop learning
environments where learners have options that can accommodate these differences
There are three guidelines to follow when focusing on the
action and expression in learning. They are:
Physical Action
Expression and Communication
Executive Function
Each of these guidelines, each with their own goals to meet, ensure students have the best chance to learn. Meeting the Principle of Action and Expression also contributes to student inclusion, as it offers a variety of ways for students to choose how they will learn. This results in overall student success and is just good practice in teaching.
Principle of Representation - Guideline 1 - Criterion 3
When developing a course using the first principle of Universal Design for Learning, there are
three specific guidelines to assist us.
The first, Perception in many ways overlaps with creating
accessible content.
Criterion 3 of this guideline advocates that we provide alternatives
to visual content.
Images,
info-graphics, and video can be a superior way to presenting content.
This is particularly true when demonstrating relationships, such as between
actions or events. A picture can state 1000 words, but not if you cannot see
it. These presentations can abandon those with visual disabilities. To
ensure equitable access, offer non-visual learners alternatives, such as:
Providing
descriptions (text, spoken,
or both) for all images, graphics, tables, and other visual content
Providing
auditory cues for key concepts
and transitions in visual information
Providing
physical models (when
possible) to convey perspective or interaction
Adding
a primacy to supplying textual representations that can easily be
converted to text-to-speech.
The malleable nature of text on the web has an advantage of permanence
and flexibility. Having Closed Captions, a transcript, or visual
description should always be included. Offering a text-to-speech
option alongside the text further benefits the
learners.
By following these suggestions, your course will assist
students communicating and expressing their knowledge, as well as being in line
the Principle of Representation in the Theory of Universal Design for Learning.
Principle of Representation - Guideline 1 - Criterion 2
When developing a course using the first principle of Universal Design for Learning, there
are three specific guidelines to assist us.
The first, Perception in many ways overlaps with creating
accessible content.
Criterion 2 of this guideline advocates that we provide alternatives to auditory information.
Sound is a very effective teaching tool, and the addition to sound to video, or text, can
accelerate learning. However, information solely conveyed with audio is not
equally accessible to all learners. This is more so with learners with
hearing disabilities. Ensure that all learners have access to information by:
Providing written transcripts of
closed captions to video or audio clips
Provide visual diagrams, charts,
and notations to sound (such as music)
Offer visual analogues, such as
symbols or images.
When no voice is to be transcribed,
offer visual/emotional description of audio, such as musical clips.
By following these suggestions, your course will assist
students communicating and expressing their knowledge, as well as being in line
the Principle of Representation in the Theory of Universal Design for Learning.
Principle of Representation - Guideline 1 - Criterion 1
When developing a course using the first principle of Universal Design for Learning, there
are three specific guidelines to assist us.
The first, Perception in many ways overlaps with creating
accessible content.
Criterion 1 of this guideline advocates that we provide options to customize the display of
information.
Digital material offers great benefits over printed material
in that it is not fixed. Accessible material allows for
customization. You may notice that browsers allow for the resizing of
text. The ePub format
is a superior option to PDFs if one has a reader, because it allows for
customization of font, color and contrast. Unfortunately you require certain
mobile devices for ePubs, and the ubiquity of PDF readers makes this a useful
format. By providing malleable content options in digital format that is
accessible, you will be increasing the clarity and salience of information for
a wide range of learners. Some of the things to consider displaying information
so that the following features are not
fixed:
The size of the text, images, graphs, or
other visual content
The contrast
Emphasis is strictly based on color
(to accommodate color blindness)
The volume or speed of the presentation
(a pause feature is helpful)
By following these suggestions, your course will assist students communicating and expressing their knowledge, as well as being in line the Principle of Representation in the Theory of Universal Design for Learning.
Let’s say you want to transfer content from someone else’s
course or use the SUNY Schenectady Course Model to help develop your
course.First you will get the file
(called a package) that you want to import.For this example, let’s pretend you want the course model, found
conveniently at: https://tinyurl.com/CourseModel.
To save this file:
Go to the URL
Select the button to download the file.
Save the ZIP file in a location you can find.
DO NOT unzip this file – just save it!
Now that you have the file, you are ready to import it.
Importing the File (Package)
Go to the course you want to content to be imported and:
Select the Packages
and Utilities option on the menu
Select Import
Package (Do NOT chose Import Course Cartridge)
Select Import
Package (the gray button that looks like a label on the bar – thanks
Blackboard for making that obvious!)
Select the file from your computer (remember
where you kept it and remember to not unzip it)
Select
All - to get everything (A common mistake is not selecting any content and
importing nothing).
Select Submit
Wait about a minute and your content will be imported.With most systems, Blackboard will mail you
when the process is complete.When it is
complete, you may notice the tool bar needs some tidying, but everything is
there.
Using the Import Package, as well as the Export Package, is
a great way to share content with fellow educators when you do not have access
to their course content in Blackboard.
(This is the first in a series on Universal Design for Learning)
Universal Design for Learning
Principle of Representation - Guideline 1 - Perception
The first principle of Universal Design for Learning, ‘provide multiple
means of representation”, help promote an inclusive learning environments on
many levels.When developing a course
and focusing on this principle, there are three guidelines to follow.
They are:
Perception:
Language and Symbols
Comprehension.
We are now going to take a deeper
look.
The first guideline, Perception,
in many ways overlaps with creating accessible content.When creating content, be sure that
interaction is flexible and does not solely depend on one sense for its
delivery.As you develop the material be
sure that you can meet the following criteria state that you should offer:
The option to customize the display of information.
Alternatives to auditory information.
Alternatives to visual content. (I picture can state a thousand words, but not if you cannot see it)
Meeting these criteria will reduce barriers to learning. Key information will be equally perceptible to all learners by:
providing the same information through different modalities, and
providing information in a format that will allow for adjustability by the user
Multiple representations not only ensure that information is accessible to learners with disabilities, but also easier to access for other learners from varying backgrounds.
You are putting together a test for your online course in
Blackboard.As you scroll down to look
at the different options after the timing options, you see “Force Completion”. If a student navigates away from a Test, and
the Force Completion option is turned on, the Test is automatically submitted
for them by the system.
This test you are creating is online, and we cannot be too
careful.This tool will ensure that
students cannot cheat, like a proctor, right?
No.
While this feature is often wrongly attributed to making
online examinations more effective by dissuading academic dishonesty, Forced
Completion creates more harm than whatever good it is intended to do.Problems with Internet providers or browsers
are more often the culprit than students attempting to abuse the testing time. On
countless occasions help desks get calls from distraught students because their
system lost the connection and their test was submitted – incomplete. Worse
still, there is nothing they can do to help. This has motivated multiple universities to recommend not using, ”Force Completion”
If your goal is to punish students who have unreliable internet,
browser, then "Force Completion" is a great tool. However there is no pedagogical value in this
and it creates serious issues of equity in your course. The unreliability of Force Completion and the
technical issues it creates makes it ineffective at what it was designed for at
best, and discriminatory at worst.
If an assessment requires forced completion to be effective, it wasn’t much of an assessment to begin with. Forced Completion offers arbitrary criteria in evaluating students and burdens support services. Effective online assessments allow students to demonstrate their mastery of the subject.
This can be done without forcing student to recite answers
in a short period of time with arbitrary punishments divvied out.The key to online learning is to focus on
constructivist techniques for learning, and not passive learning
activities.This is not to say that
online tests are not effective, but to suggest how they are used, such as a
tool to help students self-assess their understanding, is key to using test
successfully.While this can be
difficult to navigate, minimally it means that you should not use Force
Completion.
The three principles of Universal Design for Learning each address specific aspects
of learning and how we process information.
They are:
1.Representation: which focuses
on recognition networks in the mind
2.Action and Expression: which focuses
strategic network in the mind
3.Engagement: which focuses
on affective networks in the mind
The first principle pertains to how we present information
to learner. Essentially, it is about what they are learning. To ensure
learning is most successful, offer a choice of multiple presentations of the
information.
People differ in the ways that they perceive and comprehend
information. How we present it to them matters. Besides sensory disabilities,
such as blindness or deafness, and various learning disabilities, there are
several varying factors that are associated with standard accessibility that
significantly affect individual learning. A few of these factors include:
Language differences
Cultural differences
Economic differences
Each of these may require different strategies to presenting
content to ensure student success. In this way a more inclusive approach would
accommodate all of these factors to offer an equal opportunity for
understanding.
Disregarding all of these factors, other learners may simply
acquire information faster through one means of presentation instead of
another, such as excelling at visual presentations instead of textual
information. For this reason having multiple representations of content improves
student success at learning. This allows students to make connections between,
and within, the content that improves learning and the transfer of concepts.
Thus the use of multiple representations of content is vital for
everyone to learn because there is not one optimal representation
for learning and the use of multiple representations allows the students to
better comprehend the material during the learning process.
There are three guidelines to follow when focusing on the
representation as of content. They are
1.Perception
2.Language and Symbols
3.Comprehension.
Each of these guidelines, each with their own goals to meet,
ensure students have the best chance to recognize what they need to
learn. Meeting the Principle of Representation also contributes to
student inclusion, as it does not bar access to the content for any
group. This results in
overall student success and is just good practice in teaching.
It is not enough to know that inclusive environments are the key to promoting student success. We need to act on this knowledge and make the change to help every student succeed. Here are a few tips for promoting equity in your courses and help with student success:
Remember that every student is different and will have unique needs. Each should be evaluated on a case by case basis. When there is a need, offer support or resources
Create an environment in your course where every student feels welcome and heard. Encourage them to speak out against unfairness and inform you if they are facing any hardships, inside or outside of the course.
Does your school offer equity training for faculty and staff? Doing so and encouraging seminars to help resolve common barriers can go a long way. If your school lacks this – be an advocate and start it.
Students cannot focus on learning when they need food. Make sure your school is like the over 650 colleges across the nation that have a food pantry to help students in need.
Add diversity and inclusion activities, and lessons against prejudice, to the school’s curriculum.
While some of these changes will need to take place at the institutional level, if your school lacks any of these programs or policies, you can be an instrument of change. By making people aware of the importance of inclusive learning environments, we can gradually work at making the changes necessary in order to help accommodate everyone's needs in order to assist them at overcoming the barriers that impede their success. This may not be easy, but the goal is surely worth it.
With the emphasis to move more courses online and non-traditional students being the fastest growing demographic in colleges, there is no better time to learn or review the theory of Universal Design for Learning. Applying this theory will promotes diversity, provide equitable learning environments, and improve student success in the class room as well as in online courses.
The SUNY Center for Professional Development is offering training in applying universal design for learning to your courses to further inclusion design and improve pedagogical practices. In this six-week class you will directly apply Universal Design for Learning strategies that will cultivate a more inclusive and effective environment that will increase student success and retention. The course goals will include increasing the accessibility of your course content and developing scaffolds to stimulate student engagement. You will walk away with skills to benefit:
In Blackboard there are several ways to create content. An Item offers a ‘flat’ presentation of content that allows users to see the content without having to click to another page and, more frustratingly, have to click to go back the top menu.
What are the advantages of an Item?
Some advantages include:
Items can offer quick information, like module objectives or advice, that can help students
Items allow you to insert a title, descriptive text, and file attachment. This is a great way to offer instructions or supply context to the content – such as an attached file.
Items are developed with the content editor. Thus you have the same freedom as other content tools
How do I make an Item?
An Item can be created by:
Selecting Build Content
Select "Item"
You will have to add a title and will be presented a content editor. Thus it is capable of anything the editor offers, such as links or embedded video.
You can also attach a file
Select “Submit” and you have an Item.
Recommendations
Best practices for using Items include:
Items are best when short and share a brief message. More detail can be supplied in a Blank Page.
The content editor, which allows: embedding of web 2.0 tools, video, audio, images, hyperlinks and more, is a powerful tool. Tragically, this is often overlooked. Be sure to use it wisely to best meet your objectives.
Items display at the top level, and do not open like pages in Content Folders. Used correctly, they can offer insight to navigation, act as an abstract, or offer quick access to a link, video or file.
Items allow for information to be included with files. If you want to add context about an attached file or hyperlink, you can include instructions about the content you are sharing with the students with an Item. The Link and the File feature do not offer such an elegant solution.
If you have only one page for a content section on the menu, consider using an Item for easier navigation. Less clicking makes for happier students.
Warning:
As a rule, you want to be careful with the size of your Item. If your item is too long, it may distract students and make it harder to navigate the course. It is important to avoid the ‘scroll of death’ by creating long content dumps with Items. Your Items should not impede student navigation and being able to quickly review the entire course at a glance.
Follow these tips and your course can offer items that can improve your students’ success.
Knowing more about your students can go a long way in your effort to make a more inclusive environment. There are apparent areas that we can help, such as considering students physical disabilities, e.g., visual impairments. However, there are other factors that are often overlooked that may be a less obvious, but equally as deserving of attention in creating inclusive learning environments.
The following are a few factors that contribute to inequity in the classroom:
Family crisis: It is difficult to devote the attention or be able to work around inflexible schedules when a student must simultaneously address issues, such as a sick child or terminally parent.
Mental Health Issues: Anxiety or depression are just a few unseen issues that some student must overcome in addition to classwork. Likewise some content may even make students very uncomfortable, such as those dealing with PTSD. In 2016, 39% of students polled reported struggling with at least one mental illness. Mental illness is not always visible, the National College Health Association attributes it as one of the leading causes in inhibiting student success.
Lack of healthcare: In 2013 studies show that one in four students ages 18-29 do not have health insurance. This one more level of stress that can compound financial issues if the student has a health condition that requires help.
Homelessness: In the past year about one in ten of your students have experienced homelessness. As hard as that is to believe, between 9-14% of students experienced homelessness depending on what type of school they attended. Moreover, between 36-46% housing insecure. Obviously, the stress of not having a home has devastating effects on student success.
English as a Second Language: 23% of immigrants with a college degree from abroad are underemployed or unemployed and see going back to school as way to help. These students need flexibility to accommodate possible strict working schedules as well as differing needs in learning from those without college experience. They may also find our education norms, communication habits, and participation structure to be quite different from their educational experiences. You should consider this when you let them know they, ‘can nuke a hot pocket in the food pantry”.
These are often stealthy, yet sinister factors that impede many students. When developing your educational environments, try to remember to consider ways to accommodate or ameliorate these to help students who need it most. While we may not be able to fix all problems, creating a more inclusive environment can help, one student at a time.
Atchison, B., Diffey, L., Rafa, A., and Sarubbi, M. Equity in Education: Key Questions to Consider. Education Commission of the States, June, 2017, pp. 1-6.
Batalova, J., Fix, M., & Creticos, P. A. (2008). Uneven progress: The employment pathways of skilled immigrants in the United States. Washington, DC: National Center on Immigrant Integration Policy, Migration Policy Institute
Batalova, J., McHugh, M., & Morawski, M. (2014). Brain waste in the U.S. workforce: Select labor force characteristics of college-educated native-born and foreign-born adults. Washington, DC: Migration Policy Institute.
