Principle of Representation - Guideline 2 - Criterion 2

Universal Design for Learning

Principle of Representation - Guideline 2 - Criterion 2

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 2 of this guideline advocates that we support decoding mathematical notation, symbols, and other text.

Decoding words or symbols fluently takes practice, as any young musician knows as they try to read music. Some learners will need meaningful and consistent exposure to specific symbols so they can comprehend the content effectively. Lack of fluency increases their cognitive load and reduces their ability to process the information. To promote equity, provide options to reduce the barriers that decoding may raise for those not familiar with the symbols. Consider: 

• Allowing text-to-speech
• Allow for flexibility and easy access to multiple representations of notation where appropriate (formulas and word problems).
• Offer a list of terms, or hyperlinks, to clarify key terms

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 Engagement

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 third principle pertains to how we present information to learner.  Essentially, it focuses on why students are learning - what motivates them and how it does so. To ensure learning is most successful, offer a choice of multiple options for motivation. 

Learners vary greatly and they likewise differ significantly in the way that they can be engaged or motivated to learn.  With the accelerated growth of non-traditional students, this variation will not go away.  Factors contributing to the variation include:

• Background knowledge
• Culture
• Personal relevance
• Neurology
• Subjectivity

While some learners are spontaneous and creative, others may be timid or even frightened by new challenges present d to them in the course.  The latter may prefer a strict path to assist them through the content. Some learners are happy to work alone and others prefer to work with peers. When all is said and done, there is not one optimal way to engage every learner.  For this reason,

 There are three guidelines to follow when focusing on the action and expression in learning.   They are:

1. Recruiting Interest
2.  Sustaining Effort and Persistence
3. Self-Regulation

Each of these guidelines, each with their own criteria to meet, ensure students have the best chance to learn.  The goal of these who excel in these is to great expert learners who are purposeful and motivated. Meeting the Principle of Engagement also contributes to student inclusion, as it offers a variety of motivating factors to keep students engaged with the content. This will positively affect their learning and the overall student success.

Principle of Representation - Guideline 2 - Criterion 1

Universal Design for Learning

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.

Recorded Webinars - Instructional Design

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 and Symbols

(This a series on Universal Design for Learning)

Universal Design for Learning

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:

1. Perception
2. Language and Symbols
3. 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:

1. Clarify your terms (vocabulary and symbols).
2. Support decoding mathematical notation, symbols, and other text.
3. Promote understanding across languages.
4. 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.

Missing Menus in Blackboard

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 Principle of Action and Expression

The three principles of UDL 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 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:

1. Physical Action
2. Expression and Communication
3. 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

Universal Design for Learning

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

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

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.

Importing a Course File (Package) into Blackboard

 

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:

1. Go to the URL
2.  Select the button to download the file.
3. Save the ZIP file in a location you can find.
4. 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:

1. Select the Packages and Utilities option on the menu
2. Select Import Package (Do NOT chose Import Course Cartridge)
3. Select Import Package (the gray button that looks like a label on the bar – thanks Blackboard for making that obvious!)
4. Select the file from your computer (remember where you kept it and remember to not unzip it)
5. Select All - to get everything (A common mistake is not selecting any content and importing nothing).
6. 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.

 Now let’s start importing content.