Realizing Students Inclusive Voice Potential Within a Blended Learning Space During Covid-19.

By Anastasia Kennett and Dr. Sean Bracken

Introduction:

In 2021, students were recruited globally to work internationally with INCLUDE (University of Worcester, England) and ICEQ (University of Ibn Zohr, Morocco) to organise and facilitate the first International Student Voice Conference in the Maghreb. Positioning students as primary creators of the conference facilitated deeper learning in event organisational planning and leadership (Fox and Kang, 2019). This poster utilises appreciative inquiry (Kadi-Hanifi et al., 2014) to discuss how the conference facilitated deeper learning using student’s voice during the Covid-19 pandemic.

International Relationships:

Working internationally meant that  students’ global citizenship was enhanced, providing the student organisers from Morocco, the US, South Africa and the UK with further skills and attributes that will benefit students in an ever increasingly global learning space. Students shared understanding for religious celebratory events and took the time to offer guidance and reassurance when needed which increased students’ sense of well-being. Furthermore, international collaboration for the conference enabled students voices to be heard from a variety of countries and institutions, ensuring the conference was inclusive of all student voices (Egron-Polak and Marmoleje, 2017).

New digital skills:

Due to Covid-19, the conference was facilitated online where students developed new digital skills that may not have been realised in the classroom (Sicilia et al. 2018). Such as creating event posters; using Microsoft Teams; Google forms, Google docs and OneDrive to organise the conference and safely store participants’ information. Furthermore, students learnt to use a specific conference platform; called Whova. Students were also able to use their voice to request support from academic staff and will be able to use these new digital skills in their future academic studies or careers.

Staff/student partnerships:

Students maintained control within the conference organisation but at times, students needed specific guidance and support in ‘breaking the glass-ceiling’ in knowledge. Staff provided immediate support to students which created a student-staff mentorship and collaborative space whereby deeper partnerships with staff members were established. This meant that students could learn valuable skills from staff partners whilst staff could also value the voices of the students and their expertise of the student cohort. Working with students in this way, could make for a valuable addition to existing student-staff partnership programs currently  undertaken in Higher Education, such as those outlined by Cook-Sather, Bovill and Felten (2014).

All-inclusive conference:

Students were also inspired to create an all-inclusive digital conference by utilising the principles of Universal Design for Learning (Cast, 2020). This ensured that the conference aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (United Nations, 2020) and meant that all students felt included during the whole conference planning process. Students’ role in facilitating a global initiative, such as inclusion, demonstrated students’ commitment to inclusive education.

Conclusion:

Positioning students in leadership roles within the planning process enabled the student voice to be heard from the conference inception to its end. Students utilised the positive support from staff to improve their knowledge and worked empathically and internationally to develop a new avenue for inclusive practice. Therefore, positioning students as conference organisers can make for a complimentary addition to other student-staff partnership programs.

References:

CAST (2020) About universal design for learning. Available at: http://www.cast.org/our-work/about-udl.html#.XtuJJ9aSlPY (Accessed: 7^th May 2021).

Cook-Sather, A., Bovill, C., & Felten, P. (2014) Engaging students as partners in learning and teaching: A guide for faculty. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Egron-Polak, E. and Marmolejo, F. (2017) ‘Higher education internationalization: adjusting to new landscapes’, in de Wit et al (eds.) The globalization of internationalization: emerging voices and perspectives, pp. 7 – 17.

Fox, D. and Kang, L. (2019) ‘Social work leadership: reflections on a student-led conference’, Social Work Education, 38(4), pp. 516 – 529. doi: 10.1080/02615479.2018.1554641

Kadi-Hanifi et al. (2014) ‘Engaging students and staff with educational development through appreciative inquiry’, Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 51(6), pp. 584 – 594. doi: 10.1080/14703297.2013.796719

Sicilia et al. (2018) ‘Digital skills training in higher education: insights about the perception of different stakeholders’, TEEM’18: Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Technological Ecosystem for Enhancing Multiculturality, pp. 781 – 787. doi: doi/10.1145/3284179.3284312

United Nations (2020) The 17 goals. Available at: THE 17 GOALS | Sustainable Development (un.org) (Accessed: 7^th May 2021).

Promoting UDL principles and strategies for inclusive learning: The Redesigning Blended Courses Project at the University of Cape Town

By: Lauren Butler,Tess Cartmill ¹, Amani Karisa ² Thomas King ¹ Judith McKenzie (Director: IDEA), Chantal Samuels ², Widad Sirkhotte ¹, Janet Small ¹ (Project leader), Nokuthula Vilakati ¹*

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Background

The context of higher education in South Africa is highly contested in the post-apartheid era. It is perceived as an arena in which historical inequality should be addressed and as a gateway into economic prosperity for its graduates. However, neither of these areas have been satisfactorily addressed as student protests in the past few years have vividly demonstrated. Teaching and learning at the University of Cape Town was disrupted due to student demands for increased access and participation through the #Rhodesmustfall and #Feesmustfall student protests. While fees and racial transformation were a major focus, the protests also campaigned for the development of the curriculum to promote social justice in the African context.

Whilst educators initially saw ERT as a temporary hold pattern with a future return to the old  normal, we now realize that teaching and learning cannot be the same, and that trying to go back would be regressive because what we had was not working for many students. The University of Cape Town’s (UCT) future vision commits our institution to curriculum revisions which include the incorporation of blended learning and educational technology in ways which provide all students with more meaningful and interactive learning experiences. We have come to realize that ERT is not sufficient to address student needs and that a considered and well-planned to blended learning is called for. As we move toward intentionally designed blended models, we see an urgent need for easy-to-apply inclusive learning design that intentionally addresses educational inequity. In this project we have adopted the approach of universal design for learning (UDL) to guide the redesign of courses for the new normal. 

The university recognizes this imperative by supporting a three year project: The promotion of inclusive digitally-enabled education through the redesign of blended courses which is funded by the national Department of Higher Education and Training. In this project, course models will be developed to provide greater flexibility and cater to a greater diversity of student learning needs by incorporating UDL principles. Intentional design will assist by emphasizing the need for a variety of learning materials and activities to cater for diverse student contexts, different learning needs (including disability), and digital literacies. Incorporating the UDL principles will  increase accessibility, and cater for a variety of contextual barriers and challenges (e.g. power outages, data costs and poor connectivity) as well as supporting student choices.

What we’re doing

Partnership approach

The project is led by the Centre for Innovation in Teaching and Learning (CILT) and draws on expertise locally and internationally through partnering with the Including Disability in Education in Africa research unit (IDEA) for assisting with the development of flexible and locally appropriate course models. IDEA is generating materials for advocacy promoting asset-based pedagogies and focusing on developing students as expert learners.

The Disability Services Unit also sits on the project committee and offers advice and resources on the accessibility considerations in technology for students with disabilities. The project aims to make use of existing resources, to develop support for teaching staff in redesigning courses and promoting the use of UDL principles in a variety of blended course designs. 

Learning from others 

Our team is tapping into the resources of CAST and  learning from existing initiatives such as the Johns Hopkins University’s ‘Hopkins Universal Design for Learning (HUDL) project’; we also work with academics from the USA who consult to the project though IDEA.

Edtech advisors 

A group of senior postgraduate students have been recruited to serve as Edtech Advisors. CILT learning designers developed and ran a customized training programme for the Edtech advisors to explore how technologies are being used in supporting teaching and learning. This training combines knowledge, practical, hands-on skills development, critique, and reflection on inclusive learning through the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework.

The Edtech Advisors will support teaching staff to create inclusive, accessible and multi-media rich learning materials and activities, based on UDL principles which are aimed at enhancing student access and inclusion.

The project includes working with the Education Development Unit in the Humanities Faculty in training their Teaching Assistants (TA). Part of their training includes looking at pedagogies of care (which focus on promoting well being) and pedagogies of discomfort (which build resilience to navigate exclusion and diversity) both key parts of creating a different learning environment in blended course redesign. Such is intended to enable both teaching staff and students to challenge dominant assumptions and beliefs in order to take action towards making a contribution towards accessible and inclusive learning spaces.  

Open webinars and customized staff training on implementing UDL in course design is being developed to accompany a range of existing and new resources.   

Pilot courses

Starting with some existing courses, such as a Disability Studies PG Diploma module, the team is piloting methods for helping with redesigning courses to maximize student inclusion through improving alignment of learning outcomes and assessments. An overarching goal is to consider the relevance of learning materials for the diversity of students in the class by introducing new tools and to intentionally allow for different forms of engagement, student outputs and assessments.

Way forward

While we are still at the early stages of the project, we have found it gratifying to see how the UDL approach is finding resonance at UCT and is now frequently referred to in curriculum discussions. Our challenge will be to build on this initial awareness and begin to integrate the flexibility and responsiveness of a UDL approach into blended learning – a challenging task that requires new ways of thinking and doing.  We invite the INCLUDE community to offer suggestions, collaborations and directions that will support us in this task.