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*
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.
However, the closing down of in-person teaching during the public health national lockdowns since 2020 has highlighted existing inequality on the higher education agenda even more starkly. The COVID 19 crisis, which required South African universities to respond with ‘emergency remote teaching (ERT)’, revealed the painful social inequalities around living conditions, access to devices and internet connectivity inscribing old racial and economic exclusions (Czerniewicz et al, 2020). Across the world, teachers and commentators have been highlighting the differential impact on students’ capacity to keep learning which exacerbates existing disadvantages.
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.
By Leandro Key Higuchi Yanaze, Maria da Conceição dos Santos, Cícera Aparecida Lima Malheiro,
We are delighted to present the Accessibility Portal at the University Federal of São Paulo (Unifesp) as an important tool to guide the implementation of our recently established Accessibility and Inclusion Policy. We will briefly highlight a few key elements that underlie the philosophy of our inclusion practices in higher education. We will then describe our initial implementation with reference to a group of students with disability[1].
Education: key element to promote social justice
Education is key for promoting social justice and participation for all citizens, without discrimination of any form. It is a fundamental human right and an essential condition for all individuals to fully develop their potential and effectively participate in society (UN, 2018).
Worldwide, persons with disabilities belong to a vulnerable population who experience discrimination, stigma and increased risk of social isolation.
Globally, access to higher education for many students with disabilities is only a recent possibility. Fortunately, change is underway through policy formulation and implementation aimed at this segment of society (CAIADO, 2013; TIMMERMAN; MULVIHILL, 2015; YSSEL et al, 2016; MELO; MARTINS, 2016; LINDSAY et al, 2018).
Identifying disability as a social marker of human diversity allows us to understand the process of exclusion as a complex sociohistorical phenomenon in general society and in the field of higher education.
The Disability and Development Report (UN, 2018) in its analysis of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (SDGs-UN) establishes a disability theme as transversal to the whole set of objectives and specifically to education. The Report further indicates the importance of accessibility in order for an environment to be inclusive and sensitive to the diversity of human functioning.
According to this document, available evidence shows that persons with disabilities are less likely to attend school, complete primary or secondary education and become literate, thus pointing to an urgent need to improve access to education for children and youth with disabilities. Disability puts young people at greater risk of social exclusion and poverty because of limited opportunity to participate in education and the world of work.
Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities: a new milestone
As a fruitful result of historical struggles in the political and academic arena, the Social Disability Model (OLIVER, 2013) has advanced our understanding of the complexity of disability, culminating in — among other important documents — the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CONVENTION ON THE RIGHTS …, 2006) launched by the United Nations.
This Convention constitutes a new milestone in the recognition of struggles in defence of the rights of persons with disabilities, as well as for legislators and social policymakers informing institutional actors, whether in the public or private sector, about their responsibilities when formulating policies, services, and products to ensure equal access for all citizens despite any limitations on human functioning (FOUGEYROLLAS et al., 2019).
Brazil, where we are located, is a signatory of the Convention, and even though students with disabilities have their rights to education guaranteed in several national legal documents prior to the UN Convention, routine instructional practices remain inconsistent affecting access and retention of young persons with disability in secondary and higher education (ROCHA; BRUNELLO; SOUZA, 2018; CAIADO, 2013).
The presence of students with disabilities calls out the university to review preconceptions about disability and transform curriculum and instructional practices to be as flexible as necessary to ensure the rights of education.
In Brazil, there are important legal instruments for strengthening inclusive education and special admissions quotas for minority groups such as persons with disability: National Policy from the Perspective of Inclusive Education (BRASIL, 2008), the National Student Assistance Program (PNAES), the Brazilian Inclusion Law (BRASIL, 2015) to name a few.
However, a crucial point we want to highlight about Brazilians’ civil rights of access and retention in higher education is to recognize that special education and inclusion approaches demand investments and efforts to accomplish institutional and cultural change. Without such investments, the implementation of inclusive educational practices from the perspective of human rights and diverse human functioning cannot be achieved.
To enter a federal university all candidates must take the National High School Exam (ENEM) and, according to their score, they may apply to many universities, to a graduation course of their choice. The candidate, being a person with disabilities (motor, visual, hearing, intellectual or multiple) will compete for specific vacancies, as provided for in the Law of Quotas (BRASIL, 2016) mentioned above.
Along this path, we still experience intense challenges not only in the institutionalization of policies that guarantee accessibility to students with disabilities in higher education but also in the cultural change of the university to guarantee their retention and participation in the daily life at the university and the creation of a curriculum accessible to all (MALHEIRO e SCHLÜNZEN JUNIOR, 2019).
Covid19 Pandemic: one more challenging layer for inclusion policies
The world is undergoing an intense transformation due to the Covid19 pandemic. Social isolation along with access to vaccine thus far have been effective strategies for controlling the SARS-Cov-2 virus. This pandemic has necessitated higher education institutions in Brazil to review their institutional policies and pedagogic strategies to ensure continuity in teaching and learning. At the same time, universities are challenged to respect the principles of equality and equity with regard to computer and internet access.
Recent studies have shown that the main barriers to the retention of students with disabilities in higher education refer to the lack of pedagogical and architectural access and the absence of adequate institutional support mechanisms at normative, administrative, and pedagogical levels that equally suit their specific educational needs. Another barrier is related to the unpreparedness of teaching personnel along with their lack of knowledge concerning the needs of students with disabilities (MARSHAK et al., 2010; TIMMERMAN; MULVIHILL, 2015; YSSEL et al, 2016; LINDSAY et al, 2018; MARTINS et al., 2018).
In the context of the educational inclusion paradigm, disability studies in education have presented the perspective of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) – an analytical framework – as a possibility for the process of developing structured educational environments for minimizing and eliminating barriers in schooling. for all persons, including those with disabilities (BOCK et al., 2018 p.144).
Figure 1: Brazil map, symbol of justice and accessibility icons
Federal University of São Paulo – a single Accessibility and Inclusion Policy in a multicampus University
The Federal University of São Paulo (Unifesp), originally created in 1933, in the city of São Paulo, started as a medical school, later added a nursing course. In the 1990s it became a university already having a few other courses, all related to the health professions.
In the 2000s, a new federal governmental educational policy was adopted in Brazil aiming to democratize access to a public and free higher education raising the education access to a larger number of citizens of this continental country.
In 2004 Unifesp expanded from a health professionals university to offer courses in other areas of knowledge such as human sciences. To do so, it turns into a multicampus university, moving from the city of São Paulo to other municipalities in the state of São Paulo, in the southeastern region of the country.
Unifesp currently occupies seven campuses, each having a local board linked to a central administration. Two of them are in the city of São Paulo, and the other five are distributed in the cities of Santos, Osasco, Guarulhos, Diadema and São José dos Campos.
Located in the coastal city of Santos, the Campus Baixada Santista has two institutes: The Institute of Health and Society (ISS) [2] and the Institute of the Sea (IMar)[3]. Both have undergraduate and graduate courses, with academic units located at various addresses in the city carrying out research and extensive activities to meet the demands of the population and municipality related to health, social, and environmental issues.
Figure 2: Unifesp’s campuses in the state of São Paulo, Brazil
The Accessibility and Inclusion Policy of Unifesp was recently approved by the University Council in November 2018. Thus, the Accessibility and Inclusion Center of this campus (NAI-BS) is responsible for the students at both institutes; ISS and IMAR.
As a means of achieving its goals, the policy centrally created a Technical Chamber for Accessibility and Inclusion (CTAI) linked to the central university administration, and Accessibility and Inclusion Centers (NAI) locally at each of the seven campuses.
The Central Chamber and the local Centers together with all the other administrative instances of the university constitute the Accessibility and Inclusion Network.
Thus, to work as an Accessibility Network demands that all the social actors of the university dialogue on the perspective of human rights, assuming the contemporary concept of disability stance as part of human diversity. The Unifesp’s Accessibility Network stands for the prerogative of respect for the singularities of students with disabilities in a sensitive understanding of their needs that in turn require the promotion of accessibility.
The Center of Accessibility and Inclusion of the Campus Baixada Santista
In the year of 2020, due to the COVID19 pandemic, in-person classes and administrative activities at the Unifesp on all campuses were suspended. Concerned with identifying facilitators and barriers to implement remote online teaching, the Dean of Student Affairs carried out a mapping of all Unifesp students. The goal was to determine who among students have access to digital technologies (computer, etc) and how they are able to communicate (connectivity).
The result of this mapping for the Campus Baixada Santista pointed out that of the total of 1256 students who answered the Pro-Rectory of Students Affairs questionnaire, 17 of them answered “yes” to the question “Do you have physical, hearing, visual or cognitive disabilities that would hinder your participation in remote teaching/learning? “
Based on this information, the NAI-BS compared its own records from 2016 to the present year and a new questionnaire was sent via Google forms in order to collect detailed information about barriers to remote learning and disability status, totalling 41 students
Graph 1 shows the distribution of students who declared some condition. Among them some who fit the so-called invisible disabilities (dyslexia, autism spectrum disorder, etc.), and who are the target population of special education, but were not identified by the NAI until then.
The active search through electronic questionnaires allowed the free expression of students in relation to their needs. This has revealed the importance of obtaining individual information from each student and do not rely only on the numbers already highlighted by those who enter under the quota law and are automatically identified by the occasion of the enrollment.
Graph 2, below, shows the distribution of the total number of students enrolled in the courses of the two Institutes on the Campus Baixada Santista, according to the type of admission.
From the group of students, according to the year of entry (Graph 3), the year 2020 concentrates the largest number of students, but among them only four entered by the quota law, 13 of which are self-declared.
It is worth mentioning here that of the total of 22 students enrolled by the Quota Law (Graph 1), four of them receive regular and individualized attention from the NAI-BS since the beginning related to the needs of pedagogical accessibility, doing so by intermediating the dialogue with the course coordination and conscientization of the teaching staff, namely: one student with hearing impairment, two with blindness and one with severe cardiopulmonary impairment, all of whom enrolled before year 2020.
Of the rest, nine of them have mild motor disabilities and have no special needs, and five students from the start preferred not to be identified as a student with disabilities, declaring that they do not need any specific support.
Four students, enrolled between the years 2016 and 2017 (two with mild intellectual disabilities and two with low vision) declared demands for specific support (longer exam time, regulation of classroom lights, increased font size for reading), information that was passed on directly to course coordinators.
The academic calendar of 2020 for the new students coincided with the suspension of all presential classes and any academic activities as a measure of biosafety due to the COVID19 pandemic. Regarding them, the NAI-BS provided notification to the course’s coordinators, based on that recent mapping, including the set of self-declared students, so that the coordinator himself and his faculty can gradually go on welcoming their students, even that remotely, and trigger the NAI-BS as needed.
Finally, in Graph 4, below, the distribution of the total of 41 students according to the graduation course is shown:
Social Work has the largest number of students with disabilities and/or self-declared students with special educational needs. The data of the present mapping does not allow us to make great conclusions about the option for professions, but could we ask the question if the choice of profession would be related to the very experiences of social inequalities along the schooling trajectory?
Promoting inclusion on a daily basis: advances and challenges.
It is necessary to emphasize the complexity of teamwork, too large sometimes, diverse in its views and conceptions – in positivist nature by some and in a more humanistic nature by others – about disability, human functioning, inclusion. Due to this, NAI-BS has elected some strategic actions at the macro and meso levels.
To name a few, at a micro level we adopted the accommodation principle when proposing singular solutions to a specific need of a specific student. It takes the ability to negotiate dialogically with the student, course coordinators and teachers as well as other sections involved to eliminate a disabling situation (Marshak, Raeke Ferrell & Dugan, 2010, Timmerman & Mulvihill, 2015, Yssel & Beilke, 2016, Lindsay, Cagliostro & Carafa, 2016).
We have also begun studying the framework of universal design for learning (UDL) recognizing that it is an important theoretical reference to promote inclusion, retention, and academic success of students with disabilities (Bock, Gesser & Nuernberg, 2018).
Another fruitful strategy recently started is to invest in peer support. To do so, we recently performed an online workshop with monitors (students volunteers) aiming firstly to pose an open discussion group about disabling situations in remote classes and secondly to train them how to identify digital and attitudinal barriers to pedagogic accessibility. For example: Is the closed caption tool being used in online classes? The audio description principles have been considered when producing teaching material? How to do and what are the main elements of audio description?
Unifesp Accessibility Portal
Although the portal is a webspace and includes the main features provided for a website (texts, images, animations, information), it also provides a communication channel (forum) for all stakeholders to participate in a Virtual Learning Community encouraging knowledge sharing.
The Unifesp Accessibility Portal gathers resources that have been mapped and developed and are made available on its pages and shared in the virtual learning community. Its actions provide for internal and external collaboration to contribute to the inclusion in higher education inside and outside Unifes. The portal provides visibility to the actions carried out by the Technical Chamber of Accessibility and Inclusion (CTAI) and the Unifesp Accessibility and Inclusion Centers (NAI) and it fosters inter-institutional partnerships, national and international, for the development of practical actions and research that contribute to inclusion in higher education. In this way, the established objectives are to contribute:
a) in the dissemination and sharing of actions, training experiences and resources, which aim to promote the reduction of architectural, pedagogical, attitudinal, communication and information barriers by making students, teachers, and educational administrative technicians aware of inclusive and accessibility processes and resources in Higher Education.
b) in the development of institutional actions and policies for Inclusion and Accessibility in Higher Education, committed to the educational and social transformation for the full exercise of citizenship and the strengthening of democracy and human rights.
c) in the participation, collaboration, and visibility of accessibility actions within the institution, nationally and internationally, articulating, and congregating extension projects through courses, events and services related to inclusion and accessibility, as well as promoting the development of research in the area.
Unifesp’s Accessibility Portal also aims to promote “recognition, respect for difference and appreciation of human diversity and which requires awareness, information and training for teachers, students and the entire community inside and outside the academic universe”. Thus, one of the fundamental pillars of the portal is to disseminate the culture of inclusion in higher education through teaching materials on the dimensions of accessibility, Universal Design for Learning, conditions, and disabilities. This educational role is well aligned with Sustainable Development Goal 4 (ODS4), which is scoped to “Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all” (https://sdgs.un.org/goals), because it intends to provide open educational resources through documents, e-books, articles, handouts, videos and courses available for free, open and accessible.
The portal assimilates the pillars of open education as a space that aggregates open educational resources, contributing to the dissemination of the culture of accessibility in the institution and in society. The intention is to provide such materials on inclusive education, accessibility, and issues of persons with disabilities free of charge.
Figure 3 – Course example – Course “Inclusive practices in Higher Education: area of visual impairment”
Figure 4 – E-books on various types of disabilities
Among the varieties of practices and meanings related to the Virtual Learning Community (VLC) proposed by Coll (2003 apud LIMA; GUIMARÃES 2018 p. 123), the proposal of this VLC within the scope of the Accessibility Portal corresponds to groups of persons who share spaces non-formal educational, designated under various dimensions of intentions, and involving the learning of skills and/or the development of potentialities; learning and exercising practices that enable subjects to organize themselves with community goals, aimed at solving everyday collective problems, in this case, the inclusion of students with disabilities, high skills/giftedness and autism spectrum disorder.
According to the Brazilian Inclusion Law (Law No. 13,146 / 2015) accessibility is considered the condition for using, safely and autonomously, fully or assisted, spaces, furniture and urban equipment, buildings, transport services, devices, and systems and means of communication and information used by persons with disabilities or reduced mobility (BRASIL, 2015).
The concept of accessibility has been expanded by the literature, associated with the commitment to improve the quality of life of all persons. In this process, it is believed to be essential to consider the different dimensions of accessibility, which are part of the design and structure of the Accessibility Portal:
ARCHITECTURAL ACCESSIBILITY considers the elimination of barriers in all physical environments, internal and external.
COMMUNICATIONAL ACCESSIBILITY aims to overcome obstacles in all areas of communication, considered in its different forms; spoken, written, sign, sign language, digital, among others.
METHODOLOGICAL AND CURRICULAR ACCESSIBILITY facilitates access to the syllabus offered by educational institutions, expanding teaching and learning strategies.
INSTRUMENTAL ACCESSIBILITY allows accessibility in all instruments, utensils, resources, and equipment, used in the educational institution and in the student’s daily life, using knowledge from the field of assistive technology.
PROGRAMMATIC ACCESSIBILITY contributes to professional and social training initiatives to combat prejudice, forms of discrimination and other attitudes that prevent or hinder access to resources and services offered by society, promoting the inclusion and equalization of opportunities.
ATITUDINAL ACCESSIBILITY helps to extinguish all types of prejudiced attitudes that prevent the full development of the potential of the person with disabilities.
WEB / DIGITAL ACCESSIBILITY, promoting measures so that all persons can access and use the web and digital environments with autonomy and can perceive, understand, navigate, interact and contribute to these spaces.
Final considerations
The brief experience of NAI-BS, since 2018, of implementing the Accessibility and Inclusion Policy arose from the actions developed during that period. Those experience revealed the potential and challenges of changing an institutional culture at the macro, meso and microstructural dimensions to promote inclusion in higher education for the group of students with disabilities.
As a consultative body based on the premises of inclusion, special education, and accessibility, building a team proved necessary in order to detect disabling situations and to weave a strong Accessibility Network at the university. The NAI-BS actions demanded the construction of bridges to dialogue with a diverse number of institutional actors.
We highlight as particularly important, that the university’s stakeholders must invest in all dimension of accessibility as well as promoting a sensitive cultural environment among all university personnel. It is important that a community must be able to identify specific needs of students with disabilities, not as a privilege but as the right to be respected, and avoid structural disabling situations in order to promote autonomy and empower young persons with disabilities on the rights of enjoying material and cultural goods. Interrupting the long historical path of discrimination and social exclusion of this population.
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Mini Biographies
Prof. Leandro Key Higuchi Yanaze, Ph.D.
Is adjunct professor at Unifesp (Federal University of Sao Paulo, Brazil), in the Educational Design Technology Degree Course and researcher at Communication, Design and Digital Technologies Research Group. Holds a degree in architecture and urbanism, a master’s degree in social communication interfaces and a doctorate in electronic systems. Has experience in digital communication, games, distance learning and educational technologies. Is coordinator of projects for the development of accessible educational digital games and for accessibility and collaborates with the implementation of the Unifesp Accessibility Portal.
Is Adjunct Professor in the Occupational Therapy Course at Institute of Health and Society, of Federal University of Sao Paulo (Unifesp), Baixada Santista campus. She currently coordinates the Accessibility and Inclusion Center of this campus and collaborates with the implementation of the Unifesp Accessibility Portal. She is a representative of the university, at the Committee for Accessibility and Disability of the Montevideo Association of Universities. She holds a master’s degree in Health Sciences and a PhD in Rehabilitation Sciences from the University of São Paulo. With a large clinical experience within the group of Person with Disabilities, in the adult life cycle, develops teaching and studies in the field of Rehabilitation and Inclusive Education in higher education, based on the theoretical studies of human rights, disabilities creation process and human functionality diversity.
PhD in Education, Master in Special Education and Graduation in Pedagogy. Professor at Unifesp (Federal University of Sao Paulo, Brazil). Has experience and research in the areas: Technology and Education, Accessibility, Assistive Technology, Digital Games for Education, Distance Education, Educational Design and Universal Design for Learning.
[1] All the data and references presented here belong to two papers in pre-publication (Santos M.C et al., 2020) that will be soon published in Portuguese. The main author of both these papers is also a collaborative author of this presentation at the Include Webinar and she is also the current Coordinator of the Center of Accessibility and Inclusion of the Campus Baixada Santista.
[2] The Institute of Health and Society offers undergraduate courses in the areas of Physical Education, Physiotherapy, Nutrition, Psychology, Social Work and Occupational Therapy, and master’s and doctoral courses.
[3] The Institute of the Sea offers an undergraduate course in Marine Sciences, as well as a master’s and doctorate course.
The impact of Universal Design for Learning in higher education, and the road we are on in Sweden
by Linda Plantin Ewe and Pia Haggblom,
Kristianstad University, Sweden
With a pending master’s degree in special education Pia Häggblom is a developer of widening participation at the department of Library and Higher Education Development. She also holds the title of UDL-coordinator at the University. Linda Plantin Ewe is a lecturer in the special education programs at the University. She is also a PhD student at Malmö University. Pia and Linda have extensive practical experience as in-service teachers; Pia as a secondary teacher in Swedish and English and as a SENCO, and Linda as a math- and science teacher in primary school as well as a SENCO.
Kristianstad University was among the first in Sweden to begin implementing Universal Design for Learning in higher education. My name is Pia Häggblom and I work with developing widening participation through the concept of Universal Design for Learning. During spring 2021 I give an on-line UDL-course for university teachers, Widening participation through Universal Design for Learning at the department of Library and Higher Education Development.
The task for every workshop in the course is trying to set the stage for learning and motivation and keep them motivated and engaged. In other words, I try to give them the why, the what and the how of working for widening participation at university level, and to do it through UDL. The course begins with presenting the laws and regulations we are to adhere to when talking about widening participation, and then trying to give the participants relevant examples and various roads to take, all in small steps. When they see their course with UDL-lenses, those lenses seem to stay on, as the results of my recent master thesis imply (Häggblom, 2020).
The work with UDL at Kristianstad University began when visiting an international conference in 2013. From the next year having tried teaching UDL as part of a module in the higher education development course, it later grew to be its own module in the course. Meanwhile, and starting in 2014, I gave short presentations on the UDL-workshop at regional and national conferences to learn, to get feedback on the work and to spread the idea of UDL-workshops within higher education. Locally I tried to implement the idea of UDL at the university whenever possible.
Wanting to create the basis for a course on UDL, and to find out how the concept of UDL worked in a Swedish context particularly for university teachers, I applied to do a project consisting of six workshops with 8 participants from various faculties. The idea used was that the teachers after an introduction began to analyze one part of their courses at a time using the UDL-framework. The workshops covered UDL in teaching, UDL in assessment, UDL in feedback etc. The participants were asked to first analyze one aspect of their selected course where there seemed to be room for improvement, and then they planned how to implement various guidelines. They were not asked to try out the revision of their work on students but many of them began doing so. Before the project was over several of the participants had applied to do their own UDL-projects.
The project ended and they all took part in semi-structured interviews so that I would learn more from the participants on how to move forward. With the results from the project the current course on UDL was developed. And as always, the key factor is the participants learning from each other.
After the project, the presentations grew and were sometimes given at conferences, at national authorities, and at international conferences. Learning along the way, the presentations turned into workshops every now and then for teachers and educational developers at other universities.
To further implement the idea and concept of UDL, the local higher education development publication designated one issue to accessibility, as we called widening participation at the time. The issue dealt with different aspects of widening participation, and colleagues from mainly Kristianstad University but also from other universities contributed, from librarians to faculty members. There was also an article about UDL.
The next step was to do a study to see whether UDL had any longevity with the teachers in Sweden. This resulted in a qualitative study for a master thesis where 8 university teachers were interviewed 2-3 years after they had taken part of a UDL- course. The thesis is called The impact of Universal Design for Learning in higher education. Experiences of university teachers two or three years after attending a workshop series on UDL (Häggblom, 2020).
The results imply that UDL, a few years after attending a workshop-series, still plays a part in the work of teachers in the various aspects of working toward widening participation. The four themes that were found are identified and illustrated below:
1. “UDL as a concept to strategically implement widening participation”
2. “UDL as a concept for student centered learning and student centered teaching”
3. “UDL as a concept for the processes of students learning to learn”
4. “UDL as a concept for manifesting the mindset of widening participation”
“When asked about the drawbacks of UDL the main concern was that UDL is not implemented on a large scale. Time was an issue for a couple of respondents, but then again UDL could save some time as well, as one respondent put it.” (Häggblom, 2020)
Now in spring 2021 the UDL-course is online through Zoom. An example of inspiration used is a 20-minute film where a teacher from Kristianstad University explains how she has implemented UDL in an online course. She also tells about the results that her changes have had. The grades in her course increased compared to the previous time she has given the course, and 50 % of the students who answered the survey said that the implemented UDL-aspects had had an impact or a great impact on their studies.
Within the on-line resources for higher education development, various aspects of UDL are presented for teachers to be inspired by, to learn from, and to have readily at hand. Concrete examples from colleagues are, of course, the aid most asked for. And it goes hand in hand with the current UDL-course where the participants each get to build material for the examination in the form of a 10–15-minute film. If the participants want to, their film can be a part of their educational development portfolios, and their films can be posted as examples of good practice in the on-line resources för higher education development.
How UDL will develop at our university is a work in progress. Institutions and faculties at Kristianstad University can today ask the Library and Higher Education Development department for a single workshop, a day for the institution to learn about and use UDL, a workshop series, or an academic course in widening participation through UDL. The individual teacher can also ask for consultation on widening participation and UDL.
Seeing how implementation of UDL is evolving at higher education institutions worldwide and increasingly from management level is a motivator. Research, UDL-networks, and resources through CAST.org push us to take the next step in aiding the progression towards widening participation.
The question has for some time not been whether UDL works, with its systematic approach to analyzing and developing course design for diverse student groups. Nor is the question of how to do large scale implementation, but instead how to motivate both teachers and management. Hopefully, the UDL-networks and CAST.org will increasingly share research results and good practice on large scale UDL-implementation.
UDL in the pedagogical practice
Linda’s story
UDL has been something that I have strongly believed in ever since I started working as a math and science teacher, and later SENCO, many years ago. In my work as a lecturer at Kristianstad University, I have had the opportunity to visit Harvard University and CAST to learn more. It was also here where I met Richard Jackson for the first time, and he has been such a huge inspiration for me ever since.
In my work as a lecturer, I have noticed a curiosity for the concept of UDL among the university staff, and I have similarly to Pia had the opportunity to talk about UDL among university staff on different occasions and in different program areas. This is gratifying and shows an open mind for innovation among teachers in higher education.
In addition to talking about UDL with university teachers, I have also lectured about UDL in our special education and SENCO-courses for several years. I see this as a very important opportunity for spreading the knowledge into practice. Beyond this, I have lectured in our student courses, and also I have also talked about UDL on national levels for several occasions, such as at the Special Education Day, which is annually arranged by the Special Education School Authority in Sweden. Frequent inquiries about me lecturing about UDL in various municipalities around the country also speaks its clear language; the willingness to learn and see learning partly from a different perspective is on the rise in Sweden. The interest applies not only to practicing teachers but also principals and student health teams, which is gratifying and enables organizational changes.
To make it easier for Swedish teachers to learn more about UDL, Pia and I, together with some other colleagues, have translated the UDL framework into Swedish. The translation is published on CAST’s website. We have also arranged an international UDL conference which took part in October 2020. Both international and national researchers participated as well as government agencies and in-service teachers and principals. The evaluation showed that this was much appreciated by both researchers and practicing teachers. This was gratifying because our main purpose for the conference was to build bridges between research and practice to increase the possibilities for accessible learning for all students.
A couple of years ago, together with some of my colleagues and in collaboration with the National Agency for Education, I created a module for accessible learning for Swedish teachers. The module “Accessible learning through digital tools” was based on the UDL framework and focused K-12 education. Similar work is currently being done with a focus on upper secondary school which displays that UDL as very much on the rise in Sweden.
References
Häggblom, P. (2020). The impact of Universal Design for Learning in higher education. Experiences of university teachers two or three years after attending a workshop series on UDL. Malmo University
Reflecting about practice through the lens of Universal Design for Learning principles and practices to inform learning design
Blog post by
Virna Rossi, Ravensbourne University London, United Kingdom, March 2021
Months of pandemic teaching and learning have highlighted issues of access and accessibility, which have disproportionally affected some under-served student populations. Students and teachers are experiencing the literal meaning of the word ‘distraction’, from the Latin dis (apart) + trahere (to drag): we are all being dragged apart, pulled in many different directions. Hence, intentionally designing inclusive learning experiences is crucial to support our students at this time. But we also need the students’ help to evaluate the effectiveness of our learning design.
Universal Design for Learning (UDL) helps us design more inclusive learning experiences. It is an approach to curriculum design that minimises barriers and maximises learning for all students.
The 3 UDL principles are based on 3 primary neurological networks: UDL is based on brain science. The 3 networks are: affective, recognition and strategic ‘which refer to the why, what and how’ of learning. Based on these, there are 3 UDL principles: Engagement, Representation and Action & Expression. More on this below.
UDL Core Principles
UDL should particularly be used at the start of the learning design process, to intentionally drive the process, ideally in collaboration with students. However, UDL principles and practices can also be used as a professional reflection and evaluation tool during and after the learning event. Once more, this would ideally involve the students.
A metaphor to illustrate the use of UDL principles as a tool for reflection is to see them as rear-view and side mirrors. The universal use of rear-view and side mirrors has changed the status of humans from a species only capable of perceiving the field of vision ahead, to one which can understand in a single glance two opposing visual fields. In cars, the inner rear-view mirror and the two side ones provide different angles of the same ‘scene’ behind, virtually eliminating blind spots. Each of the 3 mirrors informs the driver’s driving decisions, with very little effort, on the go.
What we see in the rear-view mirror
The 3 rear/side mirrors can be seen as the 3 UDL principles against which to gauge how inclusive our learning design is. The 3 mirrors provide 3 perspectives to evaluate our practice.
Why do we glance?
We glance at the rear and side-view mirrors to inform our driving, to avoid accidents, to check the state of the road, to situate ourselves, to change our trajectory. These are the same reasons why we should reflect ‘on’ and evaluate our teaching, in particular our learning design. This reflective and evaluative exercise provides us with a series of dynamic snapshots about our practice and the learning we are prompting.
View from the side mirror
At times there is a safety warning on the side mirrors: ‘objects in mirror are closer than they appear’. In our metaphor this also has an equivalent: some situations may need attention as a priority because we might underestimate the closeness and relative importance of some aspects of our learning design. For instance if we have dyslexic students – Have we provided judicious output choices? How well equipped are they for their upcoming assessment? What study support systems are in place?
When do we glance?
We do it while we drive. So we can reflect on and evaluate our learning design while the learning experience is happening, we can indeed make it part of the learning experience itself. The 3 UDL rear/side-mirrors can be used as a quick evaluative checkpoint, like a brief ‘glance’ while driving.
End-point course reviews are common practice, but as teachers we will not be able to action any feedback for that same cohort on that course at that point. In a way, it is like checking the rear-view mirror after a collision from behind which we could have avoided by checking earlier.
For this reason, at least one mid-term or mid-course evaluation point is much more valuable in terms of informing our practice for that cohort.
Using our metaphor, as we drive and check the scene behind, some of the vehicles behind us at times overtake us or come alongside us (with thanks to David Baume for mentioning this point in a live event). So, in our metaphor, the reflection and evaluation exercise is not of a still image, but is one of a dynamic nature because we are dealing with a moving scene, with a living learning process. It is a learning journey in the making.
How do we glance? A case study
I used UDL as the main learning design framework for our internal staff development course (PGCert) from the outset. I articulated this to the students even before the start of the course. But I also used the 3 lenses of UDL principles for mid-term review (the 3 rear/side mirrors), during one of our live lessons on the PGCert to elicit evaluative feedback comments about my PGCert course design, from the users themselves. I wanted to spark dialogue and to gain the student perspective. This was part of a 360 degree feedback approach, which invites the literature input, our own reflections and students’ views as part of a wider-angle feedback view.
The literature view
I started by discussing the theory underpinning UDL principles and guidelines, by means of this visual aid:
UDL networks, principles, and guidelines
This provided the theoretical and best practices grounding.
The students’ view
We used Ketsoto represent our reflection and evaluation. This is a hands-on learning aid and workshop tool. It has been adapted for remote teaching, with each learner sent their own pack to develop their ideas in their learning space.
Students used the reusable, moveable pieces to represent their ideas, then arranged them on the felt workspace. The white shapes were used to label the UDL principles, and ideas for each principle were developed on the 3 different colour leaves (a colour for each principle).
Students discussed their ideas in their study sets, in breakout rooms, and uploaded images of their Ketso representations onto this Padlet. The main question was: How are the 3 UDL principles evident on our PGCert course? How can UDL practices be enhanced on a PGCert?
My self-feedback
I also made a Ketso representation to highlight some of the ways I intentionally used UDL principles to drive my PGCert learning design process.
The outcomes of the exercise for me was gaining much-needed insight into how the students were experiencing UDL on the course and where to improve.
For instance, for Engagement, many mentioned that using Ketso was a very good way to be engaged in the course. For Action & Expression, some mentioned that they would welcome more ‘debates’ during the live lessons.
How do students benefit from glancing?
What are the benefits for students in using the 3 rear/side view UDL lens as a reflective and evaluative mid-course review?
Firstly, this enhances students’ meta-cognition and their ability to articulate their learning about learning.
Secondly, understanding UDL principles can equip students with ideas and vocabulary to provide more meaningful feedback on any course design, not just on the PGCert.
Thirdly, this exercise should inform immediate enhancements in course design and delivery. In our case, we discussed some of the suggested enhancements mentioned on the students’ Ketsos, and I immediately implemented needed changes.
Conclusion: adjust/clean the mirrors
The 3 UDL rear/side mirrors help us adjust our practice.
If we already are UDL champions, can we keep growing in our understanding of UDL principles and practices? Can students and colleagues suggest further ways to enhance our practice? This would be like adjusting or cleaning the mirrors so that we can better see how to evaluate our practice.
Finally: Keep calm, Keep traveling, keep checking the ‘rear-mirrors’
Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles and framework to design for learner variation through intentional curriculum development are now internationally recognized for their potential to address inclusive educational challenges. As described by McKenzie and Dalton (2020), “The [UNESCO] Global Education Monitoring report on inclusion and education promotes the UDL framework as being particularly relevant to a broad understanding of inclusive education as addressing barriers to learning, noting “the Universal Design for Learning concept encapsulates approaches to maximize accessibility and minimize barriers to learning” (p.3). The need to maximize accessibility in learning environments and minimize instructional barriers for students and teachers is realized in classrooms, schools, and universities around the world. The rapid growth of online learning, especially in this time of COVID restrictions, offers new and dynamic opportunities for collaborations in teacher education, professional development, UDL and inclusive practices. We will share the experience of one such professional learning project – a collaboration between resource professionals in the United States and educators in India and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
In the summer of 2019, during an educational visit to Mumbai, India, Dr. Elizabeth Dalton met with Dr. Sujata Bhan, on the invitation of Dr. Radhike Khanna, Executive Director of OM Creations Trust, an education and vocational training center for adults with developmental disabilities. At this meeting, UDL was identified as a shared interest for potential future professional development (PD) work together. Over the next year, several online planning meetings occurred, and the collaboration grew to include Dr. Susie Gronseth of the University of Houston, a colleague of Dr. Dalton and co-editor of their recent edited text, Universal Access Through Inclusive Instructional Design: International Perspectives on UDL (Routledge, 2020). Dr. Bhan desired expanding training for educators in India in the principles and practices of UDL. Together, these three educators developed and offered a 1-hour online webinar in July 2020 entitled “Education Through UDL”, which was an introduction to the principles of UDL, their relevance to classroom practice, and many UDL implementation resources. Interest in and response to the webinar was very high, and the three educators began to discuss potential next steps for PD in UDL for both university faculty and teachers in India. Following an earlier successful model for online professional development in UDL known as a “SOOC”, standing for short open online course (Dalton, Grant & Perez, 2017), a 10-hour Master Course on UDL was conceived, developed, and offered online in January 2021. The remainder of this blog will outline the design of this course and the outcomes to date. Data from participants continues to be gathered and analyzed.
The Master Course “UDL Implementation from Access to Build to Internalize” focused on the preparation of educators to teach both aboutUDL and to teach usingthe UDL framework. The ten-hour class was offered in four, 2½ hour sessions held via Zoom and was planned for up to 50 students, to ensure adequate opportunity for interactive participation. Ultimately, 45 participants registered and took part in the full course curriculum, which began with foundations of the inclusive instructional design framework but primarily focused on how it applied to curricular and lesson planning. Course organization focused on core UDL principles, UDL guidelines, and the progressive development of UDL implementation from Access to Build to Internalize. Students took part in practical activities, experienced examples of UDL in classrooms, and shared conversations around how UDL can be brought into a wide range of teaching settings, including primary, secondary, and higher education levels. The course emphasized inclusive education strategies, how to build courses and trainings for UDL implementation, and best UDL instructional practices. Every participant received a copy of the book Universal Access Through Inclusive Instructional Design: International Perspectives on UDL (Gronseth & Dalton, 2020), which was used as the key text for the course. This text describes programs, policies, courses, and lessons in its chapters written by educators around the world, who approach instructional design and delivery through a UDL lens and articulate how the UDL principles and the UDL framework relate to their own experiences in education. In sum, the primary goal of the master UDL course was to expand participant understanding of how to plan for instruction that effectively integrates UDL into teaching and learning.
Prior to the start of the course, participants were invited to join a WhatsApp group in which updates were shared and community building among the learners was begun. A Pre-Course Survey was distributed via email to the participants, which included closed-response items related to UDL conceptual knowledge. The survey also prompted participants to articulate goal statements about what they intended to gain through their completion of the course.
The master course was organized to include the following activities:
Presentations by Gronseth and Dalton. Slides were made available in a “Learner Materials” folder on Google Drive.
Readings from Universal Access. In each session, a chapter from the book was designated for all participants to read. Participants were also encouraged to read one additional chapter of their choosing for each session. After completing a reading, participants were asked to submit a brief reading reflection response using Google Forms in which they shared their thoughts about the readings.
Breakout and Full Group Discussions and Activities. The discussions provided opportunities for participants to discuss the UDL concepts and ideas in small group and whole group formats. The breakout group features in Zoom were utilized for small group discussion with the same assigned groups of 4-5 participants throughout the course. Scaffolds such as real-time online note-taking sheets (see Figure 1) were provided to structure conversations around areas of focus and to facilitate sharing out of small group work to the whole group.
Exit Tickets and Homework. At the conclusion of each session, brief activities were assigned. The activities prepared participants for the next session and provided formative assessment data to the instructors that was used to inform the material covered in the sessions that followed.
Overall, the master course aimed to directly engage participants in UDL practices through an array of interactive teaching, discussion, and hands-on activities, as shown in the table below.
UDL Master Course Agenda
Session
Planned Activities
1
Introduction and Workshop Goals (presentation); UDL Foundation (presentation); Barriers to Learning and Planning Lessons with UDL (presentation); Vertical Orientation of UDL (presentation); Structure of Access to Build to Internalize (presentation); Learning Activity #1: Access Considerations (breakout activity); Session Recap Exit Ticket #1: Reflect on the vertical orientation of UDL and describe a few different ways that this Access-Build-Internalize structure can help with curriculum and lesson planning (Padlet); Homework #1: Bring an example to Session 2 of Access challenge/barrier and potential solution (before and after). Read Chapter 26. (Google Form reading reflection).
2
Welcome and Sharing of Homework Access Examples (discussion); Accessible Educational Materials (presentation); Universal Access Readings (discussion); Educational and Assistive Technology Continuum (presentation); Tools and Resources for Lessons and Curriculum Planning (exploration); Learning Activity #2: Build Considerations (breakout activity); Session Recap Exit Ticket #2: Describe in text one key idea learned from Session 2 and represent this idea in another way, such as audio, drawing, symbol, video, etc. (Padlet); Homework #2: Bring an example to Session 3 of Build. Review UDL resources, tools, and lesson examples handouts. Read Chapter 37 and one additional. (Google Form reading reflection).
3
Building Capacity through UDL Apps and Materials (presentation); Learning Activity #3: Internalize Considerations (breakout activity); Instructional Planning with UDL – Tools and Strategies (Part 1) (presentation); Lesson Planning Activity #1: Reviewing and Analyzing Examples (breakout activity); Session Recap Homework #3a: Lesson Planning Activity #2: Practicing with the Tools – Select an instructional planning level to work at (lesson, unit, or course) and develop a lesson grounded in UDL (Google Form submission); Homework #3b: Read Chapter 40 (Google Form reading reflection).
4
Welcome and Overview of Session 4 (presentation); Feedback on Your UDL Lessons in Progress (presentation); Instructional Planning with UDL – Tools and Strategies (Part 2) (presentation); Internalizing Through UDL (presentation); Explanation of Lesson Planning Activity #3 as a Follow-up (presentation); Questions and Response (discussion); Community of Practice for UDL Implementation (presentation); Workshop Recap; Exit Ticket #3: Complete Post-Survey Celebration!
Data gathered prior to, during, and after the course was completed is in the process of being reviewed, organized, and analyzed. We look forward to sharing some of the outcomes from the course in the upcoming webinar to be offered through INCLUDE that focuses on this work. Webinar date: March 12 @ 9:30 am EST (14:30 GMT). Details here.
References:
Dalton, E., Grant, K. & Perez, L. (2017). Modeling Universal Design for Learning in Online Instruction An Open and Interactive Course Model: SOOC. In P. Resta & S. Smith (Eds.), Proceedings of Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education International Conference (pp. 153-158). Austin, TX, United States: Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE). Available at https://www.learntechlib.org/p/177849/.
Gronseth, S. L., & Dalton, E. M., Eds. (2020). Universal Access Through Inclusive Instructional Design: International Perspectives on UDL. New York: Routledge.
McKenzie, J.A. & Dalton, E.M., 2020, ‘Universal design for learning in inclusive education policy in South Africa’, African Journal of Disability 9(0), a776. https://doi. org/10.4102/ajod.v9i0.776
Arab countries have made considerable progress in promoting inclusive education by ratifying UN conventions on the rights of persons with disabilities, and enacting laws and reforms in line with these conventions while inspired by inclusive models from developed countries such as the US and France in the Gulf states and the Maghreb respectively (Hadidi & Al Khateeb 2015; CSEFRS, 2019).
Undeniably, remarkable development has been made in terms of government commitment and civic society engagement. However, these measures, remain largely in the realm of theory and of limited goal performance at their best. In practice, policies are far from reaching their intended goals due to a lack of clear specificity of operational guidelines and procedures of implementation. Failure to get a clear answer as to how they can be implemented leads to inefficiencies among the local implementers and the frustration of the end-users.
Of challenging significance is also the pressing need for the alignment of curricula, teacher training and development programs for inclusive education. Existing programs are mostly integration models which require the child to adapt rather than offering adaptive designs to the the needs of all children. They are also limited in their outreach. Inclusive education provisions at university are almost non-existent. The WHO estimates the prevalence rate of disability at 15% (WHO, 2012), compared to 0.96-5.07 estimate by national consensuses (ESCWA, 2018). There is a critical lack of data concerning the precise size and percentage of access to education, UN organizations reports point towards a high rate of exclusion. For instance, literacy rate among disabled persons in Oman is reported to be around 31% in Oman, which may decrease significantly depending on gender and location (rural vs. urban), being for example at 6.7% among women in Yemen (ESCWA, 2018).
Most importantly, one of the major challenges around inclusive education in the Arab region is the lack of understanding of the conceptual scope of inclusion which has been mostly associated with disability. Inclusive education means not only that all children go to school, but more importantly, it is an educational provision that adapts to respond to natural or socio-culturally constructed differences between students. According to UNESCO (2005), inclusive education is “a process of addressing and responding to the diversity of needs of all learners through increasing participation in learning, cultures and communities, and reducing exclusion from education and from within education.”
References: Hadidi & Jamal M. Al Khateeb, 2015. Special Education in Arab Countries: Current Challenges. International Journal of Disability, Development and Education. Vol. 62, No. 5, 518–530.
CSEFRS, 2019. Évaluation du modèle d’éducation des enfants en situation de handicap au maroc: vers une éducation inclusive. https://www.csefrs.ma/publications/evaluation-du-modele-deducation-des-enfants-en-situation-de-handicap-au-maroc-vers-une-education-inclusive/?lang=fr
ESCWA, 2018. Disability in the Arab Region. https://www.arabdevelopmentportal.com/sites/default/files/publication/951.disability-arab-region-2018-english_0.pdf
World Health Organization, 2012. Summary report on the first stakeholders’ meeting for developing an Arab report on disability. applications.emro.who.int/docs/IC_Meet_Rep_2013_EN_14926.pdf
UNESCO, 2005. Guidelines for inclusion. https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000140224
In India, due to COVID-19, the state declared lockdown from the mid of March, one of the biggest concerns since then has been the disruption to education. Anganwadis, schools, colleges and universities have been shut since then. March and April being the peak months of examinations, all school examinations, and entrances and recruitment exams have also been rescheduled. The latest UNESCO report on the impact of COVID-19 on education has highlighted that nearly 32 crore learners in India have been affected by this.
To combat this situation, the Government of India, in an official document mentioned that online learning is to be encouraged and educational institutions must adhere to the academic calendar through online education. To ensure continuity of receiving education in a secure and healthy contactless environment, the All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) has released a list of 41 e-learning platforms to help learners acquire knowledge and most of these platforms are providing education for free. Both schools and higher education institutions have started numerous models of online classes and sharing of study material.
These range from structured online classes through platforms like Skype, Zoom, Google Classroom, Google Hangout, Piazza to teachers uploading lectures and notes through YouTube, WhatsApp, sharing links and providing access to online journals. In addition to internet-based education platforms, the government has also devoted 32 DTH channels to telecasting high-quality educational programmes on a 24×7 basis using GSAT-15 satellite and the content have been provided by premium national institutions. Furthermore, radio stations have been established on a 24-hour basis to offer the best of educational programmes for learners enrolled in universities and colleges.
This model of imparting education is functioning well for TV channels and Radio stations however when it comes to using internet based platforms, it could have worked better if India had the digital infrastructure or the digital literacy levels to manifest and support it. Unfortunately, the country lacks in both.
To begin with the issue of infrastructure, as per the recent data from Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) in February 2020, India has over 1.15 billion wireless subscribers, of which around 660 million have access to broadband-quality internet. The definition of broadband in India is equal to or above 512kbps with regards to download speed. This means that in India, half of the population has access to a decent level of internet connection. However, this half of the population is mostly residing in cities and they have better purchasing power and access is limited in rural areas in India. Further, to conduct digital learning lessons for children enrolled in education systems; there are multiple perspectives that of the educational institutions, access to services and of the learners enrolled.
The concern from education institution’s perspective is that some institutions may have the digital infrastructure to move all their classroom procedures online, but the same cannot be presumed of most private and public universities or colleges across the nation. Now, from the perspective of students, only some students from privileged families may have access to personal computers and smartphones. Moreover, in primary schools learners are taught about the use of ICT as part of their syllabus to familiarize learners with the different functions of a computer. One flaw here is the use of computers as the unit of training, rather than smartphones. This ignores how technology penetration is happening in India, with the majority of first-time users coming online directly on smartphones and totally skipping computers. The data shows that 24% of Indians own a smartphone and only 11% of households possess any type of computer. Even the penetration of digital technologies in India appears to be haphazard and exclusionary. In addition, according to the National Sample Survey report on education 2017-18, only 24% of Indian households possess internet facility. In India, 66% of the population lives in villages, of which, only a little over 15% of rural households have access to internet services. For urban households, the proportion is 42%. This calls for an expansive IT infrastructure, as well as broadband connectivity, to make these courses possible.
Another major challenge of remote learning is the disparity in access to electricity and internet connections to devices like computers or smartphones. Access to electric supply is the basic necessity for internet connection. A nationwide survey of villages conducted by the Ministry of Rural Development in 2017-18, showed that 16% of India’s households received one to eight hours of electricity daily, 33% received 9-12 hours, and only 47% received more than 12 hours a day.
Furthermore, to learn effectively, a peaceful environment for the study is essential. While 37% of households in India have one dwelling room, to have a quiet learning space at home is a luxury for many. Also, attending online classes on a regular basis involves a cost implication too, as students have to bear the cost of internet services or subscription charges. In the current situation, wherein many people are losing jobs, many students will not be able to afford this.
Lastly, merely moving classrooms online would not lead to effective and quality learning unless one-to-one interactions among peers and teachers are taking place. Therefore, the focus should be on learning rather than coverage or expanse. There are challenges for teachers too. A large number of teachers are not adept with or have never used an online teaching-learning environment. This has posed new challenges for many teachers, who have not received adequate training on educational technology.
The Covid-19 pandemic has exposed how rooted structural imbalances are between rural and urban, rich and poor, even in the digital world. With the existing digital divide, expanding online education may lead to increase inequity in educational outcomes. Therefore, the digital divide in India needs to be addressed. For which, promoting online learning should not be seen as a short-term measure, but must be integrated into the overall education policy of the country and the State must ensure that all stakeholders in the education system are fully prepared for it.
The World Declaration on Education for All (EFA) (1990) and the high-level Unit Summit on Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) emphatically stressed the importance of meeting the educational needs for all children, youths and adults. UNESCO has been mandated to lead this global movement within the international community to reach EFA. A concerted determination to promote education “became almost synonymous with ensuring that every child is in school” noted the UNESCO in its EFA global monitoring report (2015: 41). This philosophy is reflected in Moroccan education policies and regulations which started with the 1963 royal decree making basic education from the age of 6 to 15 years old compulsory. Education budgets have since increased significantly. More recently, the 3-year National Education Emergency Support Program, which started in 2009 but terminated earlier in 2011, spend nearly 5 billion US dollars over two years. In a way, these concerted efforts in terms of spending, policy and regulations seem to have yielded the desired results in line with the EFA goal as primary school enrolment reached 99.5% in 2013 according to UNICEF 2014 report. However, according to the same UNICEF report, only 88% and 61% were enrolled for middle and secondary education respectively. In rural areas, the enrolment numbers are much lower, 69.5% in primary, 30.6% in secondary for boys and less than 21.9% for girls, which is very alarming considering that the fact that the rural population represents nearly 40% of the total population in Morocco according World Bank estimate of 2016.
International efforts undeniably led to a significant increase in school enrolment – 90.7% of primary age students worldwide were enrolled in school – and gender parity in primary enrolments rates – GPI of 0.96 has been achieved (World Bank 2012). This drive towards universal access to primary education, which was more applicable to the poorest countries rather than to more developed nations, albeit successful, has not been without setbacks in many parts of the world such as Morocco. International student achievement studies revealed low academic achievement of Moroccan students. Learning achievement scores in the TMSS 2015 were 377 and 384 out of 1000 for Grate 4 and Grade 8 respectively, ranking 47 out the 49 countries that participated in the assessment. Seventy four percent of Moroccan students did not reach even the lowest of four benchmark levels, while none at all reached the highest benchmark level in the TIMSS 2011 (World Bank 2013). Morocco also underachieved in the PIRLS 2016 International Results in Reading, scoring 358 out of 1000 for Grade 4, and ranking 48 out 50 participating countries.
Meanwhile, the international community came to realize that the scorecard of the EFA for developing countries such as Morocco has not been as expected and that focus on universal primary enrolment meant less attention on the effectiveness on teaching itself. Admittedly, education quality in Morocco remains low characterized by the poor learning outcomes and a weak integration of graduates in the labor market, concedes the World Bank (11 September, 2013). To this effect, the most recent World Bank initiative to improve global education has shifted focus from “access and kids in seats, to one where we’re now really going to focus on outcomes and results” says the World Bank’s president, Jim Yong Kim (The Guardian, Monday 18 May 2015 14.56 BST). These outcomes are measured by international student assessments such as TIMSS, PIRLS, PISA and the World Bank SABER and ECD toolkits on the basis of pre-determined educational indicators and standards.
Inclusive education in Morocco: Is it a path for a universally designed education?
Inclusive education means not only that all children go to school, but more importantly, it is an educational provision that adapts to respond to natural or socio-culturally constructed differences between students. According to UNESCO (2005), inclusive education is “a process of addressing and responding to the diversity of needs of all learners through increasing participation in learning, cultures and communities, and reducing exclusion from education and from within education.”
Inclusive education in Morocco, however, is particularly characterized by a lack of understanding of the conceptual scope of inclusion when applied to the field of education. It has been inadvertently associated with disability. To this effect, the country has passed several national legislations and ratified international agreements which guarantee the rights of special needs. As in many countries, the implementation of inclusive education in Morocco has gone through a series of conceptual changes. It started with special needs schools totally isolated education settings, then special needs classrooms within mainstream schools referred to as CLIS with the aim of providing special needs children with basic education that will then enable them to enter the regular school path, and more recently inclusive education referred to as CEI ending the isolationist approach to special education and considering the whole school an inclusive institution. This is a significant leap in policy given the unfavorable social and economic factors. In practice, the policy is far from reaching its intended goals due to a lack of clear pedagogical framework. Special needs children have been included in mainstream classrooms but have not been provided with the opportunities to succeed due to learning environments which lack the flexibility in the ways diverse learners can learn and be taught (National evaluation commission for education, training and scientific research, 2019).
Based on ample evidence from recent research worldwide (e.g. Bracken and Novak 2019), Universal Design for Learning (UDL), as an innovatively useful approach for inclusive education, can clearly inform education policies and support the development of a curriculum reference framework for inclusive education in Morocco capable of providing a favorable environment supporting diverse learning opportunities in schools as well as in HE settings for marginalized students in terms of sex, geography, and ability.
Online Learning: Is It the Solution?
For several years now, Moroccan universities have been embracing the digital age with a distinctive rise of online platforms and online training despite the fact that until today online programs, including online degrees from overseas universities, are not recognized in Morocco. Unsurprisingly, efforts to digitize education in Morocco are mostly sporadic attempts from individual lecturers to reach out to their students and keep them engaged.
With the recent pandemic shutdown of schools and universities, online education has received an incredibly increasing attention. Given the current circumstances, it has been adopted by the ministry of education as the only possible alternative to classroom learning, and hailed by the media and various stakeholders including policy makers as the way-forward. Now, setting up the course for the development and recognition of online programs in Morocco is just a matter of ‘when not if’. Despite the understandably hastened transition to online education as a result of the pandemic, it did indeed offer a way-out, the only way-out. Teachers and students are now wondering if these significant changes brought about by the pandemic are here to stay and to what degree. Logically, answering this question should depend on examining to what
extent it served and will serve its purpose in terms of learning outcomes. There is ample evidence from previous research, prior to the pandemic, showing the advantages of online education which can potentially help in providing a more favorable environment for effective teaching and learning in Morocco.
Over-crowdedness: The Standing Committee for the Governance of National Education and Training highlighted the necessity to overcome the issue of overcrowded classrooms (The High Council for Education, Training and Scientific Research 24/10/2017). Online education is a viable option to eliminate the problem of over-crowdedness and provide more favorable learning opportunities (El-Khouly, 2018:75). Allowing students to attend their courses online would mean fewer students in Moroccan packed schools and universities.
Cost:Morocco has made strong commitments to education which led to increasing education expenditures. The index of the total of the national education budget has been since 2009 at an approximately 5% average rate. (EFA National Report: Morocco, 2014). The escalating number of students increasingly represents encumbering challenges to maintain education quality and is also subsequently translated into insufficient investment in resources, teacher development and training, and learner accessibility (World Bank Report, May 30, 2019). As online education cost is far less than traditional on-campus education (Colbeck & Southworth, 2014:213) it can provide for Morocco a good opportunity to manage the available financial recourses to expand accessibility and favorable learning environments. A comparative simulation of cost in Morocco found that a face-to-face on-campus would cost three times more than a distant online course (Revue de l’etudiant marocain, 2014:4).
Learner Engagement: Lack of positive engagement has a severe impact on student retention. Drop-out rates are significantly high. Only 53% of students enrolled in middle school continue on to high school and less than 15% of first grade students are likely to graduate from high school (USAID, May 07, 2019). According to the ministry of education, only 37% of the Moroccan population aged between 18 and 22 enroll in universities, 16.5% of whom drop out in their first year and 8.1 percent drop out in the third (Ben Saga, Morocco World News, Nov 7, 2018). A survey conducted by the Observatoire National de Développement Humain in 2012 found that the major reason (31.9%) mentioned by the population surveyed for school dropouts is “child does not like the school” (World Bank Report, May 30, 2019). The flexibility of online learning offers students the freedom to choose their appropriate learning styles, at their own pace, and in the right time that does not clash with other life responsibilities. Such learning conditions, usually exclusive to online education, are likely to increase student engagement and motivation (Caravias. 2018:978).
Accessibility: According to the survey carried out by the Observatoire National de Développement Humain in 2012, the second major reason (13.6%) cited by the population surveyed for school dropouts is “the household is far from school” (World Bank Report, May 30, 2019). Geographical distance is not the only challenge to education accessibility in Morocco. Other barriers arise as a result of physical, sensory and cognitive disabilities. According to a USAID report (2016), the education system in Morocco has limited ability to provide education for all children with disability and that their vast majority do not receive any form of education. The current state of education accessibility in Morocco can benefit greatly from the implementation of online learning. Factors related to student disabilities, location for life circumstances no longer limit access to education due to e-learning (Renes, 2015).
While online education offers many possibilities for increasing accessibility, it also presents unique challenges. One of the major challenges in the context of Morocco is digital readiness of teachers and learners, the establishment and the technology provider. A large part of the teacher and student population require varying degrees of IT proficiency enhancement. Educational establishments, in their majority, lack the proper infrastructure in terms of equipment, online curricula and other online pedagogical materials. Relatively low bandwidth and weak internet can affect the quality of access, presentation and participation in online courses.
Universally designed online education: A way forward
Transitioning to a universally designed online environment implies anticipating the diverse needs of students that are likely to enroll in the course, then proceeding with its design accordingly. In this case, UDL represents the guiding framework for the design of learning environments that are accessible and effective for each learner to succeed based on scientific insights into how students learn, namely, engagement, representation, and action and expression.
Engagement: When considering this principle, we look into how teachers provide a variety of ways to motivate and engage students. The flexible nature of online courses allows for the provision of considerable options for the types of resources and diverse engaging learning opportunities to maintain focus and motivation of students.
Representation:When considering representation, we look into how teachers provide a variety of ways for students to access and interact with their course content. Unlike the limiting nature of a traditional classroom especially in terms of time constraints, an online course allows for unlimited possibilities to present key concepts in multiple ways (lectures, worksheets, videos and experiments), formats (visual, verbal and written), and reading/complexity levels (simple/easy to complex/challenging).
Action and expression: When considering action and expression, we look into how teachers provide a variety of ways for students to demonstrate their learning. Online environments empower each student by facilitating the option for her/him to choose the type of assignment and the format of submission (written, audio, video and multimedia) to demonstrate reaching the intended learning goals.
The face of higher education has changing drastically with the recent pandemic. Online learning has become a sine qua non for the design or creation of university programs. While this paradigm shift brings with it several challenges, it offers greater opportunities for better accessibility and diversity. It positions online education as a more effective force to make education in Morocco more inclusive.
Bracken, S. and Novak, K. (eds.) 2019. Transforming higher education through Universal Design for Learning. London & New York: Routledge.
Caravias, V. 2018. “Teacher Conceptions and Approaches to Blended Learning Environments”. In Online Course Management: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications. edited by Management Association, Information Resources.
Colbeck, C.L. and Southworth, M. 2014. “Which Way Toward Quality and Survival?” In S. Freeman, L. S. Hagedorn, L.F. Goodchild and D.A. Wright (eds.) Advancing Higher Education as a Field of Study. Virginia: Stylus.
CSERRS. 2019. Évaluation du modèle d’éducation des enfants en situation de handicap au maroc: vers une éducation inclusive.
El-Khouly, M.M. “Egypt” 2018. In A.S. Weber and S. Hamlaoui (eds). E-learning in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Region. Cham, Switzerland: Springer.
Studying at the university is meant to be an eye-opening and exciting experience. In order to reach this main goal, major learning obstacles must be overcome. As university students, we are overwhelmed by loads of information that we keep receiving, almost, on daily basis. Remembering and using them properly and efficiently, when needed, is of great importance to ensure success without much anxiety. By using learning strategies that work best for you, the huge amount of information begins to ease, and the learning anxiety is bound to lower down. Memory strategies, structured reviewing, guessing strategies, and affective strategies, to name a few, would help serve the desired purpose.
Linking information in a chain. One way of doing this is to use acronyms (abbreviations). Take the first letter of every word in a sentence, or a set of particular information or an important list of words, and use them as a cue to remember what interests you. For instance, FANBOYS can be used to remember the coordinating conjunctions (for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so) in a grammar course. You can invent your own acronyms for similar purposes. Creating a story. If you want to remember unrelated vocabulary items you have just been presented to, try to create a little story where you can use all those words, or place them into other contexts, such as funny sentences or conversations. By so doing, they will be much easier to memorize. Optimizing structured reviewing. Looking at new information once is not a good idea. It must be reviewed intelligently. Right after you have learned something new, you can start with a 10 minutes review, then 20 minutes later, an hour or two later, a day later, two days later, a week later. In this way, you become familiar with the presented information, and it becomes totally natural and automatic.
Strengthening guessing strategies. For instance, in order to better understand a foreign language reading passage with lots of unknown words, you can rely on the immediate context (the sentence in which it appears, and words which come before and after) to figure out the meaning of particular words instead of spending a great deal of time looking them up in the dictionary. You can also examine the wider context of the word (other sentences in the paragraph), and the structure of the word (is it a prefix, suffix, or root?). Enhancing affective strategies. In order to lower down your anxiety while listening, reading or writing new information, keep your spirit up, and keep encouraging yourself. The first step is never to engage in negative self-talk. Instead, say positive statements about yourself privately. Here are some examples: Everybody makes mistakes, I can learn from mine/ I can tell I am starting to understand this / I enjoy what I am reading about this. I get the general meaning without knowing every word. Another way to keep stress under control and move forward is by discussing your feelings about learning with your teacher or ‘better’ friend, one who is likely to boost your confidence or cheer you up in what you are doing.
Visualizing information. By using the ‘Loci method’, you think of familiar set of spatial environments, such as rooms in your house, and then imagine each item on the list to be remembered in one specific location. For example, if you want to memorize an important speech, script, or a book/chapter summary, you may mentally store the introduction of your speech from the front door of your house, symbolizing the beginning of your speech, go through the hall, turn into the living room, proceed through the dining room and into the kitchen, and so on. Each piece of furniture could also be used as a guiding location. Place each element of your speech, as an example, that you want to remember at one of the locations. When you want to remember the elements, simply visualize your house and go through it room by room in your mind. Each element that you associated with a specific location in your house should present itself as you mentally make your way through your home.
Visualizing information by using the ‘Pegword’ method. This time, use numbers instead of places when you want to remember a list of new information. First, memorize the following rhyming pegwords : “One is a bun, two is a shoe, three is a tree, four is a door, five is a hive, six is sticks, seven is heaven, eight is a gate, nine is a line, and ten is a hen.” You can then associate the visual images of the objects bun, shoe, tree, door, and so on with the words or information that you wish to memorize. When reciting the rhyme, you can remember the images of the pegwords, along with the information associated with them. If you are heading for burnout, do not hesitate to apply these learning strategies and remember to share yours.
Il s’est avéré, dans de nombreux pays de l’hémisphère sud, que les programmes et cours ne sont pas toujours accessibles à l’ensemble des apprenants, ne répondent pas suffisamment à leurs besoins et attentes et ne s’adaptent pas nécessairement à leurs différences et styles d’apprentissage. Plusieurs études et rapports internationaux (banque mondiale, 2018 ; UNESCO, 2017) ont révélé que la rigidité des curricula, la complexité des situations d’apprentissage, l’uniformité des tâches et la non attractivité des sujets à étudier, seraient à l’origine de plusieurs problèmes dont souffrent ces pays : taux d’abandon et de redoublement très inquiétants, des résultats peu satisfaisants et des formes d’exclusion enregistrées auprès des filles et des garçons en situation d’handicap. Comment la conception universelle de l’apprentissage (CUA) pourrait être utile aux pays du sud ?
Les avantages qu’apporte l’emploi systématique de la conception universelle de l’apprentissage en éducation sont de plus en plus reconnus. Les pays qui ont adopté la CUA ont enregistré une nette amélioration dans les résultats de ses apprenants et une diminution des inégalités d’accès à l’apprentissage. C’est à travers la diversification des contenus éducatifs, des objectifs pédagogiques, des méthodes, et des évaluations (CAST, 2011), que la CUA offre des opportunités à tous, permet la prise en charge des groupes de niveaux de connaissance, d’habileté variés et des styles d’apprentissage différents, y compris ceux qui ont des handicaps physiques, des déficiences sensorielles ou des troubles de communication et d’apprentissage. En s’alignant aux principes et stratégies de la CUA, les pays de l’hémisphère sud, donneront à chaque apprenant la possibilité de trouver l’accès aux compétences requises pour la réussite et l’amélioration de ses résultats. Que propose La conception universelle de l’apprentissage (CUA) pour améliorer les résultats d’apprentissage dans ces pays ? Les principes et lignes directrices de la conception universelle de l’apprentissage proposent un ensemble de stratégies visant à donner des alternatives et de flexibilité́ pour une meilleure accessibilité́ pour tous. Surmonter les obstacles. Trouver des solutions et offrir plus de simplicité nécessaire à l’optimisation des possibilités d’apprentissage. Et susciter l’intérêt, l’engagement de tout un chacun pour devenir acteur de sa réussite.
Flexibilité́ : La planification des activités doit être suffisamment flexible pour fournir de véritables occasions d’apprentissage à tous. Cette flexibilité se concrétise en utilisant une variété de stratégies d’enseignement et de matériel pédagogique pertinents, participatifs et correspondant à chaque besoin en matière d’apprentissage. Simplicité : Pour pouvoir éviter toute complication inutile et réduire au minimum les sources de distraction, les objectifs d’apprentissage doivent être partagés, les attentes sont cohérentes et réalisables ainsi que les instructions doit être claires et accessibles. Intérêt : la motivation est une condition préalable à tout apprentissage fructueux. Les tâches proposées doivent donner envie et solliciter l’intérêt des apprenants. En proposant des moyens pour une participation active et fournissant des situations variées pour soutenir les efforts et favoriser la persévérance.
La CUA serait-elle un concept étranger au contexte des pays du sud, ou difficile à appliquer et mettre en œuvre ? Ainsi présentée, la CUA ne s’éloigne guère des autres approches pédagogiques existantes dans ces pays, elle se situe à « l’intersection des initiatives » pédagogiques (Tremblay, 2015). Avec les actions et les stratégies préconisées, elle ne peut devenir ni une charge supplémentaire ni un investissement de plus, mais bien un canevas permettant de repenser l’acte d’enseigner et d’apprendre, d’économiser l’énergie et l’effort et de susciter la réussite de plus d’élèves et étudiants.
