If asked to briefly describe a human being, most people would likely bring up common characteristics: two legs, two arms, two eyes, two ears, etc. This description lacks the true essence of humanity, though. According to the Artificial Intelligence site ChatGPT (an algorithm designed to pull from decades of human-created information and content), “A human being is a complex, sentient creature with emotions, intellect, and creativity, capable of forming relationships and altering the environment” (ChatGPT, 2024). When viewed from this perspective instead, it does not matter how many legs, arms, eyes, or ears the individual has—as long as he/she/they is a sentient creature that can form these kinds of relationships. If so, then society must acknowledge that he/she/they is a human being and therefore should be given the same opportunities, rights, and privileges that each of the rest of us has.
This
concept—that humanity resides in our capability to think rather than our
ability to use a specific part of our body in the common way—is what drives
inclusive design, and by extension, inclusively designed learning. Learning is part of the human experience, and
once a person becomes a student, it is the responsibility of the instructor to
ensure that he/she/they have access to all content presented in the course. Before taking the course “Design of
Accessible and Inclusive Digital Learning” through Arizona State University, I
understood these concepts as sort of a checklist within my day-to-day life as a
teacher. Now, they are more of a
necessity. The empathy challenges made
me realize that adding inclusive design to my content isn’t just checking a
box—it is making what I teach and what I create available to all of my
students, rather than only most of them.
During
this course we focused on making content accessible for learners in several key
areas: vision, hearing, mobility, and universal design. For vision-impaired individuals, we practiced
by creating an infographic that was accompanied by descriptive text, including
alt text for individual images. This technique
would help learners who use screen-readers because their tools could read the
description of the image to them. Since
the prompt was to take on the role of “an instructional designer at a software
development company,” I took inspiration from the fictional universe of the
Terminator and assumed the character of someone working for Cyberdyne
Systems. My infographic is shown below.
For
hearing-impaired individuals, we practiced by creating the transcript and/or
subtitles for a video included in a website for a non-profit organization. These techniques would help individuals
because it would allow them to understand information presented in an audio
format. I chose to do both strategies, and my version of the video with
subtitles included is shown below.
For
mobility-impaired individuals, we practiced by reviewing a non-profit
organization’s (mock) website for any potential accessibility pitfalls. Although we were instructed to update the
website for all accessibility issues, this included mobility-impairment
problems. To do this, I looked for areas
where it was difficult to navigate around a page using the tab or arrow keys,
or where content that could/should be linked was not, and then added in links. A screenshot of one of my web content pages
is shown below.
To
practice universal design for learning (UDL), we focused on techniques that
would make content more easily navigable to every user (regardless of ability
or impairment level). This also included
increasing engagement levels with the content, which is desirable for both
learners and instructors in all content areas.
I did this in several ways, including designing a “Knowledge Check” for
learners based on the contents of the non-profit website. A screenshot of one of the questions is shown
below.
Instructors
can also implement Culturally Responsive Teaching (occasionally referred to as
CRT, although it should not be confused with the controversial Critical Race
Theory) to support UDL. The goal of CRT
is to draw on student/learner backgrounds to provide them with multiple means
of engagement, multiple means of representation, and multiple means of action
and expression (CAST, 2018). The
GreenPath Learning Hub website that we updated for this course (first for
overall accessibility and then later for principles of UDL) could be easily
updated to integrate concepts of CRT. Working
with the concept that GreenPath is a non-profit organization located in Arizona
whose primary goals are to protect natural habitats and educate communities
about sustainability, I believe that it would be effective to add in a page
that explains how GreenPath has directly worked with specific communities in
Arizona. This will allow volunteers who
are learning on the site to feel a sense of ownership and connection toward the
goals that the organization has.
Incorporating
Culturally Responsive Teaching in the classroom is considered a “best practice”
in the field of education because it is an “existing practice that already possesses
a high level of widely agreed effectiveness” (Hargreaves et al., 2012). As a high school teacher, I’ve been exposed
to the concepts of Culturally Responsive Teaching for all of my career (and for
some time prior to it, while still in college).
The information presented in this course aligns well with what I’ve
read, learned, and practiced over the years, and strengthens my belief that it
is a foundational strategy for engaging learners in content. As I look toward
the future and perhaps one day leaving the classroom, my goal is to become a
curriculum designer. As such, the
concepts of UDL, CRT, and accessible design will become much more impactful
because I will have a chance to employ them on a much larger scale. The idea of replacing outdated textbook or
standardized testing questions is invigorating and inspiring. Until then, though, I will use these
strategies to support each student who walks into my own classroom and ensure
that he/she/they are able to reach and surpass both academic and personal
goals.
