This week we talked about accessibility in the classroom and what that means, the visibility of certain disabilities, different frameworks that help address accessibility (UDL), different accessibility tools on the web and other methods for supporting inclusivity. First I want to reflect a little bit on the class via zoom. I think zoom lectures are challenging, especially long 2 hour 50 minute lectures. It is a lot of talking and the discussions are based on to what level and how much the students want to engage. There were some times when our professor was posing discussion questions and there was little feedback which can be very challenging for both the learners and the educators. That being said, the ability to learn remotely is very appealing and something that I’m sure we will continue to use as we progress through the future of education.
We also discussed different accessibility-minded frameworks like the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and what are the the pros and cons associated with this are. I thought this discussion was very intriguing because it was very eye-opening what was said. Some of the pros of UDL are that it allows for flexible learning, it has an immediate response, and promotes maximum participation. Some of the cons that were mentioned were that it is difficult to adopt, requires assistive tools, it increases the need for support teachers, and that the curriculum might need to be completely overhauled. We talked about how implementing UDL might be a lot of work and what are the implications of that are. What is the balance of putting in lots of extra hours for students that need extra assistance. As a new teacher with no established lesson plans or unit plans, we have the perfect opportunity to incorporate this into our upcoming plans. For current teachers, I think it would be a lot of work to implement but it is absolutely important to implement in the classroom. Students that require additional resources should not feel like “extra” work as it is the educators job to appropriately address their needs. Teachers should also not feel like they have to tackle this work alone, take advantage of all the support the schools provide to ease this transition.
Finally, we touched on some of the barriers to entry and how expensive getting some diagnoses can be just to get access to the accessibility that you might need in the classroom. I was surprised to hear that it can cost up to 2-5 thousand dollars and even take multiple years before you can even get a diagnosis for a learning disability. So if you happen to be able to afford that cost, it might take multiple years before you can even get access to the bare minimum of what you need for someones education. I hope that as we progress we can continue to lower this barrier to entry both time and money wise and make the transition to incorporating UDL into the classroom making learning accessible to everyone.