Let’s create something beautiful in education and not just the illusion of inclusion and engagement.
Taking part in an online course still feels somewhat special to me. I never viewed online learning as a means for almost every circumstance, but only for some selected topics. Now I come to the conclusion, that a proper desinged course does not rely heavily on just on concept. It can (and should) be adapted individually to your audience.
I had an eye-opening moment in this course, when I was told about “universal design for learning”. A simple, and hence universal, framework to structure the design of content for education is already available.
Not only provides “universal design for learning” a structure, but helps to create curricula, talks and content in general to be accessible by everybody. Simple tweaks in desgin, i.e. thinking about colour schemes to be readable by colorblind or structuring text to be executable by screen readers for visually impaired participants are easily implemented. When teaching with an “universal design”-framework and using their guidelines inclusion does not have to be a mere idea but can become reality.
This will change a lot for me and how I will tackle future projects. I am afraid to admit that this might take a while to fully comprehend the scale of aspects to cover in an inclusive, engaging and effective teaching programm.
My sincere apologies to anybody left behind by the lack of qualitiy control in my prior work. I did not know better. This means…back to the drawing board and optimizing my presentations and content.
Meta
Looking back on Topic 4 our workflow within the group shifted somewhat. Beeing now more familiar with our goals and the dynamics within the group we had more time to focus on what we found and what interested. We managed to elaborate our own interests and perspectives.
For me, personally, I discovered the underlying structure of the course and can only tip my hat and salute the organising faculty members and facilitators on delivering such a great curriculum.
Tools we used and recommended reading
Der Beitrag Reflections on Topic 4 – Universal design erschien zuerst auf ingmar-finkenzeller.de.