How accessible is online education? Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, students across the globe have had to adjust to a new normal as colleges and universities rapidly transitioned from in-person instruction to online and hybrid instruction. Though many applauded the newly found flexibility of online instruction, many undergraduate students found new challenges, specifically those students with disabilities. In a recent study published in the journal CBE Life Sciences Education, researchers interviewed science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) undergraduate students with disabilities (SWDs) from large-enrollment universities about the effects of the transition to emergency remote instruction. The experiences of students with disabilities in STEM courses Disability is often overlooked in education and in STEM education in particular, even though there are legal mandates for these students to be supported. Students with disabilities makeup about 5% of STEM undergraduate programs and...

Imagine you’re a student in an introductory biology course. On an exam, your professor asks: " What is a byproduct of photosynthesis as exhibited by Figure 1.1 below? " Could you answer the question? Figure 1.1 Now imagine you are a student who has a visual impairment and you were asked the same question. Could you provide the answer then? Chances are you may not be able to answer the question based on Figure 1.1 alone. What seems like a well-written question, is actually only accessible to students who are sighted or otherwise have functional vision. For students with visual impairments, assessment questions based solely on scientific images or graphs may create a barrier in the learning process. Being web inclusive means that course content and associated materials are equitably available to all students regardless of their abilities, or type of technological device that they are using. Instead of relying only on scientific images and graphs to showcase data, you can im...

It might seem like a no-brainer , but creating inclusive courses requires putting in the time to examine the way we write and speak. After all, we don’t all have the same culturally influenced lexicon . This week the Teaching Innovation Center’s instructional designers Sarah Prosory and Lenora Ott , discussed ways our written and spoken language can be clarified to create a better course experience for learners.  Universal Design for Learning The presentation explored the Universal Design for Learning Principle 2: Language and Symbols, Checkpoint 1: Clarify Vocabulary and Symbols. Universal Design for Learning (UDL) Guidelines are based upon scientific exploration of how humans learn and take into consideration burgeoning research from the fields of education, psychology, and neuroscience. The final goal of UDL is “to change the design of the environment rather than to change the learner”. The guidelines set forth by UDL help instructors create learning environments that accomm...