Open Pedagogy Event (9/19): Access Beyond the ADA

Access Beyond the ADA

Thursday, September 19, 2019, 4:30-6:00pm (N227 Faculty Commons)

*Refreshments will be served. (Thanks to Faculty Commons for its generous support of this event!)

*Part-time faculty are eligible to receive a stipend for participation.

*Please RSVP by commenting on this post. Please share this invitation with your colleagues!

In frameworks of disability justice, the term accessibility conveys the degree to which a space, process, or concept is accessible, while access instead denotes the process by which accessibility is achieved. Join the OpenLab Team, City Tech faculty and staff, and CUNY colleagues at our next Open Pedagogy event, where we’ll be discussing different ways of thinking through access on the OpenLab and in digital pedagogy more broadly.

While the ADA governs the widespread adoption of reasonable accommodations for faculty, staff, and students in higher education, we’re curious what other forms of access are important to consider in open digital pedagogy. We’ll work to expand our understanding of “access” beyond compliance and discuss some practical skills and tools that may help augment a more inclusive pedagogy that anticipates and values difference in teaching and learning. We’ll consider the following questions:

• How can open digital pedagogy impact, augment, and enhance access?
• What are the limits of technology’s impact on access and accessibility?
• What barriers to access have you encountered as faculty and staff? What about the barriers you’ve experienced students facing? 
• What resources have helped you to improve access in your academic courses and projects?

This event is the first of two in our Fall 2019 Open Pedagogy series on access in open digital pedagogy. We’re excited to continue our conversation around how “access”–practically and conceptually–can be integrated into teaching and learning on the OpenLab.

Save the date for our upcoming Open Pedagogy event, “Access Pedagogy,” where we will discuss some strategies for implementing access into teaching materials, assignments, and student engagement on November 7, 2019 from 4:30-6:00pm in N227 Faculty Commons

Recommended Readings:

• Accessible U: Design for all people. All devices. University of Minnesota, 2019. Web.
• Dolmage, Jay (he/him/his). “Disability Studies Pedagogy, Usability and Universal Design.” DSQ 25.4, 2005. Web.
• Hamraie, Aimi (they/them/their). “Beyond Accommodation: Disability, Feminist Philosophy, and the Design of Everyday Academic Life.” philoSOPHIA 6.2: 260-272, 2016. Print.
• Segarra, Annie (she/her/hers//they/them/their). “How to Make the Internet Accessible.” Bonfire Blog, 2017. Web.

*If you’re interested in the Hamraie article above, please reach out to openlab@citytech.cuny.edu for a PDF copy

Image credit: useless-3 by rené van haeften is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.