Thursday October 18th, 2018, 4:30-6:00pm (Faculty Commons, N227)
*Refreshments will be served. (Thanks to the Provostâs Office 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!
Join the OpenLab Team, City Tech faculty and staff, and CUNY colleagues at our next Open Pedagogy event, where weâll be discussing remixing and sharing in open digital pedagogy. The OpenLab and other open digital environments create new opportunities for developing readily adaptable teaching materials, easily sharing and remixing content, and promoting collaboration within and across disciplines. Weâll introduce improved ways to highlight and search for open content (such as OERs) on the OpenLab and a new âshared cloningâ functionality that allows other faculty to more easily adapt OpenLab course content. Together, weâll explore benefits and uses of these developments for open teaching and learning, as well as the ethics and best practices of sharing and remixing.
Weâll consider the following questions:
What opportunities for sharing and remixing teaching materials do open digital environments like the OpenLab present?
How does this contrast with more traditional teaching environments?
What are the ethics and best practices of sharing and remixing?
As someone participating in an open digital environment, what responsibilities do you have? What responsibilities do you envision for others?
Thursday September 27th marked the first of two Open Pedagogy Events planned for Fall 2018, Open Digital Pedagogy in Gateway Courses. This event asked: how can open digital platforms like the OpenLab support and help address the challenges present in gateway courses across the disciplines? Faculty who taught gateway courses (or intro courses, which can have similar challenges) in English, Mathematics, Computer Systems Technology (CST), Business, and Biology joined us in the Faculty Commons (N227) from City Tech and other CUNY campuses.Â
A special thanks for Jonas Reitz, professor of mathematics and Director of the Opening Gateways project, and Robert Lestón, professor of English and Director of First Year Writing, who led the conversation with their experiences teaching and coordinating faculty in relation to gateway courses.
Before sharing more of the eveningâs discussion, letâs clarify what a âgateway courseâ is:
Officially speaking, gateway courses are courses recognized across CUNY campuses as required, entry-level courses for specific majors. For participating majors, students must take 3 of the defined gateway courses in order to continue with the major and take higher level courses. These gateway courses are transferable across CUNY institutions, meaning students start and finish their degrees at different campuses without fear that credits will transfer. Learn more here.
At an academic level, gateway courses are entry-level courses that introduce students to their chosen fields and disciplines and to skills deemed necessary for success in college. In a similar view, success or failure in these courses has consequences not only for the studentâs participation in the course, but for their overall college experience and outcome. This understanding prompted the eveningâs discussion.
We began with a self-reflection and discussion of: âWhat challenges do you [faculty] face when supporting student success in gateway or introductory courses? How Have you [faculty] addressed these challenges?â During the discussion portion, we discussed a number of non-discipline-specific challenges that threaten student success including:
1. The newness of college: College comes with new routines in an unfamiliar setting, a lack of knowledge of the supports and resources available and how to access them, a lack of community connections, a heightened level of academic rigor – lots of newness at once. Â
2. Institutional constraints
Space constraints at City Tech, for example, pose challenges to independent and group study among students, and faculty or faculty-student meetings and gatherings (whether academic and/or social in nature).
Class sizes for gateway and introductory courses are often overwhelming in terms of size and workload, and limiting in terms of how you can structure the course and discuss the material.
Gateway and introductory courses often have predetermined assessments that may contradict a faculty members pedagogical values and strategies for addressing student success.
Adjunct, part-time and often short-term faculty increasingly teach gateway and introductory courses. Low pay and minimal contract rights among adjunct and part-time faculty (and the stress of needing to take on other work to fill the gap) limits the support they can provide students, distances them from their departmentâs community and decisions, and may result in high turnover rates.
3. Home-life constraints: Some of our students lack access to a computer or quiet space at home. Some face time constraints due to household-supporting activities like part-time or full-time work or care work activities. In turn, these time constraints can raise questions about the value of pursuing a degree at all – in the minds of the student and/or their family.
Do you recognize these challenges in your own courses?
In laying these challenges out, we discussed which of these challenges we could and had tried to resolve, and which seemed largely out of our control. We donât, for example, have much control over the constraints posed by a studentâs home-life. However, there are steps we do or could take in supporting students and faculty in overcoming related or other challenges. Faculty attendees discussed crafting scaffolded assignments, group projects, low stakes writing assignments, using mobile-friendly digital platforms (like the OpenLab) so students could submit assignments via their phone as needed, and more.
Recognition of these challenges and more encouraged City Techâs Math Department to partner with faculty and staff at BMCC and the OpenLab to initiate the Title V grant-funded project, âOpening Gateways to Completion: Open Digital Pedagogies for Student Success in STEM. Known as Opening Gateways for short, this collaboration integrates the OpenLab with another open source software called WebWorks with the aim of helping students and faculty address (some of) the challenges posed by gateway courses. You can learn more details about the project on their OpenLab site, but in short – this integration allows students to complete individualized homework problems online and get answers and feedback right away, and to ask questions and get support from their professor and fellow students in a community discussion forum. The grant included a Faculty Professional Development component (yearly cohorts of Fellows who attend a weekly seminar) and dedicated resources to building Open Educational Resources – which might replace expensive textbooks and offer faculty more control over the curriculum.
The remainder of the evening was spent discussing how and to what extent Opening Gateways had addressed some of the challenges discussed earlier, and how similar lessons could be applied in disciplines other than mathematics.
Through the conversation, the seemed to be consensus around a few ideals –
1. Professional Development: Sharing of resources and teaching strategies; also helps with curriculum coordination, and social support and community building.
1B. Supporting Inclusion of part-time faculty: Any professional development initiatives should explicitly include resources and additional compensation for part-time faculty (who not only teach the majority of these courses, but of all courses at CUNY – conservatively estimated, part-time faculty make up 56% of all faculty at CUNY). Additionally, course resources should be readily available in an easily accessible place – see the First Year Writing site for a good example of how the OpenLab can be helpful in this endeavor. These qualities are a part of the Opening Gateways fellows program, and a Fellow, who is an adjunct and who attended the even reflected that it was nice to be treated as someone whose ideas mattered; to have an invitation to the table; to feel invested in (to paraphrase).
2. The OpenLab can help: The OpenLab is not a silver bullet – but the platform does have features that can limit barriers to student success in your gateway courses. You can make the information publicly or privately available and mobile responsive by housing resources for your course or curriculum on the OpenLab. The blogging platform can help cultivate community in the classroom by hosting public class discussions; and students can get experience with public writing. For your courses/departments, you may consider creating Open Educational Resources.
Do these strategies make sense for you?
What seemed useful or not about the Opening Gateways project?
What other strategies would you suggest?
What challenges do these strategies pose for you and how might you address them?
Join the conversation below!
All-in-all, it was a great evening! Thanks to all who attended the event for a lively conversation, and for the support from the Faculty Commons and Charlie Edwards.
Join us for 3 upcoming related events:
Workshop, Thursday 10/4 2:30 PM â 4:00 PMÂ (G604). A hands-on look at supporting student success on the OpenLab RSVP
Event, Thursday 10/18 4:30 PM â 6:00 PM (N227): A discussion about remixing and sharing in Open Digital Pedagogy
Workshop, Thursday 11/1 2:30 PM â 4:00 PM (AG-21): A hands-on look at remixing and sharing on the OpenLab RSVP
Learn more about workshops and office hours on The Open Road!
Thursday September 27th, 2018, 4:30-6:00pm (Faculty Commons, N227)
*Refreshments will be served. (Thanks to the 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!
Join the OpenLab Team, City Tech faculty and staff, and CUNY colleagues at our next Open Pedagogy event, where weâll be discussing gateway courses and open digital pedagogy. Together weâll explore how to help students be successful in introductory courses in the curriculum, looking to the successful model of City Tech and BMCCâs Title V grant-funded project, âOpening Gateways to Completion: Open Digital Pedagogies for Student Success in STEM.â While this grant focuses on math courses, we will extend the conversation to include gateway courses across the disciplines. In addition, weâll consider the challenges posed by the reality that the majority of gateway courses at City Tech are taught by contingent faculty. What kinds of support or opportunities does the OpenLab present for teaching and learning in these contexts? Attendees will share, discuss, and learn strategies for helping faculty and students succeed in these courses, and leave with a better understanding of how open digital pedagogy can scaffold studentsâ learning experiences in these courses and throughout the rest of their academic careers.
This Open Pedagogy event was already scheduled when PSC-CUNY announced the contract rally taking place at the same time. In keeping with the spirit of that event, we will incorporate discussion of labor issues related to gateway courses, including the reality that the majority of these courses (and all courses) in CUNY are taught by adjunct faculty.
Weâll consider the following questions:
What are gateway courses, and what are some of the challenges students face in them?
The majority of gateway courses at City Tech (and CUNY) are taught by contingent labor. How does adjunctification affect teaching and learning in these courses? What kind of resources can be provided to adjuncts to support their instruction in these courses?
What strategies can we share across disciplines to support students in these classes?
How can open digital pedagogy help students succeed in these gateways? How can the OpenLab enrich studentsâ college experience both academically and through community building?
This month we’re profiling Professor Jackie Blain, an adjunct lecturer in the English Department who teaches Composition (ENG 1101 and 1121), Technical Writing (ENG 2575), and Developmental Writing in the First Year Summer Program. In addition, Professor Blain taught an interdisciplinary course with the Computer Science Technology (CST) Department, and is involved in the First Year Learning Community (FYLC) program. She joined the City Tech community as a Tutor-Assistant in the Learning Center in Fall 2014, became a Consultant with the English 1101-1102 Tutoring Grant in Spring 2015, and became an Adjunct in the English Department in Fall 2015.Â
How were you introduced the platform and when/how did you begin actively using the platform to support your pedagogy?
I began using the OpenLab when I did my first FYLC class in Fall 2016 because it was recommended that we explore using it. The workshops run by the OpenLab made it easy to set up and use, and I saw that it could give me a range of student interactivity projects that I couldnât really get with Blackboard. However, to be honest, I really fumbled around at first and tried to make the OpenLab simply replace Blackboard. But as Iâve learned more about the strengths of the platform, and looked at the courses that have been spotlighted by the OpenLab Community Team, the way I use it has changed to help support my pedagogical goals, and itâs been easy to do.
Why did you decide to start using the OpenLab?
As I mentioned, the FYLC program recommended that we look at it, but Iâve long been interested in multimodal literacies and the role/use of computers in the composition classroom. I have taught online and hybrid as well as in the classroom and used a variety of LMS software over the past 15 years, and I ran a WordPress blog of my own some years ago. So the OpenLab seemed both like a shiny new tech object (which is hard for me to ignore) and a place where I could try to pull various threads of my own pedagogy together using everything I had learned about teaching online and face-to-face.
Can you describe the ways you have integrated the OpenLab into your pedagogical practices?
My own pedagogical practice is very student-centered and interactive, and while I push students to be more critically aware of their world, I also try to meet them where they are. The difficulty many of our students at City Tech have in getting time on a laptop or desktop computer shouldnât be underestimated, and the OpenLab, because it is based on a responsive WordPress template thatâs easy to use on a phone, has increased my student engagement, especially on low-stakes writing assignments. Yes, they often do them on the train, but they do them. Pedagogically, that is always my goal.
How I do this is I have students post their responses on to questions I ask about the reading on the OpenLab (often using their phones, and often do so while they’re on the train), but, again they do them. I then use those responses to build on their critical thinking skills by having them discuss in class what they wrote, first in pairs, then combined with another pair to broaden the discussion. I walk around, watching, listening, and asking questions to deepen their thinking before bringing the whole class together to ask the groups to share their biggest takeaways. The OpenLab gives these students a chance to write quickly without worrying about a grade, and over the term they become more confident in both their writing and in their ability to analyze something critically.
Overall, I have three general areas that I use OpenLab for. First, I simply house course materials including handouts and links. Two, teams post their final group projects (although this is still a work in progress for me and something I need to learn more about doing well). Finally, and most importantly, it serves as a powerful vehicle for those low-stakes writing assignments I mentioned. One additional nice thing has been that if a student has a question, I can usually say, âLook on the OpenLab,â they pull out their phones, and âOh yeah. Thanks, Professorâ as they walk away. They learn quickly.
Aside from courses, how does the OpenLab support your pedagogical practices and ambitions? (Note: Think broadly about public education initiatives, course coordination, non-academic student support, clubs, and projects, etc.)
This Fall, my students will be involved in the Our Stories Project, which I hope helps them through the difficult adjustment into college. As an adjunct of a certain age, my career ambitions are pretty modest, but I would like to pull together a research project for the Spring about the effect of First Year Learning Communities on First Year Composition using OpenLab to help gather information.
This week weâre profiling Professor Kate Poirier who teaches in the Mathematics Department. Prof. Poirier joined the City Tech community as an Assistant Professor in the Fall of 2013.
How were you introduced the platform and when/how did you begin actively using the platform to support your pedagogy?
I taught an Honors Calculus class in Spring 2014 and, since it was a small group of enthusiastic students, I thought it would be a good time to experiment with something new. The experience was so positiveâit worked for me and for the studentsâIâve never looked back.
Why did you decide to start using the OpenLab?
Iâve maintained my own course websites before and Iâve used Blackboard for communication with students, but I found both of those to be somewhat clunky, annoying to set up, and still not exactly what I wanted.
Can you describe the ways you have integrated the OpenLab into your pedagogical practices?
I use the OpenLab to communicate with students throughout the semester, but often the communication is one-way (Iâll post something and theyâll read it; maybe theyâll comment on the post). So I like to experiment with giving students assignments to submit posts of their own on the OpenLab, as well to help them understand that itâs *our* site, not *my* site.
My favorite assignment comes at the beginning of the semester. I ask students to submit a post introducing themselves to the class and to comment on each otherâs posts. I usually submit an introduction of my own as well. This has the advantage that students quickly become familiar with how easy it is to use the OpenLab and it gives us all a chance to get to know right away whoâs in the class and why theyâre taking it. Iâve found out some interesting things about my students this way!
Other assignments depend on what class Iâm teaching. Iâm teaching MAT 1275 right now. Before each test, students are posting sample exercises from the homework with their full solutions. Students can comment on these posts if they suspect thereâs an error or if they have a question about whatâs written. These posts all are categorized as âTest Reviewâ so the category serves as a crowd-sourced review sheet for the whole class. Students are submitting similar posts categorized as âTest Solutions.â What I like about these assignments is that they force the students to work together as a team to produce a usable resource and they also force the students take ownership and responsibility for their own test preparation, rather than looking to the instructor to do this for them.
How has the OpenLab transformed or expanded your pedagogy, and the pedagogical values youâre able to realize in your courses and educational practice?
I used to feel like I had to cram so much into my lecture since it was the only time I had real contact with my students (except for those who came to office hours). The casual blog format of the OpenLab especially allows for more conversations that arenât necessarily directly related to course content. At times, Iâve used the OpenLab to try to make connections between material from the course and other topics that might be useful for students even if itâs outside the required content. Itâs also helpful for sharing events around the college or even just articles  or resources Iâve come across on the internet that might be of interest the students. I taught a Math Education course recently where the conversations we had as part of the course were so stimulating, they continued on the OpenLab well after the course had ended.
All of this helps to enhance the human aspects of teaching and learning that are more about making connections and not necessarily about specific content delivery. Such connections can be harder to achieve in a traditional settingâsometimes the only opportunity is during office hours with the handful of students who happen to be there at any given timeâand Iâm grateful that the OpenLab makes it so easy to make these connections public.
Something that is new and particularly useful is the integrated âAsk for Helpâ feature in WeBWorK. WeBWorK is an open-source online homework program that many instructors in the Math Department use as part of their course. In the past, there was a button students could use to email their instructors with help with particular WeBWorK questions. This was helpful, but instructors might end up answering the same question over and over again. In MAT 1275, now, this button has been replaced with one that takes students to a page on an OpenLab site that serves as a question-and-answer forum about that particular WeBWorK problem. This connects not just the students in a class and their instructor, but *all* students in the college taking the course and *all* instructors teaching it. Students can ask and answer their own questions but they can also see the discussions surrounding the exact problem in mind. This further serves to connect students and instructors to the broader college community, which is certainly in line with the spirit of the OpenLab.
Aside from courses, how does the OpenLab support your pedagogical practices and ambitions? (Note: Think broadly about public education initiatives, course coordination, non-academic student support, clubs, and projects, etc.)
The OpenLab makes it so easy for any group that is working collaboratively. Iâve used it extensively in all my roles at City Tech for dynamic, effective, and efficient communication among collaborators. I hate using email to work on something with a team, but I love using the OpenLab.
The OpenLab also makes it so easy to collect important resources and documents into a single repository. I work closely with the math tutors in the Atrium Learning Center and have created an OpenLab site with all the resources they might need in one place. The site was so easy to set up and has worked so well, that weâre planning to put together something like it for students seeking tutoring too. One of the things that can be hard for studentsâespecially young studentsâis knowing where to look for the resources they needâindeed knowing which resources they might need. By putting these things in one predictable place and making them available to everyone, we make it easier for students to navigate college life so that they can focus more on succeeding in their programs and finding their place at CityTech.
We’re excited to share with you The Futures Initiative’s final event of the semester:
The Futures Initiative is pleased to invite you to the final event in our Thursday Dialogues series this year:
Teaching and Learning with New Majority Students: Lessons Learned from the CUNY Humanities Alliance Thursday, May 3 | 12:15 to 2:00 PM | The Graduate Center, Room C201 RSVP at bit.ly/TeachingCUNYHums
Join The Futures Initiative and the CUNY Humanities Alliance for a discussion about community college student-centered teaching and learning in the humanities and social sciences! In this roundtable discussion, Graduate Teaching Fellows will discuss their experiences and what they have learned through their participation in the program, which combines faculty mentorship, professional development workshops and resources with the opportunity to design and teach a course during three semesters at LaGuardia Community College, CUNY.
Our roundtable of speakers are all Mellon Graduate Teaching Fellows with the CUNY Humanities Alliance, and will include:
The discussion will be moderated by Kitana Ananda, Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow for the CUNY Humanities Alliance and the Futures Initiative.
The discussion will address questions such as:
What does it mean to teach the humanities at a community college? How do doctoral students translate their specialized research into their teaching of introductory and general education courses?
What kinds of connections have been forged between community college faculty, doctoral students, and undergraduates in the first two years of this program?
What are the lessons of this program so far for doctoral education and the future of the professoriate, at the Graduate Center and beyond?
Co-sponsored by the CUNY Humanities Alliance. A light lunch and refreshments will be provided.
About the program:
The CUNY Humanities Alliance is dedicated to training Ph.D. students in the most successful methods for teaching humanities courses in some of the countryâs most diverse undergraduate classrooms, while creating new opportunities and pathways for the ânew majorityâ of students in today’s community colleges. The program is a partnership between the Graduate Center and LaGuardia Community College, with the generous support of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
If you have any questions about the event, contact Kitana Ananda at kananda@gc.cuny.edu.
This week weâre profiling Professor John De Santis who teaches COMD2427 Typographic Design III in the Communication Design Department. Prof. De Santis joined the City Tech community as an adjunct professor in the Fall of 2016.
How were you introduced the platform and when/how did you begin actively using the platform to support your pedagogy?
In my first semester here, after speaking with my course leader, I took a look at the OpenLab. I attended a seminar on it and then created an OpenLab course. The site contains basic information, online resources and assignments. My current course load is multiple sections of Typography III, which focuses on advanced typographic design principles and applications for web, print and motion. In subsequent semesters the subject kept evolving and naturally expanded my OpenLab course and project content.
Why did you decide to start using the OpenLab?
It has an intuitive interface that allows for easy creation and management of dynamic course content. The OpenLab’s quick ability to share and communicate typographic topics pulled from online sources in the field directly to students was a key factor. Â The support staff was also very helpful with any questions, etc. It made it more efficient than trying to integrate Blackboard into course.
Can you describe the ways you have integrated the OpenLab into your pedagogical practices? I utilize the OpenLab in a variety of applications. My goal was to create a focal point for typographic design principles, history, creative process and current trends. Students are able to refer back to relevant information for projects, assignments, and lectures as needed during project design and production. The OpenLab also enhances the depth and accessibility of assignment/project content. âšI also incorporate it into assignment/project administration and grading outcomes. The OpenLab is part of my method of instruction, design evaluation, assessment, as well as communication.
How has the OpenLab transformed or expanded your pedagogy, and the pedagogical values youâre able to realize in your courses and educational practice?
The OpenLab enables me to incorporate time constraints and technical requirements of the real world environment in the classroom.
By requiring usage of OpenLab and specific upload protocols such as file and post naming conventions, correct categorization of posts etc, students learn how to meet specific requirements, which will be essential to their future careers in design and other fields.
The OpenLab has also assisted in developing student-critique skills and process. For example, in a weekly critique series of industry typographic work called “Type Talk”, students comment on the work posted and can interact with the other student critiques.
It gives me the ability to expand on the timeliness of relevant content and topics pulled from design industry.
I am also able to incorporate course curated multimedia content from Lynda.com, Kanopy.com, interactive learning tools, portals, social media feeds and news.
“Type Challenges” are in class typographic and creative exercises I created on the OpenLab; they enhanced instruction of the design and creative processes with time constraints including uploads to the OpenLab as final outcome.
Aside from courses, how does the OpenLab support your pedagogical practices and ambitions? (Note: Think broadly about public education initiatives, course coordination, non-academic student support, clubs, and projects, etc.) Technology usage in pedagogy is an integral part of instruction. OpenLab utilizes appropriate applications within course structure which drives and enhances learning outcomes and awareness. I have found that students get a sense of accomplishment in their course assignments when the public is given access and exposure to their work. For example one of my assigned projects, the OpenLab Brooklyn Historical Society Project, was assigned to multiple sections of Typography III.
Our colleagues at The Futures Initiative pass along an invitation for this coming Wednesday:
The Futures Initiative is pleased to invite you to attend our Spring Forum on “Publics, Politics, and Pedagogy: Remaking Higher Education for Turbulent Times” on March 28 at The CUNY Graduate Center (9:00am-6:00pm | The Skylight Room, 9100 | RSVPÂ ).
Part of our “University Worth Fighting For” series, this event is an opportunity to think through the unique intersections between interdisciplinary research, pedagogy, equity, and institutional change. We hope that you will join us for a series of roundtables and interactive workshops featuring faculty and students involved in our team-taught courses, the CUNY Undergraduate Leadership Program, and Humanities Alliance to address topics ranging from the current states and stakes of higher education to the relationship between aesthetics, politics, and citizenship.
Featured speakers include: Gilda Barabino, Claire Bishop, David Caicedo, Katherine Chen, Colette Daiute, Cathy N. Davidson, Shelly Eversley, Ofelia GarcĂa, Amita Gupta, Wendy Luttrell, Ruth Milkman, Paul RamĂrez Jonas, Rosario Torres-Guevara, and many more, including graduate and undergraduate students across CUNY. There will be a reception to follow.
Please see the attached flyer for the full program schedule. You can also find the schedule and other event details on our website. Please RSVP today and share this invitation widely with your network.
If you have any questions about this event, feel free to contact Frances Tran, Postdoctoral Fellow and Interim Associate Director of the Futures Initiative, at ftran@gc.cuny.edu.
Thursday, March 22, 2018, 5:30-7:30pm (Faculty Commons, N227)
UPDATE: In anticipation of the impending snowstorm, weâre postponing this event. Weâll work on rescheduling and will let you know when this event is back on our calendar.
*Refreshments will be served.
*Part-time City Tech faculty are eligible to receive a stipend for participation.
*Please RSVPÂ by commenting on this post. Please share this invitation with your colleagues at City Tech and beyond!
Join the OpenLab Team, City Tech faculty and staff, and CUNY colleagues at our next Open Pedagogy event, where weâll be discussing gateway courses in open digital pedagogy. Weâll be discussing how to help students be successful in introductory courses in the curriculum, looking to the successful model of City Tech and BMCCâs Title V grant-funded project, âOpening Gateways to Completion: Open Digital Pedagogies for Student Success in STEM.â While this grant focuses on math courses, we will be extending the conversation to look at other gateway courses across the disciplines. Youâll have the opportunity to learn strategies for helping your students succeed in these courses, and how open digital pedagogy can scaffold their learning experiences in these courses and the rest of their academic careers.
Weâll consider the following questions:
What are gateway courses, and what are some of the challenges students face in them?
What strategies can we share across disciplines to support students in these classes?
How does open digital pedagogy help students succeed in these courses and their majors?
On Thursday February 22, a group of faculty and staff from City Tech and CUNY more broadly gathered to discussAccessibility in Open Digital Pedagogy. Similar to our Fall 2015 event entitled, âAccessibility, Disability, and Open Digital Pedagogyâ, this conversation approached accessibility from the frame of universal design, and asked, how can we design the college and classroom experience in ways that benefit our communities as a whole? To help facilitate discussion and provide insight, we were joined by invited guest, John Currie, Director ofThe Center for Student Accessibility.
Attendees brought their own ambitions to the eveningâs discussion as well. One attendee was interested in thinking about the role of the human in mediating accessibility and disability practice in digital technology. Another was particularly interested in thinking about accessibility in relation to OERs (open educational resources): âHow âopenâ can an OER be if itâs not accessible?â, he asked. A related and unifying interest among the group was a desire to think about and address accommodations before they are needed; to plan and design our courses, classrooms and colleges with accessibility in mind from the get go.
The evening began with a free write and discussion about needs and accommodations in relation to our own learning, pedagogical practice and disciplinary standards. Specifically:
Think about your optimal working/learning environment. What strategies have you developed based on how you work/learn best?
Think about planning your courses or programs. What accommodations have you made either in general, or in response to a student self-identifying a particular need. What challenges have you faced in doing so?
Think about your discipline. What are the unique ways your discipline approaches needs and accommodations?
Thinking about how we make accommodations for ourselves and our learning â whether finding a quiet space, cutting oneself off from the internet, annotating text, and more â and how these personal accommodations differ in pursuit of similar goals, raised questions and key points that set the tone for the evening.
In thinking about making accommodations in our classrooms, one common anxiety among participants was how to create an inclusive learning environment without overcompensating for students in damaging ways. As John pointed out, the transition from high school to college is an adjustment for all students. For students with disabilities, the transition can be further complicated by both a shift in the level of accommodation they can expect from their faculty and school, and a growing need to learn to advocate for themselves and their needs on their way to full adulthood. Stunting this growth through overaccommodation or otherwise could create future challenges farther down the road.
Ultimately, a reframing of âaccommodationâ at both the individual and classroom level is needed. Oftentimes we approach accommodation as a process of making things easier for students. However, at an individual level, we should focus on meeting students where they are, helping them to understand the skills they currently have and creating pathways for them to consciously realize the skills they need to acquire going forward. This is true of all students. At a classroom level, the principles of universal design can be helpful. Universal design asks that, instead of making specific accommodations on a student-by-student basis in hindsight, you should prepare your course spaces, practices, and material with a broad understanding of capabilities in mind. John described this as approaching your planning and praxis with an expanded notion of normal; with the understanding that students are not made the same, that many have challenges even if they arenât officially recognized by The Center for Student Accessibility, and that creating multiple pathways to success is a good rule of thumb. Despite planning efforts, however, we must be open to adaptation – we must expect that things will come up and changes or additions will be made; universal design is not a one and done, but an iterative process that evolves through the course of our (pedagogical) practice.
Wondering how you can apply these principles of accessibility to your OpenLab sites?
Join us for an Accessibility-a-thon on Thursday March 8th from 1:30pm – 3:30pm in A441 (smaller library classroom). We hope to see you there! RSVP
As always, thank you to everyone who was able to join us for this event, and for your contributions to the conversation! And thank you to the Faculty Commons for your generous support of this event.
We have one more Open Pedagogy event this semester on Thursday March 22nd from 5:30pm – 7:00pm. Through this event weâll discuss open digital pedagogy in relation to our gateway courses. Stay tuned for more information!
This week weâre profiling 
This week weâre profiling 
The OpenLab has also assisted in developing student-critique skills and process. For example, in a weekly critique series of industry typographic work called “Type Talk”, students comment on the work posted and can interact with the other student critiques.
