Think UDL

Maybe It Doesn’t Need to Be a Video with Clea Mahoney

Welcome to Episode 45 of the ThinkUDL podcast: Maybe It Doesn’t Need to Be a Video with Clea Mahoney. Clea Mahoney is an instructional technologist at New York University in New York City and also a facilitator in the Online Learning Toolkit’s Camp COOL and Fall of Call. If you are interested in getting support for online teaching, you can find links to the Fall On Call program in this episode’s resources on the Think UDL.org webpage. In today’s conversation, the last of our Summer 2020 series on UDL in online environments, Clea and I talk about multiple ways of representing information in online classes. How can we customize the display of information, offer alternatives for text or auditory information, and guide information processing and visualization for our students? And if that sounds like way too much, we also discuss how to make online teaching simple and sustainable because, well, maybe it doesn’t need to be a video!

Your Humanity is an Asset: Instructional videos & Trauma-aware pedagogy with Karen Costa

Welcome to Episode 44 of the ThinkUDL podcast: Your Humanity is an Asset: Instructional Videos & Trauma-Aware Pedagogy with Karen Costa. Karen Costa is a writer and faculty development and online learning professional. Her book 99 Tips for Creating Simple and Sustainable Educational Videos came out in April of 2020, just in time to help all of us faculty who are trying to learn as much as we can about transitioning to online and hybrid formats! In this episode, part of our Summer 2020 series on UDL in online environments, Karen and I discuss what trauma-aware pedagogy is and how instructional videos can help with the effects of trauma on executive functions and self-regulation. We also talk about balancing structure and flexibility in online design and videos as conversations rather than presentations. In addition, Karen explains the Community of Inquiry (CoI) model of learning which focuses on teaching presence, social presence and cognitive presence and how videos help with each of these presences, along with creating an emotional presence as well. It is such a pleasure to have this chance to speak with Karen and learn from her insights into both trauma-aware pedagogy and how and why making instructional videos can improve any course!

UDL can Save Us All This Fall with Judith Dutill

Welcome to Episode 43 of the ThinkUDL podcast: UDL Can Save Us All This Fall with Judith Dutill. Judith is an online educator and the co-founder of the Online Learning Toolkit. She brings a wealth of knowledge about Universal Design for Learning principles to all of her faculty development endeavors. In this episode, which is part of a Summer 2020 series on Universal Design for Learning in online environments, we talk about how to give space to our students and perhaps give up some control this coming semester, and how to keep our students excited about learning in this new environment. In addition, we discuss the importance of NOT putting technology first, even in online courses, and we delve into a few pivotal questions instructors should ask of themselves and of their students and why we shouldn’t be afraid of the question “why.” I was fortunate to partake in one of the Online Learning Toolkit’s programs this summer where I was able to virtually meet Judith. Camp COOL, or Camp Operation Online Learning, with over 100 other instructors across the country and world, not only helped all of us to design online courses for the coming fall semester, but created a wonderful community while doing so. The Online Learning Toolkit also offers a “Fall On Call” option to support faculty over the course of the fall 2020 semester and you can find more information on that in our resource section. You will also see a self-paced course called DRIVE on the resources for a self-paced version to get your courses on-line ready!

Whole-Student Learning Online with Michelle Pacansky-Brock

Welcome to Episode 42 of the ThinkUDL podcast: Whole-Student Learning Online with Michelle Pacansky-Brock. In this episode, which is part of a Summer 2020 series on Universal Design for Learning in online environments, Michelle discusses the importance of the affective domain in online learning, how to create community and humanize your course from the beginning, the merits of totally asynchronous online learning environments, liquid syllabi, and the use of VoiceThread and asynchronous tools for equitable participation in an online course. 

Dr. Michelle Pacansky-Brock, also known on Twitter as @Brocansky, is a noted leader in higher education with expertise in online teaching, course design, and faculty development. Her work has helped online instructors worldwide understand how to craft relevant, humanized online learning experiences that support the diverse needs of college students.  She is the author of Best Practices for Teaching with Emerging Technologies and has received national recognition for her excellence in teaching and faculty development from the Online Learning Consortium (OLC).

Currently, Michelle is Faculty Mentor for Online Teaching and Learning with the California Community Colleges’ California Virtual Campus-Online Education Initiative (CVC-OEI). She is a generous and prolific scholar who shares her love of teaching, innovative skills, and ground-breaking ideas liberally with the scholarly community and I am so thankful to have the opportunity to talk with her in this episode!

An Online Pedagogy of Kindness with Cate Denial

Welcome to Episode 41 of the ThinkUDL podcast: An Online Pedagogy of Kindness with Cate Denial. Cate Denial is the Bright Distinguished Professor of American History and Director of the Bright Institute at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois. In this episode, which is part of a Summer 2020 series on Universal Design for Learning in online environments, I ask Cate about how she applies the concepts in her 2019 article (and forthcoming book) “A Pedagogy of Kindness” to online courses. In this conversation, Cate explains how her ideas about trusting her students, believing them and believing in them, and employing an ethos of care are utilized in specific online design principles and actions. Along the way, Cate and I connect these ideas to Universal Design for Learning principles to provide our listeners with opportunities to implement not only well-researched and neuro-science based UDL principles in online or hybrid courses, but also --as Cate so eloquently writes and speaks about-- a pedagogy of kindness as well. 

I just wanted to add a short signpost here before the interview. Cate mentions the term LMS several times in our conversation and this refers to a Learning Management System. An LMS is a technological platform managed by the college or university where the instructor and students can access the course content and communicate with each other throughout the course. I am thankful for Cate’s thoughtfulness and, yes, kindness, in wanting us to define our terms for our listeners.

Epic Meaning in Online Learning with Michael Kocher

Welcome to Episode 40 of the ThinkUDL podcast: Epic Meaning in Online Learning with Michael Kocher. Today’s episode is part of a Summer 2020 series on UDL in online environments. Michael Kocher is a UDL consultant at East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina. There he has created many faculty development opportunities to introduce instructors to Universal Design for Learning principles and help others implement them in seated and online environments. In today’s episode we talk about how to create “epic meaning” for students in online courses by valuing student choice and autonomy, and creating assessments that are authentic and worthwhile for students. Michael shares many other tips to make your online teaching experience a value-added class for both instructor and student, and I am excited to share this conversation with our listeners!

Radical Hope for Online Teaching with Kevin Gannon

Welcome to episode 39 of the Think UDL podcast: Radical Hope for Online Teaching with Kevin Gannon. Today’s episode is part of a Summer 2020 series on UDL in online environments and I am delighted to have the opportunity to speak with Dr. Kevin Gannon today. Kevin is the Director of the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL) and Professor of History at Grand View University in Des Moines, Iowa. His book, Radical Hope: A Teaching Manifesto was released in the spring of 2020 and has already become a “must-read” in academic circles and faculty book clubs throughout the United States and beyond. In Radical Hope, Kevin notes that UDL is one of the most important topics in higher education today and so I was happy when he agreed to speak to me about UDL at this particular moment as countless instructors are moving their courses online. His book deals with both seated and online courses, as his teaching manifesto is modality agnostic. However, our conversation focuses on how to implement the ideas he offers in his book specifically in online courses. Kevin has been a generous scholar and faculty developer in the several years that I have come to know him through the Professional and Organizational Development (POD) Network and I am so thankful for his time to talk to me about Radical Hope for online teaching.

Online Faculty Learning Communities with Christina Moore

Welcome to Episode 38 of the ThinkUDL podcast: Online Faculty Learning Communities with Christina Moore. Today’s episode is part of a Summer 2020 series on UDL in online environments. Christina Moore is the Virtual Faculty Developer at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan. In today’s episode we talk about faculty Online Learning Communities, also known as Personal Learning Networks. In this time of separation, how can colleagues come together and share ideas? We will discuss organizing resources around teaching topics with multiple formats that include podcasts, articles, videos, and even people to follow on Twitter, plus “Mobile learning” and accessibility in online environments. I have learned so much from Christina in her role as a Virtual Faculty Developer and I am excited to share this conversation with our listeners!

HyFlex Course Design Model with Brian Beatty

Welcome to Episode 37 of the ThinkUDL podcast. Today’s episode is part of a Summer 2020 series on UDL in online environments. I have the opportunity to speak with the creator of the Hybrid-Flexible (HyFlex) Course Design model, Brian Beatty, who is an Associate Professor of Instructional Technologies in the Department of Equity, Leadership Studies and Instructional Technologies at San Francisco State University. Brian’s primary areas of interest and research include social interaction in online learning, flipped classroom implementation, and developing instructional design theory for Hybrid-Flexible learning environments.

At SFSU, Dr. Beatty pioneered the development and evaluation of the HyFlex course design model for blended learning environments, implementing a “student-directed-hybrid” approach to better support student learning. In today’s episode, Brian and I will discuss the values and principles of the HyFlex course design model, along with its history and implementation in several contexts. Is the HyFlex model right for you? Brian will help us process the questions one needs to answer in order to determine if this is the right model for you and provide you with the resources to get started. All of the resources that Brian and Lillian mention today can be found on Episode 37 of the ThinkUDL.org web page. Thank you for joining the conversation on the ThinkUDL podcast!

Design for Learning Equity with Kevin Kelly

Welcome to Episode 36 of the ThinkUDL podcast: Design for Learning Equity with Kevin Kelly. Kevin is a Faculty Lecturer in the Department of Equity, Leadership Studies & Instructional Technologies at San Francisco State University. I talked with Kevin at the Teaching for Active and Engaged Learning Lilly Conference in San Diego, California, February 27-29, 2020. I was so excited to get a chance to sit down with Kevin to talk about creating equity in learning environments, especially in online learning environments. Our conversation is filled with an almost overwhelming amount of resources from Kevin’s encyclopedic grasp of equity and online learning studies and materials that he applies to his courses and graciously shares with us in this conversation. The resources mentioned in this episode are available on Episode 36 of our ThinkUDL.org resource page. If you want to look further into anything we discuss in today’s episode, you can follow up there. I am so glad to share this convicting, interesting, and information-rich conversation with our listeners!