Think UDL

Reflection Makes the Implicit Explicit with Erik Blair

Welcome to Episode 66 of the Think UDL podcast: Reflection Makes the Implicit Explicit with Erik Blair. An educator for over 20 years, Erik Blair is currently a Senior Lecturer in Health Professions Education in the Institute for Health Sciences Education at Queen Mary, University of London. I first ran across his work on the OneHE website which is full of fantastic courses to learn more about teaching and learning and faculty development. I was especially interested in his work on reflection. In today’s conversation, we discuss what reflection-based activities are, how to incorporate reflection activities into your classes, what different kinds of reflection activities there are, and what might work in different circumstances. We also talk about the benefit of incorporating reflection-based activities for students and instructors alike. Erik is also the author of several books including his 2020 publication Independent Thinking on Teaching in Higher Education. You will find a link to his author page and other information on reflection and OneHE on our website for episode 66 if you would like to learn more about Erik’s work. Thank you for reflecting with us today as you listen to our conversation on this episode of the Think UDL podcast.

Relational Cultural Theory and UDL with Harriet Schwartz

Welcome to Episode 65 of the Think UDL podcast: Relational Cultural Theory and UDL with Harriet Schwartz! Dr. Harriet Schwartz is the author of Connected Teaching: Relationships, Power, and Mattering in Higher Education and is the Professor of Relational Practice and Higher Education at Antioch University’s PhD in Leadership and Change Program. As the episode title implies, we will be talking about RCT, or Relational Cultural Theory, and Universal Design for Learning (UDL). We discuss several ways instructors can engage students through the lens of Relational Cultural Theory, and that leads us into a discussion about authenticity. We also talk about the role the instructor-student relationship plays in sustaining student effort and persistence, and how power and relationships within the learning environment affect student learning. Harriet has also provided many excellent resources that are listed on the ThinkUDL.org website accompanying episode 65, so please take a look and dig deeper into this topic to increase your understanding of RCT and thank you so much for joining me and Harriet Schwartz for this engaging conversation.

Engaging Ungrading with Susan Blum

Welcome to Episode 64 of the Think UDL podcast: Engaging Ungrading with Susan Blum! Susan Blum is the editor and author of several chapters of the book Ungrading: Why Rating Students Undermines Learning (and What to Do Instead). She is also Professor of Anthropology, Fellow, Kellogg Institute for International Studies, Fellow, Liu Institute for Asia and Asian Studies, Fellow, Institute for Educational Initiatives, Fellow, Eck Institute for Global Health all at the The University of Notre Dame. In this episode, Susan and I explore the connections between “Ungrading” and Universal Design for Learning principles, especially focussing on how “Ungrading” engages students, reduces threats and distractions (yes, grades are distractions to learning) and fosters community. Ungrading can also provide multiple options for action and expression, so we will be covering quite a number of the UDL guidelines today. 

 

At one point in our conversation, you may hear a difference in sound quality on my audio as we had to revert to our backup audio for the last half of the interview.

 

Near the end of the episode, Susan mentions the book Minding Bodies: How Physical Space, sensation and movement affect learning by Susan Hrach, and indeed I had just interviewed Susan Hrach the day before our recorded conversation. If you would like to hear that conversation, you will find it listed just before this episode. It is Think UDL’s Episode 63: Minding Bodies, Senses, and Perception with Susan Hrach. But for now, thank you for joining me for this very thoughtful conversation with Susan Blum on “ungrading.” 

Minding Bodies, Senses, and Perception with Susan Hrach

Welcome to Episode 63 of the Think UDL podcast: Minding Bodies, Senses, and Perception with Susan Hrach.  Susan Hrach is the author of the book Minding Bodies: How Physical Space, Sensation, and Movement Affect Learning and the Director of the Faculty Center for Enhancement of Teaching and Learning and Professor of English at Columbus State University in Columbus, Georgia. In today’s episode, we talk about the content of her Minding Bodies book as it relates to perception, specifically the UDL guideline to provide multiple options for student perception which often include alternatives for auditory and visual information. We also talk a little neuroscience and brain efficiency, multi-sensory learning, how emotions influence learning, how important really noticing is, and questioning or interrogating our own perceptions. Aside from a reference to The Princess Bride, we share some really helpful resources along the way that are listed on the ThinkUDL.org webpage for episode 63, so please peruse those at your leisure. Now, go out and take a walk, move your body, smell some flowers, put your feet in a creek or some other form of bodily or sensory stimulation while you listen to this episode of Think UDL.

Ethical and Accessible UDL with Ann Gagne

Welcome to Episode 62 of the Think UDL podcast: Ethical and Accessible UDL with Ann Gagne. Ann Gagne is an Educational Developer at the Robert Gillespie Academic Skills Centre at the Institute for the Study of University Pedagogy at the University of Toronto, Mississauga. She is also my friend on Twitter and a colleague in our #UDLHE community which is where I have come in contact with her brilliance in the last few years. She has taught me so much about accessibility, she’s my Alt-Text guru, and she has gently pushed me to widen my lens about ways to think about accessibility and that is why I wanted to interview her for the podcast. She is a UDL specialist as well and teaches faculty about UDL and accessibility in both formal and informal settings. In today’s conversation, we talk about accessibility on social media and in educational settings, and I really appreciate that she gets into both the “how” and the “why” of these things. In fact, she has provided a ton of great resources about Alt-Text, and making your own accessible documents that you can find on our resources page for Episode 62 on ThinkUDL.org. So listen in now and check out the resources to find out how, why and what it truly means to be accessible.

But How Does UDL apply to Nursing? with Jen Wallace

Welcome to Episode 61 of the Think UDL podcast: But What About UDL in Nursing? with Jen Wallace. I am so excited to bring this episode to you, our listeners, because I am often asked about how UDL works in applied fields when students have to pass a strict licensure exam, or something else of the sort with high stakes and lots of pressure, and Jen has worked diligently to integrate UDL in her nursing program. Jen Wallace is an Assistant Professor in Nursing at Lawrence Memorial Regis College in Medford, Massachusetts. In our conversation today, Jen is speaking on her own behalf and not necessarily on behalf of her employer. Jen has brought us some really great resources that she mentions during our conversation today and all of these are on our ThinkUDL.org website, so please be sure to check those out on Episode 61’s page and there is one more resource that she doesn’t mention in our conversation that she wanted me to share with you all, especially if you are trying to implement UDL in your college, university, or workplace and don’t know where to start, and that is Eric Moore and Jodie Black’s UDL Navigators in Higher Education. She said that it has proved immeasurably helpful in her UDL implementation in her Nursing program. So please add that to your resource list if you are implementing UDL and you’ll find a link to that book also on our resource page for this episode. Thank you so much for joining me and Jen Wallace today for our conversation!

Researching Accidental UDL with Kirsten Behling

Welcome to Episode 60 of the Think UDL podcast: Researching Accidental UDL with Kirsten Behling. Kirsten Behling is the author, along with Tom Tobin, of Reach Everyone, Teach Everyone: UDL in Higher Education, which is the book I recommend most to anyone who is interested in UDL in higher ed. She is also the Associate Dean of StAAR which stands for Student Accessibility and Academic Resources at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts. In today’s podcast, Kirsten and I discuss the research project she has undertaken since the pandemic began when university classes switched to a predominantly online format. Along with her co-researchers Kate Pillette, a School Psychologist and Learning Specialist at Tufts University, and Lisa Bibeau, the Assistant Dean for Disability Services at Salem State. Kirsten has been looking for and has found many examples of instructors implementing Universal Design for Learning principles in their rapid switch to online, and she has asked instructors to reflect on their teaching during this time. Through this, she has uncovered what she calls “Accidental UDL” when instructors have implemented strategies that have proved helpful, accessible, clear, and perhaps altogether revolutionary in the midst of this transition that, whether they knew it or not initially, incorporated or exemplified Universal Design for Learning principles. What a great idea to highlight the bright spots during a particularly trying time for college teaching! Kirsten has graciously provided a chart resource and her article “Finding a silver lining in the rapid movement to online learning: Considerations of access for all learners” if you’d like to know more or if you are interested in trying to do something like this on your campus. You’ll find both the chart and article on the ThinkUDL.org webpage under Episode 60’s resources. Thank you for joining me in this conversation today with Kirsten Behling on Accidental UDL!

Purposeful, Humanizing, and Inclusive Instruction with Brett Christie

Welcome to Episode 59 of the Think UDL podcast: Purposeful, Humanizing, and Inclusive Instruction with Brett Christie! In today’s episode, I have the absolute pleasure to talk with Brett Christie for the second time! The first time I spoke with him at a UDL conference, our sound quality in a noisy room made the interview unusable. I am so thankful that he has agreed to talk with me again and this time about what he is doing to create purposeful, humanizing, inclusive instruction. Please check out the ThinkUDL.org web page for a wealth of really great resources that Brett has graciously provided for us that include his UDL-universe website, resources on peer instruction, a purposeful learning check, and other great blog posts and information. Brett Christie is the Director of Learning Design at O’Donnell Learn and formerly introduced UDL to the entire University of California system. He has incredible expertise on systems integration of UDL in our largest university system in the United States, and is sharing his knowledge on how to integrate UDL into your classes on a course by course level as well. Thank you for joining me as I get to ask Brett all about purposeful, humanizing and inclusive techniques!

UDL Evolution with Lindsay Masland

Welcome to Episode 58 of the Think UDL podcast: UDL Evolution with Lindsay Masland. Dr. Lindsay Masland is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology and is the Assistant Director of Faculty Professional Development in the Center for Academic Excellence which is the Teaching and Learning center at Appalachian State University. She is a trusted colleague and here’s a fun fact, she has provided one of my very first introductions to Universal Design for Learning! She is a noted speaker and faculty developer and we have worked together on course redesign institutes and other initiatives to integrate UDL in faculty development at Appalachian State. Lindsay joins me today to have a frank discussion about the evolution of UDL. Not only will we talk about how UDL is discussed in academia, but how it is often introduced and how it can be viewed today. We will get to see her perspective as a social scientist and as an educational psychologist to talk about what UDL is now and how we can frame it in our conversations in Higher Education today. I am delighted to pick her brain for a very important conversation about equity pedagogy and how UDL has evolved for her and for higher education!

Neurodiversity and Public Relations with Jess Nerren

Welcome to Episode 57 of the Think UDL podcast: Neurodiversity and Public Relations with Jess Nerren! Jess is a full time Lecturer in Communication Studies at California State University, San Bernardino and also a full time doctoral student in educational leadership. In addition, she is a parent of an individual with Autism. Jess brings a wealth of Public Relations experience in the private sector before transitioning into academia, and she combines that with her lived experience as a parent to a neurodiverse son to better her teaching, her Public Relations work, and her current dissertation topic. In today’s episode we talk about the PR makeover that neurodiversity needs and is getting with UDL and the continued shift we need to make in higher education and in the workforce to better serve all of our students, clients, and our world. I met Jess serendipitously on social media when we both were offering a colleague some ideas to help neurodiverse students in the classroom and I was immediately impressed by her generous and thoughtful answer. In subsequent conversations, I learned how she is researching and doing the work right now that I think we need to be doing to flip the script on how universities and the public see learner variability, neurodiversity, and difference in general. It was my absolute pleasure to speak with Jess and I am so glad to bring this conversation to the Think UDL listeners. And I want to thank you for listening and I think you’ll enjoy this discussion on UDL, neurodiversity, and Public Relations.