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Understanding Inclusivity – An Empathy Exercise

CSUN 2023

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Goals & Agenda

Goals

Understand the perspective of learning from four common types of disabilities

Agenda

Exercises
Take ways/Discussion

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Diverse Needs: Visual Challenges

Visual challenges can range from low vision and color blindness to a complete lack of sight.

Impact on learning

May have low vision and rely on assistive devices to help them participate in classroom activities.
May be completely blind and rely on screen readers or textual equivalents to consume digital content.
May struggle to see certain colors or read content in front of the class.
May have difficulty moving around the physical classroom space.

Let’s move on now to talk about one of the most well known classifications of disability – visual challenges.

The World Health organization states that 3% of the global population can be classified as either totally blind or significantly vision impaired. But there is a significant range of visual challenges that aren’t counted when you just consider the most extreme cases. People who wear any form of corrective lenses (whether you’re hiding behind contacts or not) are technically disabled. What about people with light sensitivities, or color blindness. All of these challenges fall into the category of vision impairments.

So how do these challenges impact learning?

Many of the more extreme cases of low vision or blindness will require students to rely heavily on assistive technology, like magnifiers or screen readers to consume digital content. A lot of content may be missed without appropriate text based alternatives, image descriptions, or structured information.

People with color deficiencies may struggle to see certain colors, or to differentiate one item from another.

Many people with vision impairments will struggle to read in front of the class or have difficulty moving around a physical space that’s dynamic and often changing.

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Activity: Understanding Visual Challenges Video

This is a video discussing the illustrations of Charles Dickens works. While the video plays please take notes. You will have a small quiz at the end of the video.

URL: https://youtu.be/YIqPDmwkFEI?t=176

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Activity: Understanding Visual Challenges Quiz

Based on what you learned in the video, please answer the following questions. We will use the Poll to respond to each question.

Question 1: Which of the following was one of Dicken’s illustrators

Nicholas Nickelby
George Cattermole
Arthur Clennam

Question 2: Were the illustrations engraved before they were printed? Yes OR No

Question 3: Where did the illustrator sign his illustration?

Top right corner
Bottom right corner
Top left corner
Bottom left corner

While we’re watching the video, I hope you were taking notes.

In your workshop packet you have a worksheet with a place to answer the 3 questions listed here on it. You have 2 mins to answer the three questions.

[set a 2-minute timer and have them start]

Call time’s up.

Answer 1:

Which of the following is one of the illustrators of the Old Curiosity Shop:

Nicholas Nickelby
George Cattermole (true
Arthur Clennam

Answer 2:

Were the illustrations engraved before they were printed?

Yes (true)

No

Answer 3:

Where did the illustrator sign his illustration?

Top right corner

Bottom right corner (true)

Top left corner

Bottom left corner

Answer #3 was never spoken aloud, and only shown as a notation on the video. If you couldn’t SEE it, you had a 25% chance of getting the answer right

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Discussion: Understanding Visual Challenges

How much information do you feel you lost because you were not able to see the video?

Ok. So, let’s talk about what that was like.

How much information do you feel was lost because you were not able to SEE the video?

What do you think are some of the biggest challenges you’ll face teaching a student who is blind or low vision

[wait for the room discussion to finish]

[Share if the following points were not raised in discussion or you want to add your own thoughts TO the discussion]

The key to teaching someone who is blind or low vision is to think about the information that is being conveyed visually. You need to make sure it’s available in more than one format. Pictures should have textual descriptions, Infographics need to have appropriate narratives alongside them, color cannot be the only way you’re conveying something the student needs to understand.

To get a good sense of this, start by creating everything in a text-based format, then build up the visuals as supporting information. If something important is lost in translation, you’ll have a chance to revisit it.

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Diverse Needs: Physical Challenges

Physical challenges can range from loss of limb and limited mobility to full paralysis and diminished muscle control.

Impact on learning

May not have control over gross or fine muscles required to use technology.
May rely on alternative input devices to interact with digital content.
May have difficulty moving around the physical classroom space.
May struggle to communicate effectively with teachers and classmates.

And that brings us to the third classification of disability – people with physical or motor impairments.

5% of the world’s population deals with a severe physical or motor impairment. This could include things like loss of limb, or limited mobility, to complete paralysis. There are many neurological disorders that manifest in a physical way – like cerebral palsy or Parkinson's disease. But mobility impairments are also the ones many of us have likely experienced in one way or another at some point in our lives.

Who in the room has every broken and arm or a leg? Who has had a child they had to carry around while trying to do other things? Who simply carries too many bags of groceries in from the car in one load? These are all disabilities, temporary ones sure, but they are situations that impair your ability to move freely.

How does this impact learning?

People with physical disabilities may not have control over the gross or fine muscles required to use technology. They may rely on alternative input devices like keyboards, mouth sticks, foot pedals, or speech activated software to interact with technology.

Many will have difficulty moving around a physical space and they may struggle to communicate effectively with teachers or classmates.

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Activity: Understanding Physical Challenges

Using your non-dominant hand, write the quote either on a piece of paper or a computer: You have 60 seconds.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way--in short, the period was so far like the present period that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

Source: Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

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Discussion: Understanding Physical Challenges

How were you able to deal with the time constraints created by the physical limitations?

Ok. So let’s talk about what that was like.

How were you able to deal with the time constraints created by the physical limitation?

What are some of the biggest challenges you think you’ll face teaching a student with physical limitations?

[wait for the room discussion to finish]

[Share if the following points were not raised in discussion or you want to add your own thoughts TO the discussion]

People with physical limitations are equally capable of completing any task given them. Sometimes though, they need to use different tools to do it. Many teachers these days are adopting a “no device” policy in classrooms. But what about the student who finds typing easier than writing? How can they take notes? Some students may have scribes, or note takers, or other forms of assistance. Some prefer to record everything in class to be able to stop, rewind, and listen to the material multiple times.

When you start thinking about inclusivity for these individuals, it goes beyond the way that the classroom is set up to allow for wheelchairs. It’s can mean rethinking your policies and practices and having a plan for how to handle exceptions. It’s also about thinking about the technology that you use in your classroom, and whether it will work for everyone. We’ll talk more about the details of that in a little bit.

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Diverse Needs: Hearing Challenges

Hearing challenges can range from slight hearing loss to profound hearing loss or total deafness.

Impact on learning

May have limited hearing and rely on assistive devices to help them participate in classroom activities
May be completely deaf and rely on sign language or text-based alternatives to audio content.
May struggle with grammar, spelling, vocabulary, and oral presentations.
May have difficulty taking notes while listening to lectures or watching videos.

For now, let’s dig into the last major classification of disability, hearing impairments.

The Deaf and hard of hearing community accounts for about 6% of the global population. But similar to visual challenges, there is a wide spectrum of more minor hearing impairments that this does not account for. This could be things like tinnitus (a constant ringing in the ears), or a partial hearing loss in one ear or the other. It might be that you’re just in a really loud location and can’t hear anything in that moment.

So how does this impact learning?

Students with limited hearing may rely on assistive devices like hearing aids to help them participate in class. They often request to be seated closer to the front of the room. Deaf students may require an interpreter be present in the classroom to ensure they understand. Many Deaf students can also read lips, so you need to be careful not to turn your back on the room to talk to a white board or projector screen.

Students who struggle with hearing often also struggle with grammar, spelling, vocabulary and oral presentations. Most are rely on highly visual means of communication and may struggle to take notes while listening or watching a video due to the need to look away from the speaker to write on their paper.

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Activity: Understanding Hearing Challenges Video

This is a brief video on Charles Dickens personal history.. While the video plays please take notes. You will have a small quiz at the end of the video.

URL: https://youtu.be/unKuZ2wlNdw

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Activity: Understanding Hearing Challenges part 2

Based on what you learned in the video, please answer the following questions. We will use the Poll to respond to each question.

Question 1: Charles Dickens was the second child of how many children?

4
7
8

Question 2: Where did Charles Dickens begin working when he was 12?

A fancy house
Warren’s Blacking Factory
At a solicitors

Question 3: Did Charles Dickens visit America? Yes or No

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Discussion: Understanding Deafness

How much information do you feel you lost because you were not able to hear the video?

Ok. So, let’s talk about what that was like.

How much information do you feel was lost because you were not able to HEAR the video (or read captions)?

What do you think are some of the biggest challenges you’ll face teaching a student who is deaf or hard of hearing

[wait for the room discussion to finish]

[Share if the following points were not raised in discussion or you want to add your own thoughts TO the discussion]
�The key to teaching someone who is deaf or hard of hearing is to think about the information that you are only conveying in an auditory way. You need to make sure it’s available in more than one format. Videos should have captions, diagrams you’re explaining out loud should come with comprehensive text-based descriptions, audio clips need to have transcripts.

In a similar fashion to what we discussed when talking about blindness, the best way to approach this is to start from the lowest common denominator – the descriptions or transcripts. Then build up from there.

One other key thing to remember when working with deaf students, talk to THEM, not their interpreter. They will need to look at the interpreter when you’re talking but they will always make sure to engage directly with you as well. Make sure you do the same.

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Diverse Needs: Cognitive Challenges

Cognitive challenges can range from dyslexia and ADHD to Autism, Down Syndrome, and other intellectual disabilities.

Impact on learning

May have difficulty receiving and processing information or have poor problem-solving skills.
May be easily distracted and have trouble with memory, reading, writing, reasoning and understanding acceptable social behaviors.
May have trouble concentrating and rely on assistive tools for reading and comprehension assistance.

Let’s start with the least talked about and largest group of students with disabilities – those with cognitive challenges.

Cognitive disabilities make up about 25% of the global population. This umbrella term includes conditions that range from dyslexia and ADHD to Autism and Down Syndrome. There is research suggesting that mental health issues like Depression and anxiety disorders and even PTSD all fall under this category as well.

Interestingly, in the United States we’re discovering that between 60-80% of students with disabilities are choosing not to disclose these challenges to their colleges and universities to avoid the ever-present societal stigmas attached to them. Most of these students are dealing with the invisible disabilities that fall into the cognitive category.

While there is a great variety in the medical conditions that fall under this umbrella, there are a lot of similarities in the ways these conditions can impact a students learning.

Many of them have difficulty receiving and processing information which can lead to poor problem-solving skills.

Others are easily distracted and have trouble with memory, reading, writing, and often reasoning through situations. This can lead to struggling to understand acceptable social behaviors and building good working relationships with classmates, and other teachers.

Some will have trouble concentrating on the task at hand and many will rely on assistive tools like Kurzweil 3000 or TextHelp for comprehension assistance.

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Activity: Understanding cognitive impairments

Read the following quotations from the works of Charles Dickens:

“Have a heart that never hardens, and a temper that never tires, and a touch that never hurts.” Our Mutual Friend
“The pain of parting is nothing to the joy of meeting again.” Nicholas Nickleby
“There is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humour.” A Christmas Carol
“No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another.” Our Mutual Friend
“We need never be ashamed of our tears.” Great Expectations

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Activity: Understanding cognitive impairments quotes

Read the following quotations from the works of Charles Dickens:

“Have a heart that never hardens, and a temper that never tires, and a touch that never hurts.” Our Mutual Friend
“The pain of parting is nothing to the joy of meeting again.” Nicholas Nickleby
“There is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humour.” A Christmas Carol
“No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another.” Our Mutual Friend
“We need never be ashamed of our tears.” Great Expectations

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Discussion: Understanding Cognitive Challenges

Did you struggle to execute what your brain was telling you? What was that like?

Ok. So, let’s talk about what that was like

In the ADHD activity, who were the students? Can you tell me what it was like trying to concentrate with all that distraction? Instructors, what was it like trying to convey the lesson to the student?

In the second activity, did you struggle to execute what your brain was telling you to do? Did you have even a micro-hesitation before speaking? What was that like?

[wait for the room discussion to finish]

[Share if the following points were not raised in discussion or you want to add your own thoughts TO the discussion]

The key in both of these activities is to get a bit of a sense of what every day life is like for students who live with these challenges. It’s to help you recognize that they are almost always trying incredibly hard to succeed. It’s just really hard.

The student with ADHD has to fight through all of the distractions that the rest of us are able to easily put aside. For many, they’ve developed coping mechanisms to help them. Some stare at a single point (in the corner of the room, their feet, your nose). Others will tap a pen, or their foot, or they will bounce in place a bit. Some actually need to move around so they can focus on the physicality of moving and better retain the second input stream that is your voice.

Students with information processing disorders often know what they want to do or say, they simply struggle to make their body react the way they want it too. Some struggle to understand the expectations when they seem counter intuitive or can be interpreted in multiple ways. They appear to never “get it” when really, the instructions need to be made clearer.

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Take away/Discussion

You may not know who around you has a disability so always be prepared to have the following types of accommodations available as needed:

Written transcripts of audio and video presentations
Audio descriptions for videos that have visual cues that are not spoken
Visual cues for videos or text descriptions of audio presentations
Minimal number of steps needed to find information
Documents at a reading level of about fourth/fifth grade
Documents in Word or PDF formats
Good color contrasts
Text descriptions of images that provide meaning
Use the accessibility checker tools in Word, PowerPoint, and PDF

It’s OK to ask if people need alternative formats for materials