Last week, I attended the BC Digital Literacy Forum and had the opportunity to gain some perspective on the concerns, solutions, and modifications post-secondary institutions are making to accommodate a need for more digital learning options in a myriad of contexts. The forum provided slides for all of the sessions.
My first workshop of the afternoon was with my professor, Dr. Valerie Irvine. She described how face to face learning and online learning had historically been a binary in post-secondary – either you did a face to face class, or an online class. Hybrid learning and blended learning were also discussed where it is often consecutive but not concurrent. She posed the idea that a multi-access course could be designed to be face to face, online, synchronous, and asynchronous consecutively and concurrently to cast the widest net and provide access to even more learners. Many learners have some sort of obstacle for learning whether it’s time, transportation, health, location, or another factor, and the goal is to bridge the gaps as much as possible. She mentioned a survey done to address student opinions on preferred class modalities in which results showed that although multi-access learning may not be most students’ #1 choice, there was high interest as a second or third choice. Overall, the messaging was the post-secondary must map for these access pathways and understand that different modalities will marginalize different learners.
A lot of what was discussed was a mirror image of how my current course is framed with the online zoom call component, the pod meetings, and the one-on-one meetings with instructors, so I have seen and lived how this framework can be successful for learners. As a learner who is located far away from the physical campus, online learning works as a general platform. I enjoy having the time outside of class with my small group pods where we can discuss and engage with meaningful learning that is highly specific to our individual studies. I also appreciate the ease of connecting with my instructors through a chat, or individual meetings. It got me thinking about how I could provide multi-access modality to the elementary level. We are currently only offering face to face with some supplementary, but non-essential online supports. At my school, we do have students that have low attendance and I wonder if there is an opportunity to connect them with their courses when being physically in the school is not an option. WE already use SeeSaw, Microsoft Teams, and OneNote as online platforms, but oftentimes SeeSaw becomes a photo sharing app and the Microsoft Office apps are difficult to navigate for families. We also have the barrier of not all parents have chosen to connect online with the online spaces. I wonder if the school developed an official app with the ability for families to get school news, access to online forms, and a pathway to connect to the class SeeSaw/Teams/OneNote if that would make engagement more accessible for both teachers and families. I don’t want to suggest more busy work for teachers when they would have to make resources available online for learners, but as we push toward more online resources rather than print as a whole, it might not be as much of an inconvenience as anticipated.
For the second workshop I was curious to see how the University of British Columbia (UBC) worked with students in order to adhere to the Universal Designs for Learning (UDL). AC Deger is an OER Support Pilot Strategist for the UBC Centre for Accessibility, Xiaoying Zhang is a UDL Student Facilitator for the UDL Fellows Program, and Afsaneh Sharif is the faculty liaison for the center of teaching, learning, and technology at UBC. The approach UBC took to embrace UDL was implemented through the UDL Fellows Program in which a team is nominated to educate peers, practice UDL, and provide support to colleagues looking to use UDL in their practice. The goal was to increase UDL knowledge, remove systemic barriers for learners, and meet the needs of the learners that have been marginalized. The program took a 3 phase course of action: preparation, roll-out, and active phases in which the team was in contact with one another, helping one another find avenues in which to support their diverse learners. One of the big ideas that came out of the program in terms of labelling needs of accessibility was the concept of spectrum vs diagnosis. Everyone has barriers to learning despite not all learners being formally diagnosed with a learning challenge. The purpose of UDL in this context was to make the accommodations available to all, so even students who may not be labelled with difficulties might be able to take advantage of the supports in place.
In my context, UDL has been around for a while now. My colleagues offer flexible seating, fidget tools, digital vs physical modalities to submit work, and the like. It was eye-opening to see how innovative UDL was in the eyes of post-secondary institutions, as if their learners had never had barriers before this time. It made me wonder if all of the advocacy work we have done at the elementary level has been honored in the years after they graduate. Our students have been taught that if they need a tool or resource that helps them with learning or producing output, they can just get it, or ask (depending on the nature of the tool or resource).
For the final workshop, I attended a talk on the repositories for resources on digital literacy. It was hosted by Helena Prins, an advisor on the teaching and learning team at BC Campus, and Arielle Andrews, the Director of Digital Policy and Engagement for the Ministry of Post-Secondary Education and Future Skills. They shared out the Digital literacy Hub as one of the major hubs for post-secondary educators for resources on digital literacy, such as AI use, attribution, and other digital literacy topics that are applicable to the academic realm. For educators, there was also a great deal of professional development made available through the Professional Development Sector Advisory Committee (Pro-D SAC), the Provincial Instructors Diploma Program (PIDP), and the Digital Literacy for Instructors Micro-credential. To better inform all of the offerings, a survey was done to find gaps in educator and student understanding in which these were the areas in need of attention:
- AI literacy
- Digital literacy and technology proficiency and ethical application of technology in learning environments
- Pedagogical development
- Indigenization, decolonization and reconciliation
- Assessment strategies
- Holistic, big-picture professional development
I was really quite surprised that educators at the post-secondary level also had access to professional development and appropriate resources as well. It shouldn’t have though, a teacher is a teacher, and we all need opportunities to inform and improve our practice. I later explored the resources shared and it was really interesting the topics that were covered in the repositories. They were all topics that I teach to my students, but for an undergrad/graduate level! For my practice, I am a backwards thinker/planner in which I look at the curriculum ahead of my learners and plan backwards to build supports for them to achieve these objectives when they leave my class at the end of grade 5. It was reassuring that what I am tackling with my students at the elementary level is being built upon at the post-secondary level. I would be curious to see what the diploma and micro-credential curriculums look like and what is their essential topics and objectives.
While a lot of the topics were applicable, understandably the target audience was not me. I struggle to see any immediate stands of knowledge that I can bring to my school, but I would like to sit with the idea of multi-access learning offerings and exploring more of what post-secondary institutions are interested in having their learners be able to do before engaging with subject specific content. I’d be interested to survey families in our community about their interest in school modalities at the elementary level, especially our intermediate learners. It was a very engaging experience to see what conversations are being had at a significantly higher educational level than my realm of expertise. Meeting fellow educators, administrators, and policy makers outside of my district is a rare treat, and I wish I had more time to converse with them all. I would have loved to have heard their perspective on my practice and what advice they had for me to better assist them when my learners reach their institutions.
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