Addressing Ableism and Sanism in Art and Design Educaon

October 29, 2020

FADY: Alright. So good morning everyone. Thank you for coming to the second workshop about Ableism and Sanism in art and design educaon. We have started recording. There are four people here who are going to kind of take us through this workshop. My name is Fady, I use he/ him pronouns. We also have Claire. Claire if you want to come and say hi. CLAIRE: Hi, I'm Claire. I used she/her pronouns. And Fady Did you email it to me? FADY: I sent it to you in the chat, in me, you, and Mariela's chat. CLAIRE: so I don't see it yet, but ok But OK thanks. FADY: And Mariela. MARIELA: Hi everyone, my name is Mariela and I use she/her pronouns. FADY: And Jennifer. JENNIFER: Hi everyone, I'm Jennifer and I use she/her pronouns as well.

FADY: Awesome, so we're going to get right into it by starng with the you've seen this before. This is how you kind of organize yourself on teams. We'll be using the chat for some of the acvies. Please remember to mute and if you'd like to turn on capons, you can do that by clicking on the three buons there called "more acons", and selecng the "turn on CC for live capons". Alright, this is the Land Acknowledgement. OCAD University acknowledges the ancestral and tradional territories of the Mississaugas of the credit, the Haudenosaunee, the Anishinaabe, and the Huron-Wendat, who are the original owners and custodians of the land which we live, work and create. The experience of colonialism is also about experiences of exclusion and violence in higher educaon. And the history of this instuon is implicated in violence against Indigenous people. This history has caused trauma. It has disabled indigenous people disproporonately, and our commitment to holisc learning is also our commitment tp an accessible and equitable learning space. And these things are all ed together. We wanna do a kind of short access check-in. So we understand "access" to be a shared responsibility and you'll hear that term throughout the presentaon today. We'll strive to create a place where you don't have to disclose a disability or an impairment in order to get an accommodaon or to parcipate in the session, and in doing this we hope to kind of welcome disability and the changes it brings. You'll also hear that in the discussion, So if there's anything we can do about the technology or the setup or the way that we're about to go through things that can make it more accessible, please let us know. Claire or Mariela, we're also going to add all four of our emails to the chat so you can email us at any point if you'd like to talk to us privately during the session. And you can also of course use those emails later on to communicate with us. So maybe I'll just pause for 30 seconds and ask if anyone would like to change the setup in any way. OK man, silence is so nice it's so rewarding. Especially on zoom calls. I hope you enjoy that. Even some people might have found that anxiety inducing, but I thoroughly enjoyed that. Alright we are going to be doing something called shared notes throughout the session. We're going to take this opportunity to kind of pracce shared notes and something that you potenally could use in your class so you can actually -Claire or Mariela is going to share the link to the shared note Doc in the chat. Please go to it. We're going to need it for the first discussion and you can see that Annie and Tori, who are part of the FCDC, are going to actually pracce shared notes with us. You can also hOp on to one of those untled pages You don't have to write your name there, but if you'd like to see what it might look like might look like to kind of take notes while doing a session like this, somemes we forget how both complex it is for some folks to take notes on how easy it is for others. So you can pracce doing shared notes and we'll see in the end you know what we come up with and if we only have Annie and Tori's examples that's totally fine. They'll have essenally taken notes for the whole classroom. I wanna also say that, we said this last me, that we want to make sure that we're not focusing on language. People confuse variety of language to describe their experiences. You know, people with disabilies, disabled people, mad people, people with mental health issues, psychiatric differences. The language is a lot, and we're not here to police people's language. So let's focus on like the depth rather than the surface level things. It would be great if we don't have parallel conversaons in the chat. Please do ask quesons if you want to or ask for things that you need in the chat. Finally, let's all remember that we all have different experiences and levels of familiarity with these topics, and so people might ask quesons that we might think are beginner level or expert level, and let's welcome all of it in this session. Alright, so let's start with a queson. You can again do this in the group discussion on the shared notes, and the queson is: why do you think the number of students registered with SAS connues to rise year aer year? We'll do that in the shared document. Will take me about two or three minutes to do that, and then I'm going to ask people to either chime in or all the things off of the shared doc. We're geng some really great answers in the group discussion here. There's less sgma around disability, so students are more likely to disclose. the academic communies are increasingly accommodang, There's more technology, and so therefore more I'm guessing it means that there might be more need for accommodaon. Someone said there's increased class sizes, which means less student engagement, which leads to a disconnect and students feel alienated. And someone said they're acknowledging their educaonal learning learning trauma. More students are geng support in secondary. Awesome, does anyone want to unmute and say more about their why they think there are more students registered? Year aer year. That's fine, so I think we do have a sense of like there's both a An increase in students abilies to advocate for themselves and request what they need. But then there's also like a structural issue, right? Systemic issue in how students are learning now that's very different. And I think those both things are true. It's interesng to me to think why do students need to register and I have a sense that they need to register because spaces are becoming increasingly inaccessible, and so what would that mean for us as faculty and as staff in creang more accessible classrooms so students don't have to register as much with SAS. So just a quick recap from the last me we defined "ableism" and "sanism", these kind of systems of oppression that are very are very much part of our in design educaon or part of our world in general. We just got their presence in art and design educaon and we talked about very simple things like deadlines as you know, being very neurotypical, requiring a set amount of me, we talked about the painng horse as like this representaon of symbol of who belongs in art and design educaon. We spent some me unpacking the trope of the talented but troubled arsts and we discussed the role of outsider art and kind of dividing the community and saying who is part of it, what they can produce, what value their their art has. So this is some of the learning outcomes for this session we want to define and describe the differences between accommodaons and Accessibility. We want to describe and analyze the numbers at OCAD, explain the benefits and limitaons of UDL approach or universal design for learning. And describe and determine kind of the best strategies and this will be a collaborave process that we take into. Alright, so this is an image that you'll have seen. There's three images on the screen like equity -Oh sorry, equality, accommodaon, Accessibility. The first one has three people standing at the board, all starng from the same place. The second one has a ramp and a step up, and the third one the board has been expanded. You'll have seen this image in other contexts. Something to do with baseball. I'm sure we brought into the educaon space to hopefully give us a lile more. Our context. Reflecng on the images that you see I wonder if you think these are truthful representaons, and I wonder if you think something is missing and what that might be. I wonder if people can unmute and maybe take a minute to think about what might be missing here. Clearly there's a fourth image coming up.

NICOLE COLLINS: Well, I don't, but it doesn't idenfy someone who may be hearing impaired. Possibly or some other not obvious Accessibility like that yeah. FADY: Absolutely! So, Invisible disabilies or non visible disabilies are not taken into consideraon. Yeah, so one of the things that we thought was really missing was really going to historical analysis and the perspecve of jusce. And so you might think this is a weird image, because why would we put like the person represenng represenng women and the person represenng people who use mobility devices in this kind of trench? I think it's important to do that or take like a jusce perspecve because the woman and the disabled person are not starng from the same place, right? They're starng in the trench. Women weren't allowed into instuons of higher educaon unl the 1880s, and only then it was white women. Disabled people we're always welcome instuons of higher educaon, but oen as parts of experimentaon or part of eugenics projects, never to be educated, and so to make the University accessible now require this? Understand the kind of history of exclusion of these instuons, the experiences of women, indigenous, black, fat, queer, and trans people. And the trench really under jusce represents and acknowledges this kind of troubled, eugenic and devastang history of higher Ed. It acknowledges that we're not all starng at the same spot. And then in fact, many of us were never imagined within the spaces of higher educaon. I think a jusce approach when it takes a course, the consideraons of Accessibility tries to acknowledge and correct for this history and this happens through acknowledging that history that that is real. Taking part in reconciliaon, producing access, decolonizing, and this is kind of an ongoing process and the reason that it needs to be ongoing is because we don't know the other things that we might need to change. the University has to be accessible, flexible and dynamic, and our classrooms have to be as well. So hopefully the previous image helped explain the differences between access, accommodaons, Accessibility and jusce. These kind of different approaches: One where everyone gets the same. The second one where everyone gets the accommodaons they need. The third one that takes into consideraon peoples differences, but the 4th one which really talked about how we're not starng at the same place. This image could very well overlap with the previous one, but what it does differently is that it helps us further clarify how we might understand our roles in relaon to the kind of producon of accommodaons and Accessibility. So how we can produce those things. So, the image on the far le is of a centralized view of accommodaon processes in higher educaon. So imagine this white center ball here as SAS or student Wellness, and all the nodes around it are students and they interact with stats and Wellness on an individual basis. There are no faculty engagements. Accommodaons here are handled by Central Enty, and I think this is what people imagine the accommodaon process in higher educaon to be. SAS and Wellness take care of it. The center the image in the middle is of a decentralized University accommodaon, flash access model, and I think this is more indicave of how the University actually operates. There are facules and departments and each node is kind of a class and there are always like internal conversaons about accommodaons and access. SAS is of course sll part of it, but it's not the central figure. It comes in partnership with the FCDC with ODESSI. with IT. And of course other facules are taking up access as kind of part of their pedagogical approach. The image on the right is kind of true Accessibility if I can say that. I think access becomes a kind of distributed, or here again, a shared responsibility, Access when it's part of the fabric of the instuon, when it's found in every course outline when essenal to the course design. When it's manifested in the delivery model, when it's reflected in assignment development, when that is part of and sustained in evaluaons, then we don't necessarily need accommodaons anymore. This model also recognizes that faculty in fact, hold the experse in how to reimagine courses to make them more accessible, because I can't tell you how to make art history accessible, I can have a conversaon with you to kind of think through the ideas to develop a coherent process. But it comes back to you about what's significant, what's important. How can we test for knowledge? How can we develop learning? And I think it's on faculty kind to do that work. So before moving on, I want to offer one final crique of accommodaons, and specifically to the kind of legal duty to accommodate. I'm not a lawyer-

CLAIRE: Can I just jump in for a second?

FADY: Of course,

CLAIRE: just go back to the previous image. I think it's important to, and maybe I you said it and I just missed it, but this idea of it being distributed that it's not just on faculty, right? Like it's on faculty. It's an administraon. It's on students, it's on instuons, it's on society, right? Like that we're all working together to make it accessible. That's all

FADY: Absolutely yeah. It's not just like again, SAS is part of this and Wellness is part of this. They're all part of it, but it's a distributed model. It's much more that everyone's talking about it all the me, that it's not this thing that happens in the corner of a classroom. You know, at the end when the student comes up to you and ask you for an accommodaon.

CLAIRE: Yeah, and as Emily just said in the chat, it's a community responsibility

FADY: Exactly. Thank you, yeah. Right, so one final thing about accommodaons. I'm not a lawyer and my sister is a lawyer. She actually works for Arch Disability Law Center. We do not agree on accommodaons a lot, except for one thing is that we both agree that accommodaons The duty to accommodate is in fact the floor, not the ceiling. And so If it's not the floor, the floor is really about just meeng the standards at the AODA and just meeng the guidelines of the Ontario Human Rights Commission. Access is really the ceiling and our goal should be to not minimally Our goal should not be to minimally accommodate students. This, I think, would reduce the polical acvity that is educaon. Our goal should always be about building towards access. Alright, and I'll pass it off to Jennifer.

JENNIFER: OK, hi everyone, so we're going to do a lile acvity here in terms of unpacking some of the stats related to student when we do individual student accommodaons through SAS and then the purpose of unpacking this is related to some of the exercises that will be happening later on in the presentaon. In terms of how to make courses more accessible so if everybody can answer in the chat. So the first queson, what are the what would you say, if you made a guess, Is the total number of students registered with SAS each year or or even the percent of students? Like if if we think of Peak enrollment is around 4000. What percent of those students would be registered with SAS? And if people can just put their responses in the chat? And... 20%? Any other? 15, 10 - 20? OK. OK, great, so people are prey close or on par, so 20% of OCAD students would be registered with SAS or just a lile over 20% depending on the year, so. Last year we had about -I just had to input the stats for 2019 to 2020 and we had 900 I think 914 students which would be a lile bit over 20% of the OCAD student populaon, and I would agree with what somebody else said. Probably not as many students as you know, that would require accommodaons. Are seeking accommodaon so that I think that's not necessarily representave of who could benefit from receiving accommodaons, or who would idenfy as having a disability? How did this number stack up against other universies or colleges? So would people say and again just put it in the chat, is OCAD on par? Would we have less numbers of students idenfying with disabilies or more? What would you say? OK. So, Everyone here is right, so OCAD, in terms of our numbers, we you know -and it's I guess did you know the number of students registered with SAS as opposed to the number of students who would idenfy as having a disability 'cause a lot of students you know who idenfies having a disability for lots of reasons may not choose to access SAS, and so OCADs numbers are higher We are on the higher end, so in all stats, there are surveys done, of all the North American colleges and universies and OCAD would be on the higher end by about like 15% more. So 15% more of OCAD students would idenfy as having a disability and our numbers, In terms of the just over 20% of students who are accessing services, that's also higher at OCAD. And so I'm going to skip to I'm going to skip the next queson, and go to the 4th. Which disability, like if you could guess, is the most requested disability that people would seek accommodaons for? Or another way to think about it: Which is there, a disability category that you would think OCAD students fall? You know most likely to endorse. So we have anxiety or depression, anxiety OK sorry I got caught up reading a queson. So, correct. One thing is a student doesn't have to disclose the exact diagnosis or the nature of their disability in order to receive services. However, most of the students that we serve in the SAS would Idenfy as having a mental health disability. And another sort of side category, which would be the like a second highest, are students who idenfy as having ADHD or ADD, and that, somemes that falls under a learning disability category. Somemes it falls under mental health, but those are the two highest categories and for sure we know that Anne. The number of students, and when we do these surveys that are specifically looking at student behaviors, do you idenfy as having a disability unrelated to stats we collect in SAS surveys year aer year, OCAD would Students would have higher numbers of mental health issues than other universies, and it's much, much higher, so almost 40%. Of higher than other universies in terms of endorsing either diagnosis of a mental health issue or having experience, let's say symptoms of of mental health issues like depression, anxiety. things like that. And so that the big important thing, and it seems like everybody is sort of -we weren't sure when asking these quesons if people would be totally Off, but it sounds like everybody's on -has a good understanding. And I think the one thing in terms of mental health disabilies is that it's something it's invisible. So that came up at the last workshop and then came up earlier today that most of the students who are seeking accommodaons, and that in a class of 30, let's say Let's say if we're looking at 20%, that could be six students per class of 30, that most of those would be invisible disabilies. And very much that contributes to a lot of sgma that we talked about at the last workshop in terms of somemes Rhetoric from faculty might be, or from the community, well you don't look disabled, you seemed fine last week. Your first assignment, it doesn't seem like you have a disability or things like that. So it's really important to understand a lot of the students, whether they are registered with SAS or not. There's a high number of students experiencing mental health issues at OCAD. And then which accommodaon would you say is most likely To -sorry, What is the accommodaon that would be most likely requested from a faculty? So when you get the accommodaon leers, if you can take a guess, what are the most likely or most common accommodaons, extensions, exclamaons?

CLAIRE: Jennifer, I'm just going to jump in. People are having trouble with the chat, so do you mind just as they come in Maybe just read what people are wring so that everybody can hear it in case thanks. I know you already doing it, but no, you're mostly doing it. I just wanted to make sure because there seems to be a problem with teams this morning. OK, so extensions, more me, Any others? So, absolutely correct extensions are by far the largest accommodaon that we would request for, probably. Within all the accommodaon leers it's almost It's almost unusual if a student isn't requesng some flexibility in terms of extensions. And then somebody wrote "Covid?" and I think this conversaon is, and the stats that I'm talking about are kind of unrelated to covid. So I think as we go through this first semester and we're collecng Our data, things are looking different in terms of COVID and the the learning models and there is a lot more flexibility in terms of the the online learning models like related to extensions so this conversaon is more is more un-COVID related. Um and so other really common accommodaons or accommodaons that take up a lot of resources would be: peer note taking, so peer notetaking, although there may not be a huge number of students who access that as an accommodaon It is the most onerous process to deliver from SAS. Easilly easilly, there's four staff who are pulled at different mes of the year, and I think with another staff. We averaged out about $100,000 a year to implement a note taking program, and the number of students who are accessing it is actually quite low, so somemes what happens is the resources is required for certain accommodaons or so great. And although there's a small number of students accessing it, if there was all of this conversaon is related to how can we do things differently in the classroom and how can SAS support that, so that you know those are accommodaons that aren't necessarily required and there's Measures in place within the class class that can help you know -OK, let's not Let's take away the need for extensions or maybe not completely But having more flexibility built into the class. And then what would you assume registered with SAS what would they say is the number 1 barrier to their educaon? If people want to just put in the chat. OK. Faculty and instuonal systems. Inflexible professors, sgma for accessing accommodaons, Deadlines and workload, I'd imagine they need more personal aenon. So I think those are definitely Bang on. And I would say I'll just read: 30 students in a 3 hour class They're geng 7-8 minutes each per week of 1 to one instrucon factor in Break that stressful to students because they're not geng enough me with profs. I find 15 minutes is an ideal number for each. Has this been looked at? So I think in terms of it's interesng, and I think the SAS advisers probably could speak more to that in terms of one on one aenon. I would say from like where I am in terms of my perspecve that, and what we hear from students, is faculty sort of acknowledging accommodaon. So even with an accommodaon leer there's some, there's a high number of faculty that there's pushback in terms of facilitang the accommodaon and There's lots of faculty that are supporve of facilitang the accommodaon. And not to put it on faculty 'cause I think there's a lot of barriers, and workload issues with faculty, and like Gary pointed out, if you have 30 people in your class, and let's say six of those students, or 20% of the students are needing different accommodaons having to navigate that can become like a significant workload issue, and then I would say that instuonal and systemic barriers that come up and sgma is huge and so we sort of think of ourselves as a very progressive instuon and we've made a lot of strides in terms of how we understand disability and access and accommodaon. And I would say just from my experience overseeing the SAS that I guess ableism and sgma associated with disabilies primarily with mental health disabilies or mental health issues is massive and definitely something that we want to tackle and something we're going to be talking more about. So that's I'm done there. So thank you everyone for your parcipaon.

FADY: Thanks so much Jennifer, and will pass it on to Mariela.

MARIELA: Thank you. Thank you, Jennifer. Thank you Fady for the context. The historical context that theorecal context, social and the context within AutoCAD University as well, which is obviously very relevant and important to us. So I now I will take the next 10, less than 15 minutes, to talk about universal design for learning, or UDL for short. I know at this point many of you are familiar with it, so hopefully. We are trying to unpack it a lile bit more today, so UDL is a framework to improve and opmize digital learning for all people based on scienfic insights into how humans learn. So UDL is a very praccal concrete framework that you can use to design your classes, to design the class that you're going to be you're going to be teaching next Monday. Or beer yet, to decide the course we're going to be teaching in the winter. And we will unpack a lile bit the principles And there's also guidelines to do this, but the idea is to help us in a course design. And how can we make our courses more accessible? Because listening to Fady, listening to Jennifer, we know that it is -we have to make these courses accessible, but how do we do it? So UDL provides a very clear guideline. And I'm sure you know this, But just in case, I will menon this again, universal design for learning comes from The architectural term of universal design that was prevalent in Europe. It was brought to the US by Ronald Mace and the idea was to create products, environment, communicaons that were accessible for as many people as possible with or without disabilies, and the curb cut was a prime example where it was something that is something that is essenal for people who are on a wheelchairs. But it's also very useful if we are parents who are pushing a baby stroller. Or somebody who is pushing a suitcase, for example a rolling suitcase. I know with Universal design for learning, the idea is the same. So for example closed capons. They are essenal for a learner has a hearing impairment, but closed capons are also very beneficial for other students, such as those students who are English language learners or students who are perhaps in an environment that is noisy and they need to focus or have a cognive profile who find that extremely helpful. I'm sorry Fady, If you don't mind to move into the next slide. And so the main goal of UDL is to break this inadvertent barriers that we have in our curriculum. And I always like to say inadvertent because we don't realize that. And I'll just give a very quick example of myself, I remember taking my stats courses and hang stascs, and then I had a Prof who made us do things very quickly and we need to use a mer. And I remember I pracce and I did all this quickly and then I'm thinking, wow, this was good. This was so helpful and realized and I did well and I'm like OK. The teacher was right. I needed to do this and then I start to do this when I was a TA, which stats on my students, I was helping my students, but this just told me well for a variety of reasons that we didn't specifically discuss at the moment, many students were having difficules with this and it wasn't within my best intenons, but that helped me. That was very helpful for me. Yes, it helped me. It helps my friends, but I never thought about all these other people who had to quit the course at the me because we had a professor who was asking for that. Or maybe we don't know. Maybe they quit the program. They quit the whole educaonal system in system in higher educaon because of something like that. Well, so is it really indispensable that we do this formula so quickly in just a minute or two? Am I saving somebody's life? Am I a first responder? I'm not. It is not that dramac that I do it that quickly, so UDL is helping us go back to the learning outcomes. And some things need to be done in a certain way and there is a good reason for that, but it's not always the case. And for us to start thinking outside ourselves as learners and we always have the best intenons. So it's important that we listen and we learn from our learners. And sorry Fady If you don't mind just to the next slide. So the goal for Universal Design for learning is to have to foster experse in our learners. So expert learners who are purposeful and movated. So learners who want to know more who are curious who at first we're going to help them with that. But then we want to give them space so they find their own movaon as well. We cannot be constantly working on that. At first we'll help and then we fade that help and they find it on their own. Learners were resourceful. We don't want -if we have a class of 30, we don't want them. Asking us what class of 200 - 5300? We don't want them to ask us all the quesons, we want them to have a queson. What do I do? I take a look at this arcle. I go to the Internet. I ask a peer. And then of course we can ask the professor But what else am I doing? Where do I find what I don't know? Because somemes they'll be alone. I'll be working alone. How do I build all these skills? A learner who is knowledgeable so I know about the subject maer. I am also crical, and analycal. I want to know more, I understand cultures, I'm humble. All these atudes that we also expect our students to acquire by the end of the program. We also want our students to be strategic and goal directed. OK, I have an assignment during this course in three weeks, but I also have an exam in this other course I'm taking and I'm also working. How am I going to do this? How am I going to pace myself? what do I have to do this week? What do I have to do next? Am I monitoring? If things worked well, what did I do? Well, I beer keep doing that if things didn't workout. What should I be changing so as to improve that so we want those that those metacognive pracces to be present within all of us? Because it's something we take outside the school, of course. So sorry for the just the next slide. So these are the three main principles that are going to help us design a class. All designed a course or design a whole program, so the first UDL principle is mulple means of engagement. So how do I engage and movate my learners? And this can be done in many ways. Not all students get movated by the same thing. Maybe some some students want to go outside so we can provide space, especially these days with the computer somemes to work outside and maybe take pictures and do an assignment with that. Or who are we including the curriculum? Who are the arsts we're including from one geographical? Areas? Who are the sciensts? What are their perspecves? Are we including enough our students see themselves in the curriculum? Another principle of udl is mulple means of representaon. How am I presenng the informaon? Am I always talking? Am I always sending rangs? Am I always doing a demo which is fantasc and then students just learn from my demo or I can also provide resources because there are other people who may be doing similar techniques. And somemes we say things that. People say things in different ways or people do lile things in different ways that are helpful for other learners. Some people may want to read about a technique, so how my presenng this informaon? Or am I providing space for my students to relate what I'm teaching to their own lives? To the if I'm teaching something more theorecal, am I allowing them to relate that to their studio pracces? This is very, very important when we want our students to move the informaon to move the learning from short-term to long-term memory. The only way to. Bring it to this long term memories to make this deep connecons. Then mulple means of acon expression. How are my students navigang their learning environment, which can be quite complex and how are they expressing what they know? Am I always asking them to write? Am I always asking them to? To present something orally, there may be many reasons to explain why a student may not be good at wring, and somemes if wring is not a learning or does it need to be in wring. Because yes, the student may do it, but the day it takes a lot of it takes much, much more work than others, and it may be hindering their ability to show you what they really know, so it's again looking back at those learning outcomes and then talking about. Again, we talk about metacognive pracce before. And somemes I am number one. For that I always say it was like the best high school I did -I was a high school teacher for many years in Argenna. I was really good and then I came. Well that's what I say. Then I came to higher educaon and I thought OK, these are adults. They know what they're doing. They should be. There is no need for acve learning. They know they should just read and just tell me everything they know. Well, that's a mistake that's know how humans learn. That's not what we learn. Absolutely any age and students may need to know how to scaffold informaon for themselves. So I always make sure that I included later I learned that I need to keep working on those skills. So teaching. Somemes I would present the informaon in tables, in Infographs, in mind maps, just to show them you guys can do this yourself for some of the informaon that you're learning in this course or in other courses. Or I would just tell them, OK, let's take the last 10 minutes of this class to talk about ourselves before, and I would just give them quesons so they would reflect. did I read the informaon for today? Did I ask quesons when I need it? I wanted to make Accessibility as shared responsibility and that's what we have been talking so far. And when we talk about metacognion, metacognive pracces, it's teaching that because we may not know, the students may not know this, so it's very it doesn't take long, and it's very helpful for students. And then sorry for it. If you don't mind the next slide. And this take a few minutes. All let you watch this, or maybe at the end if you have me you have this slides. She talks She makes an analogy with bowling and aiming in our sessions that absolutely loved. So maybe we have me at the end. Or if you can, please watch it on your own. She is absolutely fantasc. She's faculty member from University of Brish Columbia, so I encourage you to watch her video and then fade if you don't mind the next. The next slide, it has some limitaons of UDL. So for the first one, The term "universal" could reinforce the noon of a normave body or mind, and it's important that in UDL we are not trying to universally make students fit within the normal. The normal circumstances of learning, we're going to support you, so you learn in the normal way. That's not what Universal is about. The idea of universal should signal that there are many normals in the class. I have my own normal based on my personality, my cognive profile, my lived experiences. But there as many normal stuff we have, we have 30 students or 30 normals. If we have 200, there's 200 normals, and with UDL we embrace this diversity. We learn from this diversity because we know that as we all work together and we bring all these different perspecves, we're going to create something very, very unique that is much beer. That is created only by the same type of perspecve, so it's celebrate and value this diversity. And sorry, Fady? For the next one, so UDL seen as a soluon for all and conclude that individual student support is redundant, thereby reducing funding and resources for students with disabilies. Although we have been talking about this before, we are going to decrease these barriers that we have in our classes with udl by default, because we are going to design our classes in our courses in a different way, we are significantly going to decrease the number of accommodaons they sll may be needed. There are many types of learners. Thankfully, so sll accommodaons may be needed for some students, so we sll have to keep. Of course, that funding and those resources. And then the next one, very thank you. Deeper discussions on issues around an racism, an oppression and social jusce and a lot of what Fady was saying at the beginning have actually remains scarce with the UDL framework that UDL framework was informed by research on learning theories, educaonal, cognive psychology, neuroscience but it has remained for the longest me and it has been around UDL for 20 years for the longest me it has not been so aached to crical disability studies, so to all these other very important theories, but this is changes. This is thankfully changing and then the last one here. Reduced to a check box and there are checks box elsewhere. And yes we can have a checkpoint. Said OK if they can be helpful. Said yes I'm doing this. I'm doing this OK. I am working but it cannot be OK. I'm accessible right now. I'm doing all this is much more because we keep learning all the me because we have different learnings every me. Different learners every semester but different learners depending on where we are teaching. Somebody who was really good with this system in the other unit may change because now we are asking different things so. It's our approach that is more important. Our perspecve. Our flexibility and willingness to learn from our students and then. So if Fady with the next slide, there are small limitaons of UDL, and but I think it's important that we treat the Udl framework as an acve and aconal approach, something that what am I going to take for this that is going to help me make my class more accessible? And then we consider UDL as an open ended process that centres mul modality flexibility and we talked about about this access and inclusion in our pracces. And sorry, Fady? For the next one. UDL is a work in progress approach not desnaon, and that is something that researchers in you deal have actually emphasized throughout all these years. They don't claim to have a theory that has answered all the quesons at all, but the UDL Community started in elementary and secondary school and it has expanded to higher educaon and its internaonal right now. And there's a lot of people doing research and working within the Community. And then the last one, just as evidence of this work in progress and collaborave approach. There is currently a community driven process to update the guidelines. I show you the three principles. There are three guidelines within each principle. UDL researchers are realizing that there's a lot missing there. As we said before, so they are inving the internaonal community to come and give feedback. So if you have used some principles of UDL or UDL as as it is, if you are reading or are new to UDL and you read and like, oh there's something's missing here? Please go to this website and click and give your answer because they are looking for looking for suggesons from educators. So thank you so much. That's it for me, and now we're going to make this even more concrete with Claire, so thank you.

CLAIRE: Thank you Mariella. I'm so you know this. We provided a lot of context here, right? So, Fady has talked about moving away from the centralized model that creang an an-ableist an an an-sanest environment for our students is a shared responsibility. And it's a shared responsibility because we can see that students are registering for accommodaons at a high number. They're oen requiring the same or similar Excess abilies and or accommodaons and that you know and and one of the reasons here is that the system itself is ableist and sanist and so we're trying to create an environment where we move away from that. And UDL is one way to be able to start to negoate this. So UDL is one way that we can sort of take part in responsibility to create an environment that is more accessible for students, And I think one of the important things here is that it's not just about creang an accommodated place, but it's also about honoring that difference, So, like Marielle said, it's not just about making sure that all students are, learning in the right way, or the same way, but that all students feel like their difference is valued in the classroom, and some of the ways I'm going to talk through some of the ways that this difference can be honoured, and to talk about this tle, I struggled with this 'cause originally, I think I put "ways to create a more accessible classroom" and I really I moved away from that tle because I wanted to talk about this idea of honouring differences, that we're recognizing that there is difference, and in that in that we're creang a space that all students feel like they have have a place that is more than just an accommodaon and most the ones I'm going to talk about here are probably things that you've seen before. And then I'm going to put it out to the group to sort of think about ways that you are honoring difference in your classroom or maybe thinking forward to ways you could. So the first one is access statements and you'll see that the PDF is actually linked, so you can look about look at this in our toolkit because the faculty toolkit has a whole bunch of informaon on this. So creang access statements to to recognize this difference, and to say that that you're open to that access is a shared responsibility, Community or group agreements. This is something I do with most of my classes, and I did both online and in person, so having the students themselves create the roles and responsibilies that are expected in a classroom and and how they expect one another to treat each other and as well as you would the instructor. To create a place for shared notes. So we've done this today. We using one note. There's many ways that you can share notes and it could be about, literally students sharing notes with each other. It could be about faculty you sharing your notes with the students and whether this is sharing your PowerPoint or your PDF or some sort of Glossary. It could be about a shared Glossary, so I have this term created an online shared Glossary for students to develop, so they're learning the terminology, but it's making sure that notes are shared across so that it's not just only students responsibility to be able to figure this out. To reassess the classroom space, so this is both physically and online as well as to reassess the assignments, so this has to do with thinking about literally does the furniture in the place, the route that we might take in the place, the idea of everyone standing up during crique and looking at a work, or how how we're navigang the space as well as online an assignment. So thinking about due dates, and mul modality, thinking about UDL. And then the last one I have here is recognizing current trauma or histories of exclusion. So this is what Fady was talking about, really early on about about that idea of jusce and that not everybody who comes into the classroom is starng at the same place and that there is current traumas that are happening right now, that students are are dealing with. Like Black Lives Maer, the COVID pandemic, water crisis, residenal schools. And to actually discuss these and have them part of the assignments or the pedagogy through readings, discussions and assignments. Before I move on Fady, do you have anything you want or Mariela or Jennifer? You want to add to to this? To this discussion about honoring difference.

FADY: No, I'm just really looking forward to seeing what other ideas people and what they've done in their courses. CLAIRE: perfect. OK, so you can just move to the next slide. So, I guess that's going to be the queson, so if you can take maybe a couple minutes just to reflect on your own classroom and to reflect on on some of the things we talked about today. And maybe you can share through the chat or you can raise your hand and discuss some of the different ways that you honour difference in the classroom or in reflecng on some of the things we talked about How you're thinking about new ways you might be able to honor difference and create an an-ableist and an-sanist classroom. So I'll just mute for a second and just kind of give some me for reflecon.

BETSY: Hello, this is Betsy. I just wanted to say that one of the things that I've done in teaching art history is to not assume that students know how to take notes. And I think assuming that they have certain kinds of academic skills, no maer what the level they are in in their educaon, there are many students who sll need to learn some of these skills. Or they know how to take notes in other types of classes, but perhaps not in this type of class. And I think sort of honoring that. This is a learning process and we're all geng beer at taking notes is something to consider, and I like the idea of sharing notes, and I wonder though if Like part of the way I would present this is to say this is a great experience for you to collaborate with a small team on taking notes for this lecture, not the enre class. There are too many of us, so a smaller document for fewer students and to use this as a model to think about is this going to help you in your note taking pracce individually in the future? So presenng it as this is an opportunity for you to see how other people are doing it and to improve your skills. Does that make sense?

CLAIRE: Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much. I think That idea of assumpons is really important. To not have assumpons going into the classroom. And yeah, I love the idea of them being in small groups and and sharing their notes that way. And I also think that it would help them obviously improve their skills, but it also shows that there is no one right way. That the way I take notes for me isn't necessarily the right way and that there's many different ways that we can. We can take notes and an that is valuable to see to see that difference as well. Thank you, I see another hand here. I don't know who it is. Nicole, go ahead. Yeah thank you.

NICOLE: Oh hi yeah thanks. So I've menoned this in other contexts so apologies to those who may have heard it. But I think it's really relevant here. I teach studio based courses and mostly very process based courses where each student is developing independently their own projects coming out of a kind of philosophy of sustainability and experimentaon and acknowledging the meaning and material. And one of the assignments that I've developed is building on how students can teach how we teach each other. Like we're that we're all learning together in the space, and I have the students give a short, low stakes, but graded presentaon on how to do something to the rest of the class, or somemes just smaller breakout groups of the class and that how to do something is is anything that they want and so it created. It creates a space for people to bring aspects of their personality that might not otherwise be acknowledged. And it has generated some amazing presentaons over the years 'cause I've done it for quite a few years, including where students and I strive to make a space where students feel comfortable to do so. Where that topics around Social jusce issues or coming from different spaces, I guess, there's a place for it and it can be very inspiring and it feeds back into the artwork that they're doing because it expands our understanding of you know what it is that they're making.

CLAIRE: Thank you Nicole. Yeah I have heard you talk about in it and I've seen it in acon as well and I think what's really nice about it is that it it's some what at first feels like It's outside of the curriculum perse like because it can be on any topic. Like I know students have done it on sustainable cleaning products or like you said social jusce ideas or or things like that. But it always does come back to learning about who your students are as individuals, what they bring and then oen does come back into the artwork. So in that sense I think. It's really yes. It's it's a really nice way to tell honour difference. Thank you. Going to read what's in the chat here. I have something from Gary who says "I encourage my students to work together and study groups outside the class so they feel comfortable with each other. They can learn a lot from each other by building friendships and keep them movated. They really do help each other and it's wonderful to see." And then Michelle has "one way I think honour difference is. I talk openly about my anxiety disorder and how it has affected my life as a student and as a faculty member. This is a bit of an ice breaker, maybe. I tell students that well, I don't need them to disclose their struggles. I'll always work with them to help them succeed. I've also taken to wring 'Please let me know if there's anything I can do to help you succeed in this' In every email where I'm following up about missing late assignments, many students have told me they they feel called in by this and somemes take me up on it." Thank you Michelle, I actually I also have anxiety disorder and depression and I also speak about it openly in my classroom as a way to help create that environment. Emilie's talking about something similar. "I also find that disclosing my ADHD and its affect on my wring and teaching process is and how it intersects with my experience as a racialized person really opens up the space wether online classroom or workshop situaons" and Cary "in my own teaching I've had to step back from my own expectaons about how to teach in relaon to how students learn, and that's involved distancing myself from my own role as the 'expert' in the room," an" expert" in quotaon marks. "Somemes creang a space for the diversity of students, requires that we get them out of the way- And oh, "is that we get out of the way and let them and let them learn." Thank you Cary. And "especially in high stress anxiety situaon. It helps to diffuse students feelings of otherness." So I'm just going to if any of those people who want to jump in and speak about what they're what they're talking about, please feel free to and I think Betsy and Nicole your hands are sll up. I'm not sure if they're sll up from before or whether you wanted to add something there. Thanks. For Emilie or Michelle, or Cary, Gary, did you want to add anything to what you what you said there? No worries Nicole it happens all the me. I do it. Michelle, go ahead.

MICHELLE: I find especially right now I give like I'm giving space in every class for us to talk about how difficult life is right now, and how difficult it is to do all of the things that you're supposed to do when life is not normal. And I, many students, have told me that they really appreciate just the acknowledgement that life is not normal and that they have -I mean like normal when is like normal, but that right now, especially like there are all of these extra pressures and conflicts for our students. And so I really work to remind them over and over and over again and remind myself, I guess that. There are like human beings who also have who also are struggling. Right now in ways I both understand and couldn't possibly understand, and so I just bring that into the classroom space and give space and me for it. And lots of students have told me they really, they really appreciate that and then also it helps me tell them like I am also really struggling right now. I had to change my an anxiety regimen like I have to do all of these things to help keep myself going and students have told me they appreciate that. Like my honesty about these kinds of struggles helps them to Give space in the classroom for their own anyway.

FADY: You're muted Claire.

CLAIRE: Thanks. Do you imagine how that might translate if and when or I mean, we end up with a normal or back in the classroom.

MICHELLE: Well, I'm will be a transion to like I have a I have a kid who is now back in the classroom and I can see that life is sll not not not ordinary right? So I think that we'll be sll the kinds of struggles that are coming to the fore right now or that are being heightened are in some cases struggles that we were already having, but in a way like COVID at a me when we're so many of us are kind of plunged into crisis. Does open the possibility for having these conversaons about how struggling is so is something that actually we we share I think a posive coming out of COVID will be a renewed, maybe comfort talking about emoonal struggles and how they impact our life and work. Because even like in the media, we're seeing so much of this and it's becoming sort of more a thing that we're recognizing and talking about. And I can see that that might be a posive. CLAIRE: yeah, thank you. Chelsea said in the chat here. "While I'm not an instructor of course, I found that those who keep the gates of communicaon open gates of communicaon open see great success with their students. This can be done by checking in with all students at several mes of the term reminders of them available service and reminders of services available to them like SWC and SAS." Yeah, thank you. Any other ideas on how we honour honor difference in our classroom or how we could if we think forward? Emilie, go ahead.

EMILIE: I think there's a There's the peace around when we see students interacng with us in ways that we don't expect or we we receive assignments that don't necessarily look like our expectaons. Taking a moment for ourselves to think through is there a different organizaonal principle? Is there like that kind of thing? And I guess one of the other pieces here that I'm not enrely sure. How we get to? But I know that we have to talk about it, is we talk about this as a community responsibility. So at the same me that we, as instructors and staff are thinking about how we listen to students, right? How do how we interact with difference when we see it in work or in wring? It's also something that we're modeling for other students in the class. And like there's a piece there around the classroom community. Also, learning to listen for difference in value it rather than assuming it's wrong or bad or not knowing how to respond to it right? I think explicitly about listening differently because I'm oen thinking in language context, right? So you know with accents and learning to listen with accent and wring with an accent, but I think it kind of transfers over.

CLAIRE: Thank you, yeah you -several important ideas there that you brought up and I think you're you're right, it I'm also not sure how you get there. And well, I won't keep talking 'cause, uh, Peter, go ahead. PETER: Yeah, thank you. One thing that I my class is more on a kind of theorecal base in some sense I guess, and in that it's about entrepreneurship and social innovaon. And it's a very big class in spirit, challenging to get everyone speak. I'm really sensive too. Created space for people to speak and so I put them in groups and I recently just did a survey, midterm survey summary and I think one of the things that I've been. I been doing and to kind of make sure I Acknowledge people's differences in the class is to actually listen to every bit of the survey point. So I actually went over the survey point and just make sure that I hit and I address all of them. So that's one thing. But another thing I did. That I think that I've been toying with for at the beginning of the semester and is this idea of having a pictorial dialogue as an art and design school. I think it's really important to empower students that, listen You can dialogue with me in a sort of pictorial way, rather than a text way, and so my assignments, the journals that I asked him to do, I encourage them to reduce the text and, give me images, whether it's images from sketching, where there's images from a photograph, or it's something that made the magazine. They can bring that pictorial piece into it that they can sketch. Even yesterday in my class, Someone sketch something while we're in discussion this sketch this wonderful diagram really, really quickly and that was really nice to see because I'm constantly experimenng and trying to see how I can respond to that. Really be sensive and respond to them and this pictorial aspect, I think, is something that might be on to something good here, where you're looking at theorecal ideas, but they are translang them and expressing them In a pictorial way, so.

CLAIRE: Thank you Peter. Yeah and I saw your at the start of the year your course outline was presented like a menu which I thought was really beauful and as you were talking it it made me think that I think one of the things that I struggle with is is is also assumpons. Assumpons of learning and assumpons of what it means to be a student and what it means to have to be in a classroom and what it means to learn and what is the right way to learn it. And I think in in honouring difference it's about I guess, which is what Cary was saying earlier about this idea of geng out of the way. And opening up the classroom to saying like it, to breaking down those -so students come in also with assumpons that we're a University and there's these expectaons that you have to write in a certain way or you have to even draw in a certain way or you have to present yourself in a certain way. And I think trying to breakdown those noons which are incredibly difficult because they are entrenched and it is part of sort of this like systemic instuon and breaking those down. It is really difficult, and I think you know, talking about opening it up to to this idea that they cancommunicate with you in a way that's not verbal or wrien. That's a completely other way that they're used to or no is is really important. Thank you. I read here what what Gary said. "The troubled arst is cliche erroneous, however, expressing creavity is exposing your soul to the world. That is very daunng. Their art and design does extension who they are. It's a sensive and nuanced relaonship. You can easily hurt a student with flippant remarks, even when unintenonal, aside from being careful with our words, we should realize that emoons will always be heightened when it comes to seng art and design. Somemes it's nice to just to ask a student. What can I do to help you beer let them guide the conversaons." Emilie said "Peter, yes, an it's really interesng to discuss the affordances of images versus slash with text" And thinking about what Gary's saying here and this is something actually I was discussing with my therapist recently, talking about about anxiety in the world is this language of emoons and how we oen we have been structured or taught to to keep them very like inhibited. In this world, and in academics it's even heightened more right? And so this language opening up the language of emoons. You know what Michelle was saying. And when you're saying like this idea that you know Gary saying that this idea of encouraging a different kind of language, whether it's verbal, wrien visual, but also one about embodiedness or affect. Any other thoughts, quesons, comments? We have, I think 10 minutes le, is that right, Fady? FADY: Yeah, I it would be good to maybe do the summary and then we can open it up to quesons and see if anyone else has any suggesons for honouring. Is that alright

CLAIRE: or even just quesons in general.

FADY: Yeah exactly. So I do wanna conclude by summarizing what we just went through, you know. We've kind of gone through and talked about the numbers with Jennifer, We know how many students have registered. We know how many students can't register or sll are to register. We understand the different kind of models or approaches. Whether it's a pure accommodaons mix of both or really about true Accessibility. We've talked about one framework that can get us there. This kind of UDL approach, and then we've heard from all of you right about the things that you're doing actually in your classes that I think in fact demonstrate this kind of distributed or shared responsibility is kind of jusce. Approach things that were taken into consideraon in the kind of history of this instuon and higher educaon in general as a space that's always been modeled aer. You know a whole bunch of other people write never about the people who are who are different, who are more complex, who are more unique and so. I really like this quote by Mia Mingus and I'll I'll read it out loud, She's a fantasc scholar in the US who does a lot of work on disability in disability studies and she says "we cannot allow the liberaon of disabled people to be boiled down to logiscs. We must understand in pracce and Accessibility that moves us closer to jusce, not just inclusion or diversity. We want to queson a culture that makes inaccessibility even possible. Just because disabled people are in the room. Doesn't mean there is no ableism or that people won't pretend we're invisible" and so you can think about this idea that Jennifer was telling us that there's lots of students registered, 20%. That doesn't mean we've achieved anything in terms of access, right? And the part of this quote that I think always makes me so excited or makes me ponder or reflect with her quesons. Her comment that says we want to queson a culture that makes inaccessibility even possible. So it's really about like how did we get here. How did we get to an educaon system that allows us to potenally exclude people from learning? And really, the next session on November 17th is gonna be a focus on welcome disability into your classroom. You've already talked a lile bit about that. You've demonstrated to us how you do it and the next session is really a focus about how we might Crip or madden our classrooms and will introduce those concepts, define them, and work together to think about what those might mean. Alright, I just want to say thank you very much for coming and staying for the duraon and I'll give it back to Claire and the rest of the team to kind of do the Q&A. I'll stop sharing. You don't need that anymore. CLAIRE: Yeah, does anyone have any quesons for any of us or for or for your other for your peers? Or just thoughts? Reflecons on what was discussed today? Nicole.

CLAIRE: I just wanted to thank you first of all, for such a thorough and great introducon. I wasn't able to aend the first session, so I'm just playing a bit of catch up. I wanted to observe that I have never worked with OneNote before and I really felt during this session like a student in the best possible way, and I struggled a lile bit with going back and forth between those notes. I felt very pulled and a lile bit confused by it. Which I think is a really excellent experience to have in this moment. When I'm designing for January. And yeah, like just that this technology component of it, while it affords us, you know, the possibility even of teaching, brings a whole other set of challenges including to those who might not. I feel like you know, in a regular classroom I would be considered able bodied, but this is pushing me outside of my ability zone and I I really value that. So yeah, thank you. There's lots to learn and I look forward to the next next presentaon.

CLAIRE: Thank you Nicole. And actually that observaon that you sort of said that you would be considered able bodied, right? But that you know it just goes to show why this idea of designing for everybody is so important, right? It's like even despite your able-bodiedness, there was a struggle there, right? And that had to do with that. That technology, right? And so we just sort of think about this all the me, that it's like accommodaons are only for those who aren't. And yet that is exactly like I think you just you just nailed it out like the the the what's the nail? The nail item? You nailed it. Thank you. Any other quesons, thoughts? Hit the nail on the head! thank you. Any other quesons, thoughts, couple, more minutes we can we can hang out? Betsy!

BETSY: hi, I just wanted to also add that one of the things that I've been doing in my teaching at another instuon is to invite students to connue. Really think about what, what are they hoping to be geng out of their learning experiences and that. No maer where they're coming from or what abilies they're bringing to the class. Having a sense of of what they, what their goals are, or what their expectaons are helps and it helps other students in the class also get a sense of. To be reminded why are we here again? I mean we have a lot of students who kind of float in and out of class. They flow in and out of degree programs, and if they don't have a clear sense of direcon, anD I know their idenes are extraordinarily malleable and I can't imagine how hard it would be at this me to be so isolated and to be a young person sll trying to figure out who they are without having a lot of social interacons. So. Anyway, I all of this is a bigger set of quesons that I ask students just to kind of revisit. Why are we here again, and what are we doing here? And that helps them figure out why, what, what skills they need to be praccing to learn something in my class? Does that make sense?

CLAIRE: Yeah, absolutely, thank you. Yeah, it makes absolute sense. Thank you for sharing. Nicole yes, learning to deal with silence online is very different than in the classroom. I'm very comfortable with learning to be OK with silence in the classroom, and yet now it's like it's lile more panic inducing here. Michelle, go ahead.

MICHELLE: I just wanted to say I'm trying to also incorporate, so I teach literature, so I'm trying to incorporate literature by people who are talking about also their own struggles with like and oenmes it is mental health related, but like lots of trying to incorporate disability jusce into my readings at like the level of the reading so that we can talk about, well, how are different people represenng disability jusce, for example, through their work well? I'm trying to like make that balance between acknowledging or not and acknowledging, but like creang a diversity of representaons of my courses that includes disability, jusce as like a really vital part of the thing that we're studying, while also not glorifying this stereo type of like the map, the mad creave person, and I find that many of my students are wring that like they've never been, that they have never been needed to read something about someone's grappling with chronic pain, and how great it feels to to read a representaon that talks about how important it is to have a heang pad or something like. And it helps me, I find that I'm learning so much from my from my students as we sort of grapple with these kinds of representaons. I feel that maybe that is something for those of us. Like as Nicole said, who would be considered like? Mostly like quite able in many ways to like to really like learn through listening to our to our students and to the tax, and I'm seeing like a real opportunity for thinking more deeply there. Yeah, thank you so much everyone. This was a great yeah I I'm gonna.

CLAIRE: I think that's like a really nice place please to end it. Michelle, I think this idea of listening and listening to our students is really nice .Fady, Did you have anything you wanted to just add to wrap things up?

FADY: No, just that we'll be talking about a disability jusce approach in the next session. So this is a perfect kind of segue. And if you don't know what disability jusce is and you want to find out, yeah, come to the next session. You can Google it, but you can also just come to the next session. I'm like branding the session. CLAIRE: Great, alright thank you everyone. Have a have a wonderful day and I'm looking forward to hopefully seeing you on the next one. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks everyone. I.