After a popular live event on Inclusive Course Creation for the Freelance Jungle, we asked Dr Amy McKernan to offer three high level tips in guest blog form.
I get asked about inclusion in course design often. Sometimes, there’s an expectation (usually implied) that I can answer this question in a straightforward way, i.e., ‘Oh, you just need to include captions for your audio and ALT text for your images’. I get it: we all just want things simplified in this age of information overwhelm.
But the truth is that inclusion (and accessibility) in education is a huge topic. I’ve been almost completely focused on it in my professional life for the last fourteen years, and I know I still have a lot to learn. So if you’re coming to online course design as a relative newbie, with or without a teaching qualification, how can you make your course offerings inclusive without having to study for a decade or more first?
The good news is that I think there are some fundamental things you can do to be an inclusive educator. And like any good listicle author, I’ve given them each a number.
1. Assume difference.
Photo by Joanna Kosinska on Unsplash
The mistake that a lot of beginning educators make is assuming that there’s one ‘right way’ to teach their learners. Fact: learners – no matter how homogenous they appear – are diverse in their needs and their preferences. Providing choices about how learners take in and interact with content is therefore crucial.
If you go in assuming, for example, that some learners will want to listen to/watch videos from start to finish, some will want to watch them chipmunk-style (double speed), and some will absolutely not have any interest in listening to/watching videos and would rather read the transcript, you’re going to cover a lot of bases. Even better, meeting learners where they are and with the kind of content delivery that they want will support their engagement (by which I mean how much fun they’ll have doing your course), as well as inclusion. That is, your readers and your listeners and your zoom-right-on-through-ers are going to love being able to take your course in a way that suits them.
2. Be a learner.
The best teachers are lifelong learners. The best learners are the ones who are willing to make mistakes and admit them and learn from them. This is a mindset shift for a lot of us, because there’s a really persistent idea (especially in progressive circles) that we have to be perfect and know everything about inclusion from the outset if we’re going to call ourselves inclusive educators.
Thing is, it’s virtually impossible to know it all because knowledge in this space will continue to evolve, forever probably. I mean, half of what I know about being an inclusive educator comes from students telling me I did the wrong thing in a lesson. When – not if – we get it wrong, inclusive educators apologise, learn, and do everything we can to do better next time.
3. Do it out loud.
If there’s no obvious evidence to the contrary, people with disability or other inclusion needs generally assume that a course or program is inaccessible, because so many of them are. So if your course or program has no visible commitment to inclusion, those people are usually going to walk away.
If you make it clear you have a commitment to accessibility and inclusion in your course marketing materials, those people who have access needs can feel more confident about taking your course. They’re also going to feel a little safer contacting you if it’s not clear that their specific need is covered. This shouldn’t be empty virtue-signalling, of course, and should always be combined with your willingness to learn and with a course design that assumes learner difference.