One of the hardest things to do when planning an Inclusive Design during a Pandemic is how to get the learners involved?
Things to consider, “Are there any barriers within the planned learning activities” or “does the environment limit the pathway to a learner’s success?”
When planning a blueprint with my peers, one problem that we tackled was what were some barriers that will not make this blueprint non-inclusive. Two situations occurred: how do we resolve the obstacles for those Hard/Loss of hearing and Colour blindness. Everyone’s participation was crucial for our workshop. What was needed to create a safe and welcoming environment? First, to create open, inclusive learning. Second, to allow accessible understanding for those hard / losses of hearing, videos within our slides needed to include subtitles and transcripts are provided for learners to follow along.
Though we do have an activity where there is colouring involved, those who are colourblind play a significant role to show the different perspectives of learners and how they see and describe things. Other than that, there were no other activities that required the knowledge of colour.
How can the environment affect our learning process? With the Pandemic, it is hard to find the time and space to feel comfortable. Zoom has helped immensely in providing that safe, socially distanced environment where everyone can continue to participate. With that being said, issues could occur, such as no/low wifi connection, emotional understanding is harder to tell, distractions of screens. To reduce all the barriers of learning, creating communication activities helps keep everyone on track and engage with the topics that come about. Even creating polls/questionnaires, where individuals can answer anonymously, still, express how they feel about inclusive education. The only problem that would be hard to tackle would be the low connection. However, if it were to be in person, that would not be a problem.
Interactive Learning Resource can be tough to stay on top of to ensure that everyone’s needs are being met. Creating an inclusive presentation right from the get-go with all factors in mind, such as barriers, is why. Learning soon becomes fun for everyone and helps create an inclusive environment.
Here are the other members in Pod 5, check out their site to view the different other learning designs they have discussed: