ADCET Workshop: Exploring opportunities for reciprocal dialogue between faculty and students around UDL implementation and inclusive design

Thu 22 Aug 2024 3:00 pm – 4:00 pm AEST

Online

Event details

Lessons from a Canadian study on authentic dialogue between stakeholder groups. 

There has been progress in the degree of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) implementation across the tertiary sector in many Global North jurisdictions.  This has been encouraging, but growth and development have rarely been sustainable so far, and there are concerns in research in relation to the feasibility of systemic, whole campus, long term UDL adoption.  A second concern in recent scholarship is the absence of student voice in the manner UDL is integrated and developed across tertiary campuses.  These two worries about sustainable UDL development are necessarily linked and a study carried out in West Canada has explored the way stakeholder groups envisage faculty-student dialogue in relation to UDL implementation across an institution.  

The study in question examined the perceptions of students and faculty who had developed a degree of awareness of UDL for more than a year.  It sought to explore the voices of students and the constructs they develop around the notion of UDL implementation and development across a campus wide integration of UDL. The project also sought to explore the ways faculty view UDL growth and integration and the variables they see as indispensable to this development.  The objective of the project was to compare the perspectives of these two stakeholder groups in order to determine whether there existed commonalities between the two or if these stances diverged significantly.   In a last stage of the project, the two groups were brought together to create opportunities for dialogue between these key stakeholders.  This action research project, in parallel, aimed to create a sustainable UDL community of practice for faculty, as well as to develop a lasting student discussion circle around UDL.  These two objectives were met and a reflection around these institutional processes will also be included in the virtual workshop.     

This workshop engages participants in exploring and discussing the key themes that emerge from this research project.  Participant outcomes include:

• Explore the complexity of capturing an authentic student voice in relation to UDL implementation
• Examine the challenges and opportunities present in any effort to create authentic reciprocal dialogue between students and faculty in relation to UDL growth and development
• Consider how faculty concerns and student preoccupations both shape the notion of sustainable cross-campus UDL implementation   

Audience: Faculty, students, administrators, UDL advocates, service providers, accessibility services

Presenter

Dr Frederic Fovet is an Inclusion and Universal Design for Learning (UDL) scholar and advocate, currently an Assistant Professor at Thompson Rivers University, Canada. He has held faculty positions at the University of Prince Edward Island and Royal Roads University and served as Director of the Office for Students with Disabilities at McGill University. Frederic consults internationally on UDL and inclusive pedagogy in both K-12 and post-secondary sectors.

His research initially focused on students with social, emotional, and behavioural difficulties, later expanding to all aspects of learner diversity and inclusion. His tenure at McGill integrated Disability Studies into his work, emphasizing critical pedagogy and legal perspectives on inclusion. Frederic led a cross-campus UDL implementation at McGill and chaired the first three Pan-Canadian UDL Conferences. He serves on editorial and advisory boards of several journals and was awarded the 2021 D’Arcy McGee Beacon Fellowship by the Ireland Canada University Foundation.

The workshop is free to attend, and it will be live-captioned.

Registrations for this workshop are now open

ADCET is hosted by the University of Tasmania

Contact details

Event website
https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_BClVNcU8TiyZ-BP4rJJxMA

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