The development of a faculty training program that incorporates accessibility, UDL, badges, higher levels of Bloom's Taxonomy, and uses technology to be self-paced.
Accessibility and Universal Design for Learning (UDL) have become important topics in higher education. Pikes Peak Community College (PPCC), as one of the 13 colleges in the Colorado Community College System (CCCS), was tasked with improving the accessibility of its online instruction and increasing its incorporation of UDL by faculty. A Web Accessibility Plan was developed to assist in guiding the institution and its departments in meeting goals involving accessibility and UDL.
In response, the department of eLearning hired a course designer whose task was to develop training, tutorials, programs of support, and consult with faculty to ensure compliance.
This presentation will discuss the evolution of the training program that was developed for faculty, and focuses on the following objectives:
-Design and create a UDL course.
-Conduct personalized trainings as needed on designing instructional materials for accessibility.
-Provide workshops/webinars each semester on accessibility.
-Design and create self-paced courses for faculty on UDL and accessibility.
-Create tutorials and levels of support for faculty as they incorporate UDL and accessibility into their curriculum.
-Provide faculty the skills, tools, knowledge, and resources to be able to make their courses accessible.
The training program has evolved from providing a few in-person workshop sessions, to cohort model online courses, self-paced online courses, learning communities, badges, certificates, and other formats.
The audience will be presented with the challenges faced in creating such a program, and the solutions applied to said challenges. There will be examples of successes, and failures that the audience can utilize for their own efforts or initiatives.
In summary, the goals of this presentation will be to:
-Provide audience members a template for creating a training program for faculty.
-Discuss potential challenges and issues that may arise when implementing such a program, and what possible solutions there are.
-Offer ideas of incorporating Universal Design for Learning and Accessibility into existing training programs.
-Describe methods in creating self-paced courses, badges, certificates, and instruction that appeals to higher levels of Bloom's Taxonomy (Creating, Evaluating, Analyzing, and Applying).
-Showcase actual examples of tutorials, courses, and training offered to faculty that deal with accessibility and UDL.
-Illustrate actual examples of improvements to curriculum, that faculty have implemented.