universal design for learning as lever August 21, 2008
Posted by KC in teaching.add a comment
Last week I went to (most of) my school’s new faculty orientation. Much of it focused on stuff like benefits and tenure, but I was intrigued by the morning devoted to what the organizers called “Universal Design for Learning” (or UDL). In architecture and engineering, the term “universal design” refers to a set of principles for accessibility that result in things like wheelchair ramps and large, flat light switches. UDL, by metaphorical extension, is ostensibly concerned with providing accessible learning environments, so that students with disabilities have equal opportunities to learn.
I say “ostensibly,” because it’s pretty clear that part of the UDL agenda is not just about addressing the needs of students with disabilities, but also about changing core pedagogies of teachers. According to the website linked above, there are three key principles of UDL:
- Faculty can offer various ways to REPRESENT essential course concepts
- Faculty can offer various ways to encourage student ENGAGEMENT
- Faculty can offer students various formats for EXPRESSION of what they have learned
With a little tweaking, these principles could pass as a distillation of Chickering and Gamson’s “Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education.” And the examples of good UDL solutions (which can be viewed in an online tutorial) looked a lot like the kinds of active, experiential pedagogy that college teaching centers tend to espouse.
So, UDL isn’t just about addressing disability; it’s also about reforming teachers. I’m okay with this, but I also think it’s an uphill climb. In the Q&A session at the end of our workshop, there was a concern that experiential activities are all well and good, but that instructors in some disciplines can’t spend valuable class time on stuff like that when there is so much material to be covered. This propensity to think of teaching in terms of content coverage is more prevalent, perhaps, than you’d think. I saw it all the time when I worked for a teaching center, especially (but not exclusively) when talking to instructors in the hard sciences. As one of the workshop presenters pointed out, this model of learning posits students as empty vessels into which a teacher pours knowledge.
I believe (along with many others) that deep learning is the result of active engagement and participation, not passive reception. If UDL principles can encourage teachers to rethink their teaching in these terms, then all of their students stand to benefit–not just the ones living with disabilities.
what’s in a name? August 1, 2008
Posted by KC in life.4 comments
Dissertation writers, at the end of the long and arduous process, typically have to go through a final round of ritual hoop-jumping called “depositing.” Most of this involves adhering to complex formatting requirements with a care and precision that I normally associate with handling radioactive or bio-hazardous materials. The title page, in particular, has to be just so.
Because I wanted to avoid hang-ups later in the process, I sent just my title page to my school’s thesis office (yes, a whole office deals with this) in order to make sure everything complied. I was told, among other things, that I had used the wrong name. I had put “Kory Lawson Ching” on my title page, but apparently school records refer to me without my middle name, and was thus told I would have to use only “Kory Ching.”
I have to admit, this rankled me some. I mean, I know what my own name is, and while there may be many things in my dissertation that others could disagree with, I was fairly certain that the author’s name wouldn’t be one of them. I could have fought this by changing my official name with the university, but I didn’t want to get embroiled in a bureaucratic mess that would delay depositing (believe me, this is what would happen). I just wanted to be done.
So, I changed my name on the title page, but it was a little painful to do so. It’s not that I’m worried about database searches finding me, or that the shortened name is inconsistent with the name I’ve already published under. It’s that I consider my middle name an integral part of both my personal and professional identity. “Lawson” is the surname of my maternal grandparents. They had no sons, so I was given their name to carry it forward. I am proud to have done so. Because I was raised by a single mom, my grandparents were like a second set of parents for me. I identify with “Lawson” just as much as I do “Ching.” Perhaps more so.
But, of course, there are all sorts of weird politics mixed up in all this, like the privileging of male surnames in our culture, and I haven’t even touched how this aligns with my multiethnic status. In the end, it’s just a name. I guess I know who I am, despite what it says on my title page.
