Four Easy Ways to Make Your Lessons Inclusive
By Jessica Hamman, Founder of Glean Education (Originally Published on Medium)
Over 10 years ago, I made the transition from traditional to online instruction. The switch was not nearly was easy as I had thought it would be. My mindset as a teacher shifted gradually as I began to see just how different it was to create an engaging, inclusive, and differentiated environment online.
As school campuses across the country close in mid-March 2020 due to the Coronavirus outbreak, districts are asking teachers to plan remote lessons for students for the very first time. For many teachers (especially K-5), remote and online instruction is uncharted territory and many are scrambling to create great lessons in a totally new learning space.
In addition, teachers may not be aware that there are compliance standards related to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) that must be met to ensure that our remote learning environments to be as accessible as our face-to-face classrooms for students with disabilities.
Here are four practices that will help you design more inclusive and accessible remote learning plans for your students:
Create content with ADA compliance and students with disabilities in mind: Online learning designers know that all content must be ADA compliant, but because this many teachers’ first foray into remote learning they may be unaware of what they need to consider to be compliant and inclusive. Here is a great article with some reminders of ADA compliance for online learning. When complying with ADA think about your video content, audio content, text, and accessibility tools. A checklist of things to remember while designing content is included at the bottom of the article.
Use varied approaches to assess learning: Because you are not present for impromptu Q&As and regular quizzes, be creative (but consistent) about your assessment practices. Use tools like Typeform for surveys, Kahoot for polls, Google Hangouts and Chat for discussions and live streaming, video, audio, verbal and written responses.
Differentiate reading assignments for different student abilities: There are some great tools that can allow students to access current content at their appropriate reading level. For example, Newsela articles for your students that adjust to different reading levels on the same topic.
Accept multiple ways to engage with and respond to writing assignments: For struggling learners and students with disabilities, the increased emphasis on text in remote learning can be taxing. Give student different options for responding to assignments like creating audio recordings, having an adult transcribe responses, or using speech-to-text.
Do you have other ideas to help make remote learning inclusive? Share them with us!
