Accessibility for all

Image of a computer keyboard wrapped in a chain with a padlock

 

“All technology is assistive technology”  Carol Allen’s words are ringing in my ears from this EdTech Show from last year hosted by Bukky Yusuf. All technology assists us, makes things easier, that’s why we use it. Some technology, though, is essential for some users. For example text to speech software is essential to some. Yet text to speech is also useful for many. Text to speech, on whatever platform you are using, is probably built in, it’s probably built into most websites you visit too (look for the icons offering accessibility as you hover). For people with slow processing speed, low reading ages, visual impairment and a variety of other additional needs text to speech is essential. Yet it can be really useful for many too. For proofreading an email or a document; does it make sense when it is read back aloud to the author? Are you following a recipe and would it be easier to hear it as you navigate the pasta machine?

By bringing tools in we not only include those students who may have different experiences to others; we can also create strong authentic learning experiences for many. Collecting group work summaries in a voice note gives the group an opportunity to consolidate their position before submission and clarify their conclusions. This promotes critical thinking, communication and of course collaboration. But in using a voice note, those who may find writing ideas more of a challenge than others are included. Handing out 8 coloured overlays in class to different students creates a different learning experience to handing out devices to students and those who need an overlay turning it on or bringing it up with their roaming settings. Student independence with technology is a key factor also.

We don’t know the best time for students to access adaptations or software to help. By including technology in our lesson activities we can create opportunities for those students using assistive technology to be included and to be independent. Technology exists to make our lives easier, to assist us and we can bring it into our classrooms to create inclusive spaces.

But where to start is always the question, how do I know what is good? We have a strong EdTech community on many social platforms and WomenEd have a new group on LinkedIn too (come on over!). Websites, like Common Sense Education, which have user reviews of apps and websites are helpful. UK based website Includedu is a repository of assistive technology apps and websites that have teacher provided reviews, how the listed technology supported their students with additional needs in their classroom. Community websites like this are powerful to grab information from but they are also a place to lend your voice.

What is your top tip for using technology in the classroom to support those facing additional challenges? I would love to know your thoughts.

Building Communities Online ish

Relationships play a key part in what I do. As a professional and as a teacher. What I love is getting to know, and helping people. I recently presented at Canopy Live on building communities online. This is a session I trimmed down from a full day's training that Dr Lou Mycroft and myself offer colleges and schools ( happily discuss more about this with anyone interested, anytime). We talk about the practice of care in what we do and making people feel valued.

Forgive me for forgetting where I heard it, but the saying, you haven't arrived in the room until you have spoken. How do we create that culture of safety for students to feel that they have arrived and able to speak?

In the #JoyFE #IdeasRooms the opening round is always 'How are you?' This is a perfect way to arrive in the space, everyone feels valued, everyone is heard, no pity party is held but pain is acknowledged. And sometimes we need to say we are not OK and for that to be acknowledged for us to start to feel better. yet when teaching, this is a question I tread very carefully with. It is not that my students are worth less than my colleagues who I share this caring practice with. It is that I want my students to feel safe.

We know teenage years are incredibly awkward for many, we have lived them after all. If I were not OK when I was 16 and my maths teacher asked how I was, I am not sure what my answer would have been. possibly, 'yeah fine', and move on to the next person or maybe 'actually I'm unwell and I really need help because I have recently experienced X'. The first answer worries me as a teacher. I want my students to feel that they can talk to me about anything. I really do. How do I know when they are fobbing me off and saying they are fine when they are not? How do I unpick that as a teacher who sees them once a week? But it is the second answer that concerns me most.

A few weeks ago I was teaching online and I asked my students my own version of a question that welcomes them into a space. (Secret revealed shortly, hold on!) In the chat box came all the answers from my students and I commented on them as they came in. Then a student posted, "I've got the rona." 

When you ask "How are you?" You have to be prepared for the raw, honest and hurtful response that you may hear. You have asked how the other person is, and they are choosing to share. You can't preempt that response, therefore you cannot regulate your emotions to what is about to come your way. You are open and vulnerable to what is coming, you made your position clear when you asked "How are you?" Whilst vulnerability is brave and respected it is not a naturally comfortable position.

So what did I do with my ill student? I (rightly or wrongly) offered empathy, offered support and offered them a breakout room to chat more. Their reply was "nah, it's just having to isolate that does me in" 

What my student wanted was for how they are feeling to be acknowledged, they didn't need any help at that time. It is wonderful that I am aware and I can offer support for them in other classes and check on their health in a follow up message later. But they weren't annoyed at having Covid-19, they were annoyed at having to isolate. This then prompted a lengthy 15 minute chat between students about how isolation was causing havoc with their work and personal lives outside college. 

Honestly, as an adult, these were not the concerns that I was expecting. But this is what we do, we expect certain behaviours from students. Prensky (like or loathe the term digital native and immigrant) talks about how teachers need to communicate in the language of students. I struggle with a lot of what Prensky wrote in that piece but I think there is something in our expectations as teachers vs what students reactions. I am not talking about inappropriate behaviour nor refusing to engage with work. I am talking about how we, as adults, think along one path and students may think along another. How we expect students to respond to "How are you?" and how they choose to respond may be different.

So what do I do? I ask a random question that falls into my head. My previous top 10 hits have included asking "favourite sci-fi film?" "Pepsi or Cola?" "Best size of Easter egg?" "Favourite Christmas song?"

What am I trying to do? I am trying to welcome my students into the space by asking an extremely low stakes question. I can then engage with responses and hopefully build rapport. They have arrived in the space once they have spoken. This started off with good intentions and has been well received. So much so that with a returning student (a student who didn't achieve their target grade and is being compelled by law to resit again) said when introducing me to our new class together "You will like her, she asks all sorts of questions to get us going, she is funny like"

Student Feedback Worth it?

 This post is inspired by a thread from Twitter here started by Jude Mortimer (She is well worth the follow too :)

We were discussing the pros and cons and time saving tips on giving FE maths students, particularly adults, written feedback and target setting. Let me tackle target setting first off. I set my students targets at the start of the year. This is personal to them. I know it should be grade or qualification related, and sometimes it is. But sometimes it is to develop my English understanding of maths to support my son in high school. Once it has been, to be able to help my foster kids with their maths when they start high school. Most often it is, to get a grade 4 so I can apply to be a nurse/teacher/lawyer/paramedic/and so so many more careers that require it. My students are engaged with their target, we refer back to them regularly. I write them in all our student documentation on our systems. Minimum target grades are always entered and one grade above prior qualifications or an agreed minimum grade between me and the student if no prior qualifications are held. I will often refer to student targets in their one to ones with me. Rightly or wrongly I still do one to ones at least once a term. I set revision work for my students in my classroom and call them all one to one to a separate room and chat about their progress. I find it really useful to have quality time together and away from others to avoid awkwardness. I am by no means prefect in my lesson style but I am sharing truthfully what I do.

Work scrutiny was the next part of the thread. My department has booklets we have made and these are to be ready to be called upon when needed for work scrutiny as well as 3 times a year in formal work scrutiny periods. My student's work is never readily available. Not sorry. Why do I want to keep their work? Why does it need to be kept in a drawer in the office? Radically I let my students take their work booklets home. I let them reflect on their notes and revise from them all the time. I actively encourage them to do it! I call the booklets in ahead of work scrutiny week but I won't see them in between times. And that's OK. My feedback is given in another format as well. These booklets are covered in student marked work and my verbal feedback that they capture or highlighted notes to remind them to refer back to a specific example they copied form my modelled board work.

This has led to department discussions. I am a huge fan of everyone in the department try to do the same things at the same time for consistency so it doesn't sit well with me that I do something different. But I genuinely don't get why I need to keep their booklets? They make notes in them, they write in them, they reflect on them, they belong to them not me. It is their learning journey.

The thread then asked for tips on what should go into department booklets. I have to admit I don't think we have ever nailed this, in all the incarnations. But I do insist on QR codes being added to each page. The QR code links to a video from YouTube related to the topic. Giving students support that when they are revising from their booklet they can see some modelled work to help them address some misconceptions. Or if they are absent they can see an overview and seek out more work. One of my biggest challenges is getting the titles we call topics over to students. I am often asked, what do you call this question? I want to do more of them. So in the booklets is an exam question on the topic and the title. Like forming expressions for isosceles algebra questions or ratio for the 10p 5p question, if you know you know!

So then I was asked how do I give feedback, and how much written feedback to my students? I have found a process that works for me, it may not work for you and I am not saying it is brilliant. It is actually pretty basic but, like I say it works for me. In our college we need to have summative assessment that is defined in the lesson. We also need to give students next steps. I don't have an issue with this and have included it in my feedback template. So here it is:

I have used this with 16-19 and adults alike and it has iterated over the years and this is it's current version. Well it has been like this for 2 years now! 

Checkpoints - from sharing the learning intentions all the way through my lesson I ask students to reflect as to where they are on the progress line. The aim is to visually see progress over the lesson and them celebrate that. If they don't make progress, which happens!, it can also promote messages form students as to what has gone on. At each episode in the lesson I do a mini assessment, usually an exam question, and then I ask them to reflect on their progress line.

Assessment - the defined assessment in the lesson will be flagged as such by me. Here I ask them how did it go? This can be a score from the student of their opinion on how the assessment went.

Follow up - this is where I respond and provide next steps. These and my retrieval grids are on the tables at the start of the lesson. I collect them in at the end, read and respond to them, scan them in so I have a record and return them to students the following lesson. 

Text messages - Here students chat with me. They capture my verbal feedback. We discuss private issues that they don't want to share in class time. We identify barriers to learning that they may be experiencing. Or simply students ask questions they are too scared to ask in class. I have read it all in these messages! The foster mum alerting me to a new child on placement and her being unable to do any homework the coming week. Through to the 16 year old starting a new job and needing to move back in with his dad and wanting to chat about how that was making him feel. I find that this space gives my students space to share their voice.

Here are some examples:

You can see my green pen scribbles replying and responding, and in these examples there aren't many next steps other than referring to let me know how you get on after attempting the homework. I love to see the progress marks growing as the lesson goes on. I love to hear my students voices, those conversations we struggle to have in large classes, so it is great we can do this privately too.

Obviously this is all in the face to face classroom. When online teaching my students have made use of the private chat in Google Chat and we still have these conversations. I ask them to enter their progress in a Google Form during the lesson. The same form over and over again. It is 1 question, rate where you are against the learning intentions. The beauty of Google Forms is that the responses are time stamped so I can see the journey in the Google Sheet after the lesson.

Like I said this isn't perfect but this is what works for me, if it has sparked an idea for you to use, please let me know!