Welcome to Episode 145 of the Think UDL podcast: Intentional Workshop Design with Tolu Noah. Dr. Tolu Noah is the Instructional Learning Spaces Coordinator at California State University, Long Beach and is a gifted speaker, facilitator and presenter. Every time I get the chance to talk with Tolu I learn something new, inventive, and helpful for my own teaching and presenting. I am very happy to get a chance to talk to her about her upcoming book, Designing and Facilitating Workshops with Intentionality: A Guide to Crafting Engaging Professional Learning Experiences in Higher Education. I had the chance to be a pre-reader for the book and am so excited to see this out in the world and help so many of us who teach in so many contexts. It is an incredibly thoughtful and helpful guide. You can find out more about her book and how to pre-order on the resource section for this episode at ThinkUDL.org. And you can pre-order the book June 4-24 before its release date of June 25th. Today’s conversation delves into how UDL is such an important part and guiding principle of Tolu’s practice and her book and how UDL can help design really fantastic learning opportunities in the workshop format!
--------
36:40
Accessible Workplaces with Connor Duignan
Welcome to Episode 144 of the Think UDL podcast: Accessible Workplaces with Connor Duignan. Connor Duignan is a Technical Software Developer at Innopharma Education. I met Connor at the AHEAD (Association On Higher Education and Disability) conference in Dublin, Ireland. His talk “Tertiary Education as Accessible Workplaces” beautifully summarized what accommodations and structures we have in higher education could also be transferred to the workplace to make a better working environment for all involved. In our conversation, we discuss principles that should be in place to make the workplace more flexible and accessible. This episode hits on the major ideas of Connor’s thesis with some excellent talking points for employers and employees to follow. Additionally, we had a wonderful time talking about the Irish language and its renaissance in Ireland, and why language itself is so important to a people and a culture. This is important to identity, culture, and individuality which is also linked to learner variability, and why we need to have places where everyone can bring their best selves in any environment, from higher ed to the workplace and everywhere else.
--------
56:19
Accessible HOUSE with Trevor Boland
Welcome to Episode 143 of the Think UDL podcast: Accessible HOUSE with Trevor Boland. Trevor Boland is an Assistive Technology Officer at the DLSS (Disability and Learning Support Service) at Dublin City University in Dublin, Ireland. I had the good fortune to meet Trevor at the AHEAD (Association for Higher Education Accessibility and Disability) conference in Dublin recently and wanted to bring his great ideas about how we all can make our classes and workplaces more accessible, and how it isn’t just the instructor’s job to do so either. In today’s episode, we talk about a very entry level acronym for accessibility called HOUSE that you can share with your students as well as the Marrakesh Treaty, lots of accessibility resources, and what to do to start this process in your area. If you want to learn more you can find Trevor’s contact information along with the resources mentioned in today’s episode on the ThinkUDL.org website under resources just before the transcript for this episode.
--------
1:01:48
Empathetic Design with Jimena Vergara Sanz
Welcome to Episode 142 of the Think UDL podcast: Empathetic Design with Jimena Vergara Sanz. Jimena is an Assistant Professor of Industrial Design at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina. A teaching and learning college of mine introduced me to Jimena’s work, so I’d like to thank Derek Eggers in our Center for Teaching and Learning for Student Success for this fantastic connection. In today’s episode, we discuss empathetic design, human-centered design, adaptive design versus universal design, and of course, universal design for learning. I learned so much from the exercises Professor Jimena Vergara Sanz has introduced to her students and so have her students and also, so has she as we will discuss. We talk about her interesting journey as a professor in a foreign context, that is being an international professor teaching in the United States, and also how having a physical disability informs her teaching practice. And we end with hope. So much hope! And how we need empathy in the world and how empathetic design makes the world so much better–not just in education, but in politics, the medical and medical insurance field, and just everywhere. I am so excited to bring this conversation to you and if you want to learn more you can find Jimena’s contact information along with the articles mentioned in today’s episode on the ThinkUDL.org website resources just before the transcript for this episode.
--------
46:35
Strategies to Support Neurodivergent Learners with Jennifer Pusateri
Welcome to Episode 141 of the Think UDL podcast: Strategies to Support Neurodivergent Learners with Jennifer Pusateri. Dr. Jennifer Pusateri is a Senior Universal Design Consultant at the University of Kentucky, as well as a talented author, speaker and educational consultant with whom I love to work and with whom I have worked often! I was so excited to participate in a workshop of hers entitled “10+ UDL-Aligned Strategies for Supporting Neurodivergent students” at a recent conference and I knew I needed to bring this to my Think UDL listeners. In today’s episode we discuss neurodiversity, terminology, and multiple strategies to support neurodivergent students in areas such as focus, attention, and motivation, organization and structure, unspoken expectations, time management, emotional and sensory regulation. And what we talk about today isn’t everything in this power-packed workshop, so if you want to learn more you can find Jen’s contact information on the ThinkUDL.org website resources for this episode.
Ireland