Inclusive Webinar Design and Delivery [159] Home : ALT Online Winter Conference 2018

Public Group active 7 months ago

Wed, Dec 12 2018, 12:00pm – 1:00pm

Description

Dyslexia is a Specific Learning Difficulty (SpLD) and is identified as a disability under the 2010 Equality Act; the act protects dyslexics from discrimination (British Dyslexia Association, 2018). It is the largest category of disability at HE institutions and in 2013/4 nearly half of all disabled HE entrants declared having an SpLD (Department for Business Innovation and Skills, 2015). At the University of Bedfordshire SpLDs affected around 4% of our total student population in 17/18 (Management information, 2018). Changes in funding to the Disabled Student Allowance (DSA) have been made since 2015 (Department for Business Innovation and Skills, 2014), due to the overlap between DSA and the reasonable adjustments that HEIs need to make as part of the 2010 Equality Act (Equality Challenge Unit, 2010). HEIs are encouraged to make inclusive materials and teaching and learning part of their anticipatory adjustments (Department for Business Innovation and Skills, 2015).

Increasingly, webinars are being used to deliver teaching in the HE sector (Cornelius, 2014) and one of the reasons for this is institutions operating across multiple sites (Fisher, Exley and Ciobanu, 2014). The University of Bedfordshire now operates over 7 sites, including London and Birmingham. Consequently, webinar delivery is beginning to form part of our learning development offering. As part of anticipatory adjustments, online learning material should be inclusive and content should adhere to inclusive pedagogy.

This session will discuss the impact of HE on students with SpLDs and consider the practice and theories of inclusive webinar design and delivery, along with examples of good practice.

References

British Dyslexia Association (2018) Legislation. Available at: https://www.bdadyslexia.org.uk/employer/legislation (Accessed: 11 October 2018)

Cornelius, S (2014) ‘Facilitating in a demanding environment: Experiences of teaching in virtual classrooms using web conferencing’. British Journal of Educational Technology, 45(2), pp. 260-271.

Department for Business Innovation and Skills (2014) Higher education: student support: changes to Disabled Students’ Allowances (DSA). Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/higher-education-student-support-changes-to-disabled-students-allowances-dsa (Accessed: 11 October 2018).

Department for Business Innovation and Skills (2015) Disabled Students’ Allowances Consultation: Equality Analysis. Available at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/481527/bis-15-658-disabled-students-allowances-equality-analysis.pdf (Accessed: 11 October 2018).

Equality Challenge Unit (2010) Managing Reasonable Adjustments in Higher Education. Available at: https://www.ecu.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/external/managing-reasonable-adjustments-in-higher-education.pdf (Accessed: 11 October 2018).

Fisher, A., Exley, K. and Ciobanu D. (2014) Using Technology to Support Learning and Teaching. Oxon: Routledge.

Management information (2018) Email to Jennie Dettmer, 24 October.

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