Description of Activity – Promoting Inclusion in Online Classrooms
Content: Inclusive teaching
Type: Show-and-Share Webinar
Length: Webinar presentation 32 minutes; with note-taking 61 minutes. Completed two supplementary course over 64 minutes. Total 2 hours.
Level: Teacher/Training/Educator – relevant to my practice as I have to teach.
Organiser: OneHE
Presenter: Nidia Raya Martinez
Format: 30 minute webinar lecture, with questions and note-taking.
This webinar is designed to assist teachers to make classes more inclusive, particular to students with disabilities, and particularly for online environments. Part of my job, a part that I particularly enjoy, is teaching students, primarily research skills and referencing. Many of our students do not come from academic backgrounds, and some have had a variety of different conditions that impact their learning: ADD/ADHD, Dislexia, and Anxiety. Also, many of our students are have English as a second language. I want to be able to deliver my classes to all of my students, and this webinar might help me to find strategies to improve. Sometimes, the students who need the most help fall through the cracks and end up receiving the least. I want to avoid that, in future.
The webinar itself was not particularly useful. The only practical content I found was several ways to identify students who might have learning difficulties.
Completed a recommended course: The role of Structure in inclusive teaching. This was far more useful, in practice, giving a variety of different strategies to engage all types of learners in classes, thus helping inclusion.
Completed a second recommended course on the topic: Making your teaching more inclusive. This was useful in a different way, exploring diversity in the topic.
The first of those courses, The role of structure in inclusive teaching gave me some good ideas for restructuring the classes that I teach, particularly by engaging students with activities and group work, and varying the kinds of group work, so everyone participate and is included.
