Inclusive Teaching – Disability as Diversity

I explored this question recently with Dr. Eric Moore, a learner variability and Universal Design for Learning (UDL) researcher, and Director of Learning Technology at the Kennedy Krieger Institute. We will share this conversation in an upcoming faculty development training looking at the typical learners in our courses, misconceptions around learner variability, and disability as a form of diversity.

Let’s revisit the first article in this series, Inclusive Teaching – An Introduction to Terminology, where we briefly introduced accessibility, accommodation, and the role of faculty in creating inclusive learning environments for students with disabilities. The Center for Learning Design and Technology (CLDT) strives to create a similar welcoming environment for faculty questions and conversations around disability and provides support on inclusive teaching practices and accessible content creation. Talking about disability can be uncomfortable, but dialogue creates awareness and encourages open discussion. Statistically speaking, you likely have personal experience or know people with disabilities (Burke, 2020; Hill et al., 2020; Nagesh et al., 2020).

Instructional designers are often asked if accessible course content is necessary in case a future disabled student wishes to enroll in a course. Students with disabilities already take Engineering for Professionals (EP) courses, although disability is a form of learner diversity that is often overlooked for a variety of reasons.

Disability as a Form of Diversity

Roughly 26% of the US population has a disability and this number is increasing due to an aging population and increase in the prevalence of disease (WHO, 2021; CDC, 2020). Disabilities can be visible, invisible or hidden, lifelong, temporary, or acquired. Disability is something we will all likely experience at some point in our lives (Ladau, 2021). 

The majority of disabilities are invisible, so disclosure is a decision for most people (Morgan, 2020; Morina, 2022; Nagesh et al., 2020). Research shows that many students are reluctant to disclose disabilities, which leads to the misconception that students with disabilities are not present in our courses (Mamboleo et al., 2020; Smith et al., 2021; Toutain, 2019). It is also important to remember that faculty and staff can be reluctant to disclose disabilities for the same reasons as students (Ball, 2022; Brown & Ramlackhan, 2022; Burke, 2021; Harvard University, 2020; Morgan, 2020).

Talking About Disability

Emily Ladau, the author of Demystifying Disability, What to Know, What to Say, and How to be an Ally (2021), recently spoke with the Hopkins community and examines the discomfort we often feel around talking about disability. Let’s dive deeper into language and terminology, because how we model and think about disability affects how we address persons with disabilities and disability issues.

I will illustrate with my own experience because, statistically speaking, you are likely able to relate. I am an instructional designer (ID) at CLDT, engineer, and adjunct faculty member at the JHU School of Education where I teach chemistry and physics to PreK-12 teachers. If we have worked together on a course development or met at a Faculty Forward workshop, you may or may not know that I have a disability. 

If I choose disclosure, I typically use Person First Language (PFL), referring to myself as an ID, faculty member, or engineer with a disability. This separates my experience and performance from my disability, even though having a disability actually enhances my awareness, empathy, and skillset in all of these roles. An alternative is Identify First Language (IFL) (for example, “disabled engineer”) which embraces disability not as a description, but as an identity connecting disabled people to a community, culture, and history (Ladau, 2021). Many of our students embrace IFL and encourage the use of the word ‘disabled’ (Wong, 2021).

The way disabled people talk about their disability is a personal choice. I rarely use IFL to say “disabled faculty member” or “disabled engineer” because both higher education and the engineering field are still often perceived as areas where disabilities do not belong (Ball, 2022; Dolmage, 2017; Lattin, 2022; Royal Academy of Engineering, 2018; Spingola, 2018). We explored terminology in the previous article, but a term that may be new is ableism. 

Ableism

I first heard the term ‘ableism’ earlier this year, in spite of 20 years as a disability advocate, researcher, and author on math disability. Other -isms, like racism, sexism, and ageism, are familiar terms, but ableism is so ingrained in our history and culture that it is rarely discussed (Burke, 2020; Ladau, 2021). While the term might be new, we are all familiar with ableism in practice. 

Ableism Metaphors and Alternatives

Jay Dolmage, a rhetoric and disability studies scholar, uses three metaphors to describe academic ableism in higher education (Dolmage, 2017).

• Steep Steps represent both literal and figurative barriers to equitable access and the beliefs of students, faculty, and staff that people with disabilities do not belong in higher education.  
• The Retrofit is a picture of the accommodation process in which many buildings with steep steps are later equipped with an accessible ramp…at the back of the building. Retrofit describes the accommodation process, as well, when course materials and learning experiences are modified for individuals after disclosure and request. 
• Universal Design is an alternative to ableism that views diversity as the norm and takes a proactive approach in the planning process to minimize the need for disclosure and accommodations. Inclusive design can benefit everyone, such as accessible building entrances or captions for meetings and videos. 

Universal Design for Learning (UDL)

UDL provides a framework for designing inclusive learning environments that support learning variability. We introduced UDL in our previous article, and you can find more information at the Hopkins UDL (HUDL) website. In the next article in this series, we’ll explore how UDL supports diverse learners and inclusive teaching practices that enrich both higher education and the engineering field (Grout, 2022; Kulkarni, 2022; Langley-Turnbaugh et al., 2013; Moore, 2017; Opfermann et al., 2017; Royal Academy of Engineering, 2018; Shaewitz & Crandall, 2020).

CLDT incorporates UDL principles throughout the course development process, and we are developing additional training on how faculty can support diverse learners. You can register for upcoming trainings on the Faculty Forward Website, including a workshop on Accessible Content Creation. Resources for Further Conversation: 

• A variety of support articles and resources available on the Knowledge Base.  
  • Emily Ladau, author of Demystifying Disability, What to Know, What to Say, and How to be an Ally, recently sat down with the JHU community. This recording and another by Dr. Amanda Krause on ableism are available with a JHED login. 

• Accessibility at JHU website 

• • Zach Lattin, a Blind mathematician, explored accessibility using the limit definition of a derivative at the 2022 STEM Accessibility conference. Zach provides context for faculty on accessible math content and demonstrates a screen reader with MathType using the limit definition.  

• Arbitrarily Close to Access in STEM