CCT: Learning Environments

Core Competency 2: Creating Effective Learning Environments (COLA Accessibility workshop, June 2024).

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Workshop attended: Accessibility of Online and Digital Resources, Colleges’ Online Learning Academy (COLA), Enhanced Digital Learning Initiative (EDLI), Michigan State University. Facilitators: Caitlin Kirby, Sarah Wellman, and Imari Cheyne Tetu.
Workshop date: June 3, 2024
Program: COLA Fellowship, Summer 2024 (certificate of completion August 9, 2024)

Description of the Core Competency

Creating an effective learning environment means designing a course so that every student can take part in it fully, whatever their background, abilities, or circumstances. Inclusive practice starts at the design stage rather than after a student asks for an accommodation: materials are accessible by default, students have more than one way to engage with content and show what they know, and the classroom climate tells each student that they belong.

I met this competency through the Accessibility of Online and Digital Resources workshop in the 2024 COLA fellowship, which the program designates for CCT Competency 2. The workshop introduced the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework and Quality Matters accessibility standards, covered basic practices for accessible digital materials, and asked participants to redesign a learning activity to make it more accessible.

Artifacts

  1. Workshop slides and agenda: Accessibility of Online and Digital Resources. Learning goals: list resources for creating accessible content, understand the principles of UDL, and create an accessible version of a learning activity. Agenda: accessibility overview; UDL principles; activity applying UDL to an example course; basic accessibility practices (alt text, captions and audio description, meaningful hyperlinks, color and contrast); accessibility resources; activity creating a more accessible version of one’s own materials.
  2. Workshop description from the COLA schedule.
  3. COLA certificate of completion, August 9, 2024.

Materials Developed

MTH 101 Rental Market and Budget Analysis Project (project summary, student instructions), a COLA deliverable designed with UDL principles. MTH 101 teaches practical quantitative skills such as percentages and measures of center. In this two-week project, students use real HUD rental data for the Lansing–East Lansing area to build a personal budget with the 50/30/20 rule, compare housing options for two fixed budgets ($1,200 and $2,000 per month), justify whether the mean, median, or mode is the better summary, and reflect on the trade-offs they made. I shared the finished project with the MTH 101 course coordinators for use in the course. The project summary maps each part of the design to the three UDL principles:

  • Engagement: students choose housing types (and roommates) based on their own preferences, and reflection questions connect the mathematics to their own lives.
  • Representation: content comes through readings, preprocessed data, and students’ own research, with detailed step-by-step instructions and examples.
  • Action and expression: students show understanding through calculations, research, and written reflection, with scaffolded tasks that build up gradually.

Artifact / Material Rationale

The workshop materials are important because they gave me a framework for inclusion that I can apply to any course. Before the workshop, I thought of accessibility mainly as accommodations for individual students. The workshop reframed it as a design responsibility: if materials have alt text, captions, clear links, and good contrast, and if students have multiple ways to engage and respond, most barriers never appear. The resources it pointed to, such as the MSU Web Accessibility site and the Quality Matters Accessibility and Usability Resource Site, are references I can keep using.

The budget project is my application of that framework. MTH 101 students are often anxious about mathematics, so I chose a context that matters to them (finding a place to live on a real budget) and used real local data so the statistics have a purpose. Giving students choices, several ways in, and several ways to show what they learned makes the project accessible to students with different backgrounds and strengths, and the reflection questions help them see their own progress.

Interpretation / Reflection

Attending the Accessibility of Online and Digital Resources workshop gave me practical tools to make my teaching materials more accessible. My main takeaway was that accessibility means making sure all learners, whatever their disability status, can use course materials effectively, and that this takes ongoing flexibility and adjustment rather than a one-time fix.

The three UDL principles now shape how I plan as a mathematics teaching assistant:

  • Engagement: I involve students in setting their learning goals and include reflective activities that connect mathematical concepts to real-life applications, which increases their motivation.
  • Representation: I present mathematical content in several forms, including instructional videos, interactive simulations, and visual aids, so that complex concepts are reachable for students with different learning preferences.
  • Action and expression: I offer several ways for students to show their understanding, including problem sets, group projects, presentations, and creative assignments, so that assessments are fair and let students use their strengths.

I also now apply basic accessibility practices to everything I create: alt text for images, captions for videos, descriptive hyperlinks, and careful color choices. The budget project was my first full design built on these principles, and it showed me that inclusive design and rigorous mathematics support each other. I plan to keep consulting the MSU Web Accessibility and Quality Matters resources and to keep improving the accessibility of my courses.