Teaching online and inclusion

 I’ve been teaching a completely online class this semester. I’ve done partly online classes, and practically live online anyway, so I thought this would be a fairly simple thing for me to do.

It has not. It has been a real eye-opener for thinking about student needs.

One of the biggest challenges I’ve been working with is making the class compliant with the rules for students with disabilities. The rules are that whether there are students in the class who have declared disabilities or not, you must make every item in the class as readily available and accessible as if there were students with disabilities.

This means video lectures need closed captioning. There is voice recognition software that does closed captioning automatically, which is great, but it never does it perfectly. Every time I say, “Doctor Zen,” the software puts in, “doctors in.” This means you have to go in, listen to the entire lecture, and proofread the captioning for entire lecture.

Similarly, every image needs a description so that someone who is blind or otherwise visually impaired can understand the material. And many scientific diagrams are complex and challenging. Today, I was forced with trying to write a complete description of this:

Here’s what I came up with for the concept map above:

Human genome influences traits. Human genome has 2 copies in every cell. 1 copy is made of 3 billion base pairs. Cell makes up tissue. In cell, genome divided into nuclear genome and mitochondrial genome. Cells manifest traits. Tissues make up organs. Tissues manifest traits. Organs make up body. Body manifests traits. Traits leads back to Lesson 1. Mitochondrial genome has 1 circular chromosome. Mitochondrial genome is many per cell. Circular chromosome is many per cell. Circular chromosome made of nucleic acid and histone proteins. Nuclear genome is one per cell. Nuclear genome is 23 pairs of linear chromosomes. 23 pairs of linear chromosomes has 22 pairs called autosomes. 23 pairs of linear chromosomes has 1 pair called sex chromosomes. Sex chromosomes are XX for female. Sex chromosomes are XY for male. 23 pairs of linear chromosomes are made of nucleic acid and histone proteins. Nucleic acid wraps around histone proteins. Nucleic acid has two types, DNA and RNA. RNA leads to lesson 3. DNA is composed on deoxynucleotides. DNA is double stranded. DNA composed of deoxynucleotides. Double stranded leads to helical shape. Double stranded by base pairs. Deoxynucleotides are 4 types of nitrogenous bases. Nitrogenous bases can form base pairs. Nitrogenous base connects to A, T, C, G. A base pairs with T and vice versa. G base pairs with C and vice versa.

Writing that description... took time.

Anyone who think that online teaching is going to be some sort of big time saver that will allow instructors to reach a lot more students has never prepared an online class. It’s long. It’s hard. It’s often bordering on tortuous (hence the “No Mr. Bond” gag at the top of the post).

These things take time, but I don’t begrudge the time spent. It’s the right thing to do. It’s forced me to think more deeply about how I can provide more resources that are more helpful to more students. It’s not just deaf students who can benefit from closed captions, for instance. Someone who can hear could benefit from seeing words spelled out, or maybe use them when they are listening in a noisy environment, or one where sound would be distracting.

And I keep thinking that if I think it takes a lot of work to put these it, it’s nothing compared to students who need these materials who have to navigate through courses every day.

External links

Flowcharts and concept maps