Each presentation during the Lightning Session will be six to eight minutes, using a maximum of six slides. These rapid fire presentations will serve as a great introduction to projects, resources and approaches to inclusive education and learner support across the sector.
Crowd4Access is a partnership between citizens and professional technology researchers to map the accessibility of footpaths of Irish cities. Everyone has challenges when navigating the footpaths of a city, or a university campus. The wheelchair user and the parent pushing a buggy may need access ramps, the runner may need an even surface, the user of crutches may need shorter street crossings, the person with low eyesight may need a good contrast between footpath and the street, whereas the blind may need tactile pavement. Led by the Access Centre, University of Galway staff and student volunteers met for a series of online workshops and on-site mapping sessions to learn about how different people use footpaths in different ways and how to capture and share data on footpath accessibility. As the first Irish university to map the accessibility of campus footpaths, we’d like to encourage others to follow our lead.
Our university community actively engages students and colleagues as partners in research to enhance campus accessibility. As well as providing valuable route-planning information to all campus users, this raises awareness about accessibility and encourages positive action.
Crowd4Access website - https://crowd4access.insight-centre.org/
Considering the voices of students with disability, this research project conducts a qualitative and quantitative study to explore the perceptions of students with disabilities in HE and educators to assess how LMS, particularly Canvas, can be used as a platform to deliver more inclusive education experiences.
The LMS, particularly Canvas platform, increase flexibility in the pace of study, enhance time for information processing and reduce the need for disclosure. While welcome these enhancements, they do not fully serve the needs of those with diverse disabilities and/or users from underrepresented minorities in the context of possibilities promoted under the universal design for learning (UDL) framework. Considering this, this project explores the perceptions of students in University College Cork (UCC) to examine inclusive teaching and learning through the online LMS. It evaluates the impact of UDL principles and practices on student experiences of accessibility to course materials and assesses what module design on LMS can enhance equity/equality of access to, and engagement with, learning outcomes across the students with disability. It also explores the perceptions of DSS (Disability Support Services) tutors to understand how LMS can be used as a platform to deliver more inclusive education experiences.
This presentation will give an overview of Ahead/DAWN’s most recent research collaboration investigating the experiences of disabled students on professional placements. This Guidance, launched in December 2022, is based on the AHEAD/DAWN researching the barriers to progression and examples of good practice to allow students with disabilities studying in HE and FET to achieve course competency standards in an appropriate manner on practice-based placements.
The research team will:
Present a background to the research,
An overview of who was involved,
Some key findings
Introduction to key recommendations
Will focus on one of six themes from the research, namely, Placement Challenges and Good Practice.