Improving student accessibility, learning opportunities and experience through enhanced fieldtrip information

Improving student accessibility, learning opportunities and experience through enhanced fieldtrip information

By michaelkilmister Comment Closed

 

By: Dr Laura Girling, Agriculture, Policy and Development, Laura.Girling@reading.ac.uk
A group of people are kneeling and crouching in a row outdoors, engaged in an archaeological dig. They are working close to the ground, using small hand tools to scrape and uncover soil. Several black plastic buckets are placed in front of them for collecting material. The ground is a cleared dirt area, and the background shows greenery, equipment, and partially visible structures indicating an active dig site.
© University of Reading

Overview

Funded through the T&L Initiative Fund, we co-designed a user-friendly template that allows staff to generate clear and relevant fieldtrip information leaflets. Whilst the focus was to better support Students with Accessibility Needs (SAN), the products tested also held benefits for the wider student cohort and enables students to make more informed choices about field trip attendance and maximise their learning opportunity.

Objectives

To develop a template for staff to use to optimise the learning value of fieldtrips by:

  • Enhancing quality and clarity of field-trip information to maximise the student experience and learning opportunities.
  • Supporting SAN through in-built leaflet design, presentation and inclusion of specialist content. For example, details of important on-site facilities, identification of additional support available/ allowed, and use of British Dyslexia Association (BDA) recommended font type, size and spacing.
  • Incorporating staff considerations into the template design to ensure practicality and ease of use.

Context

Student absence from fieldtrips leads to unnecessary costs, missed learning opportunities and sometimes requires alternative assessments. Pre-fieldtrip information currently varies widely between staff, which may leave students failing to recognise the trip’s value or leave them feeling unprepared, uncertain or anxious. Research literature also claims prior information can support student capacity to learn and reduce anxiety (Haynes et al.,2005: Tucker et al.,2022).

Implementation

We undertook an iterative approach to co-designing a template for fieldtrip leaflets, engaging with a range of stakeholders and incorporating research literature. Design aspects around formatting and style were informed by BDA (2014) guidelines (2014).

Project students jointly defined our use of the term Student with Accessibility Needs’ (SAN) and identified these learners to be our priority focus for the work. These SAN learners included students facing physical, mental and/or learning difficulties. Project students identified key content including a specific section on learning support, details about onsite grouping, keywords and acronyms likely to be used onsite, identification of sensory triggers, and also ensured the wording of the leaflet was student friendly.

Staff piloted populating the template and fed comments back to the project team. Colleagues noted the section on making learning support explicit was valuable, as they had previously just assumed students would reach out if they needed additional support.

Two pilot leaflets were trialled with students and evaluated through an online survey with Likert-style questions. Results were analysed with project students, interpretations discussed and learning fed back into the template.

Impact

Improved ‘student organisation’ was the largest benefit for non-SAN learners, and for SAN individuals, it was ‘being mentally prepared’. Sixty-five per cent of students reported an “improved experience”, and 88% wanted staff to use leaflets on some or all fieldtrips.
The template has been used on more than four fieldtrips (see figure 1 for an example), has been presented at the 2024 Enhancing Fieldwork Learning Conference in Edinburgh, and the template shared with external individuals. In modules where fieldtrips are linked to assessment, we anticipate students will use the leaflets for information and as visual reminders.

The project has raised awareness in the school around accessibility, encouraging colleagues to view the environment in a different way and recognising more of the challenges some students may face.

A particularly eye-opening theme in the comments from project students concerned the need for time to unwind, re-energise, or clean up after field trips, either due to transition fatigue or sensory overstimulation. In response, fieldtrip timetabling has been extended by an hour to ensure students are not late for their next lecture, which can cause anxiety, and have space to decompress before refocusing on remaining lectures.

A side‑by‑side comparison of two field‑trip planning documents.
Figure 1. Example of an Excel generated fieldtrip leaflet available for students prior to their trip. Blackboard statistics suggest 53% of students have accessed this information. © Laura Girling

Reflections

I am proud to see how this project empowered the project-students to share their experiences openly. Their reflections highlighted that students may be afraid or embarrassed to speak out about their needs, and as a result, choose not to attend field trips. Hopefully, the increase of information and the action implied by the leaflet, to better support students, will initiates more conversations between students and lecturers.

Sourcing images was the most time intensive element of creating the leaflet, and images illustrating accessibility features were either difficult to find, or just unavailable. This may result in staff undertaking greater reflection during field-site visits when they are trying to identify appropriate images to take. Because fieldtrips often run annually, investing the time to capture clear, informative images and material will benefit students and staff in future years.

The alternative ideas the students generated through the project were both simple and addressed directly their barriers and concerns. These were shared after the ‘leaflet’ approach was adopted and suggests that if the project had initially started with a blank ‘canvas’, the output may have been different.

It is exciting that this project may benefit for not only SAN but also may address some of the broader engagement concerns around poor student organisation and in students not recognising the value in attending.

Follow up

The most challenging part of this project was identifying a user-friendly platform suitable for the template. Currently, Excel is used, but this is inefficient and threatens the longevity of the work.

Revisiting some of the students’ alternative ideas for improving accessibility would be beneficial, as is continuing to gather user experience from staff and students.

References & further reading

 

Reflecting on developing support for disabled students attending clinical training courses in the Charlie Waller Institute

By michaelkilmister Comment Closed

 

By: Natalie Meek, n.a.meek@reading.ac.uk & Fisayo Adunola, f.adunola@reading.ac.uk, School of Psychology & Clinical Language Sciences
one woman writes on a whiteboard while another watches
© University of Reading

Overview

Academic tutors across the Charlie Waller Institute (CWI) courses recognised that disabled students faced specific challenges during their studies. Respecting the diverse voices of our student body is paramount, as noted within the student charter. As such we developed student led forum to access feedback and to enact change within courses. In this report we will reflect on the learning taken, and challenges met in engaging students with disabilities.

Objectives

  • Support students with disabilities.
  • Supporting students to have a reflective space to discuss respective challenges faced and to enable them to support one another and discuss helpful ways to cope.
  • Enact change within CWI courses, and in wider educational settings, based on student feedback.

Context

The CWI offers graduate and postgraduate clinical training courses. We have been receiving feedback from our disabled students that they were facing additional barriers and challenges in completing their courses. One area of feedback was feeling isolated within their peer group, and assessments and processes being less accessible to them.

Implementation

The group was to cover all areas of disability; neurodivergence, learning difficulties, physical, sensory and mobility disabilities. So far five groups have been conducted in the previous academic year, sadly attendance has been very low, three groups were conducted with only one student present. Although this meant a great listening space for that student, and an opportunity for the school to take direct feedback, there is little opportunity for peer support. We have identified several challenges to developing peer support groups for post-graduate training course cohorts. On the same day that our forum runs there are two other forums which are the Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) student forum and the Parent and Carers student forum. There has been some cross over as some of the trainees that have attended one forum have attended other forums.

Impact

So far, the forum has met each objective in part. However, one challenge that has arisen is attendance at the forum which has meant the reach hasn’t gone beyond a small number of students. This is a challenge we are continuing to work on as a school to enabled more disabled students to access this space. The reach of the group has also gone beyond the University or School, with contact being made with an accreditation body to respond to student feedback. An unexpected impact has been to enable undiagnosed neurodivergent students to access support through their attendance at the forum. One take away is the importance of students having more contact with the Disability Representatives (Dis Reps) and Disability Advisory Service (DAS), which this group has facilitated. In their role of Dis Rep, Natalie can offer further individual support to enable students to have further reasonable adjustments in university study and in professional service.

Reflections

Despite low turnout, facilitating the forums has been insightful in hearing the voices of students who often face barriers to social engagement within higher education and within wider society (McGuckin et al., 2013; Watson & Nolan, 2011). Our students face unique challenges due to the pressures of clinical training, which impacts their personal, professional, and educational lives. Challenges have varied from accessibility of buildings to difficulties with information processing.

Disabled students are not a monolith, so continuing engagement with diverse voices is necessary to understand our students’ strengths and challenges. The title of the group may be a barrier to engagement, the disability label holds stigma, and those with invisible disabilities may not identify with this label.

In addition to university related learning, our students have expanded on how larger systems, such as the health service and accrediting bodies, lack accessibility. This led to liaison with the British Association of Behavioural & Cognitive Psychotherapies (BABCP). We hope this forum will empower our students to engage equitably in our courses.

Follow up

Within CWI we have Diversity and Inclusion Support Officers (DISOs) who have been active in ensuring that the actions from the student forums are followed up and embedded within the direction of CWI. The forums are continuing throughout the 2023/24 academic year, we plan to continue responding to student feedback to facilitate engagement. A further review will be performed at the end of the 2023/24 academic year.

References

Decentring Ableism: Creative Applications of Film Accessibility in Film/TV Practical Teaching

Decentring Ableism: Creative Applications of Film Accessibility in Film/TV Practical Teaching

By michaelkilmister Comment Closed

Shweta Gosh, Department of Film, Theatre & Television, shweta.ghosh@reading.ac.uk

 

A man wearing a grey T-shirt and black pants against a yellow wall. He is sitting on the floor next to his laptop, with his hands making a film frame as he discusses a shot from a film playing on his laptop. The caption reads [Epic action film music].

Overview

In this blogpost, Lecturer in Screen Practices and Industries Shweta Ghosh discusses her recent exploration of a new approach to teach film sound design using captions. Based on Shweta’s research on filmmaking and accessibility, this exploration serves as the foundation for a toolkit of film practice teaching methods that she intends to develop through 2023/24, which draw on principles of universal design and decentring ableism in the creative industries.

Objectives

The primary aim of the activity was to explore possible pedagogical applications of research on film accessibility in practical Film/TV teaching at the Department of Film, Theatre & Television. Key objectives were:

  • To develop student awareness of disability and Deaf culture, and the need for accessibility
  • To develop student capacities for confident exploration of diversities in audio-visual experience and development of creative ideas based on accessible filmmaking principles
  • To build accessibility into creative work with a foundational approach rather than incorporating it as an afterthought

Context

My doctoral research on filmmaking and accessibility revealed that filmmaking continues to centre nondisabled perspectives and practices, both on and off screen. Accessibility measures such as captions and audio description are often inserted in film/TV/video content as afterthoughts and accessible filmmaking research as well as practice demonstrates that the same measures considered at early stages (ideation, pre-production and planning) can make film and TV outcomes more accessible by default.

Additionally, accessibility measures can offer exciting possibilities to develop creative aspects of one’s work. The University of Reading Curriculum Framework outlines the need for teaching and learning practices to be accessible to all, and a key programme learning outcome of the new BA in Film & Television at the Department of Film, Theatre & Television programme is to “Create creative practice that is informed by an understanding of accessibility, sustainability and/or social engagement”. In alignment with these visions and outcomes, my exploratory activity was aimed at understanding student and staff response to the use of accessible filmmaking methods in film/TV practice teaching and learning.

Implementation

The activity involved working with two tutorial groups in the Part 1 Film/TV practice in Autumn term 2022 called ‘Introduction to Filmmaking’ (FT1ITF).

The idea was to explore the creative potential and inclusive outcomes of using creative captioning in Film/TV outputs. Group A and B tutors (Dr. James Kenward and I respectively) used a video by Artist Christine Sun Kim on rewriting closed captions from a Deaf perspective as a prompt for seminar discussion (released in advance on Blackboard), and facilitated student reflection on how captions can communicate diverse sound perspectives and the filmmaker’s creative intentions.

Initial discussion explored how the use of captions is widespread and how it makes audio-visual content accessible for Deaf viewers. This helped gauge student awareness and understanding of disability rights and accessibility more generally. Further discussion explored creative dimensions of captions in relation to ‘aural worlds’ (i.e., how each ‘world’ within an audio-visual work is built with different sound components and perspectives).

A screenshot from an animated film. We see two hands, one on top of another, feeling the vibration of sound from a speaker. On the top-left is the following text that identifies the film and production details: Embrace (Animated Short), 2014, Debopriya Ghosh, National Institute of Design. The caption reads [Film Audio]: Muffled Music and static.

Students were then encouraged to identify the different components of the aural world in the video as well as the classroom, and map these on to a sound design template. This template, used by Part 1 students as a formative development blog submission, facilitates thinking and planning for practical project sound design, where each column represents a component of the aural world (ambient sound, voice/dialogue, etc.) and which can subsequently be mapped on to sound design and mixing software.

A discussion connecting these various elements enabled students to apply insights to develop creative ideas for the sound design of their own practical projects. Questions used by tutors to facilitate discussion were based on the following themes:

  • How do the captions in this video describe the creator’s intention? For example, what is the intended mood and tone with respect to the violin music in the captions before and after Christine Sun Kim changes them?
  • How do the detailed captions help us imagine / create an aural world that is more complex + inclusive?
  • If you had to caption your 10-shot sequence, how would you caption it with your sound design intentions? Have a go based on your current rough cut (in class / before your next edit session with the rough cut copy / during the edit with the captioning tool).
  • How can your ‘captioned’ intentions be mapped on to a sound design plan (esp. Mood section)?

The activity was successful in achieving its intended objectives. Practical subgroups in A tutorial group used captions during the workshop to develop creative intentions for sound design. One of the practical subgroups in tutorial group B explored the use of creative captions in their final practical output. While their use of captions was not assessed summatively, formative feedback was provided at an editing supervision meeting, and their attempt to understand and engage with captioning was positively recognised.

Reflection

Positive feedback from the group A tutor summarises the strengths of this activity and reaffirms that this can be an effective and interesting way to teach students film practice and accessibility.

“This was a very useful exercise and encouraged students to think about their creative practice in new and inventive ways. Students were not ‘taught’ accessibility, but utilised standard accessible filmmaking practice as a foundation to explore sound design choices in their films. Accessible practice was thus a given, ingrained into the work itself, rather than something to be viewed as separate or additional.

As the exercise confronts practitioners’ inherent biases as well as their expectations for the viewer, it works effectively to encourage students to critically analyse and evaluate their sound design choices in a targeted fashion. Given improving the quality of students’ sound design is a specific area of focus for the department, this exercise would be beneficial for students across practical modules.”

This exploratory project has also confirmed that there is an appetite amongst students to understand and engage with audio-visual perspectives that are different to their own, whether on and off screen. This is crucial to develop future film/TV makers whose practices are built on the principles of empathy and inclusion.

Follow up

The verbal feedback from students and interesting themes emerging from the trail this year (such as creative intentions, creative control, accessibility tools as enhancers or limiters of creativity), will be used to develop a detailed yet flexible version of this exercise, which can be used in next year’s Introduction to Filmmaking module as well as adapted for relevant Part 2, 3 and MA Film/TV practice modules. A seminar + workshop format (or critical discussion + sound design template application activity) will support students to connect critical themes to creative applications fruitfully. Student and staff feedback at the end of these sessions will be invited to further my understanding of engagement with accessibility methods and how these might enhance creativity and empathy, as well as key pedagogical challenges.

If you’d like to know more or would like to talk about this project, you can reach me at shweta.ghosh@reading.ac.uk or my personal website.

Links

DIGITAL EDUCATION & ACCESSIBLE LEARNING

By aaroncooper Comment Closed

Prof Suzanne Graham: s.j.graham@reading.ac.uk;

Prof Richard Mitchell: r.j.mitchell@reading.ac.uk

Dr Yota Dimitriadi:  y.dimitriadi@reading.ac.uk

Schools: MPCS and Institute of Education

Overview

This article reports on the joint Institute of Education / Department of Computer Science Leverhulme funded project concerned with improving online learning for three groups of students. Various recommendations are made, some relating to the Yuja lecture capture system. More details are on our DEAL site https://blogs.reading.ac.uk/deal/.

Objectives

  • To identify optimal conditions for presenting learning information for students in HE, specifically across three student groups: – deaf/hearing impaired (DHH); with dyslexia (DYS), those with English as a second language (L2)
  • To establish a platform for developing an agile system responsive to different user needs
  • To use this evidence base to inform the development of guidance to providers of online learning

Context

Although the prime focus of the project was on Deaf and Hard of Hearing (DHH) learners, research suggests that students with literacy and language difficulties also benefit from captioning and visual materials. We used material from two of the University’s well established MOOCS on FutureLearn Begin Robotics and Understanding Anxiety, Depression and CBT which had material in various formats.

Implementation

We created two versions of online learning materials across these content areas. One version of the materials was ‘unenhanced’ – termed MOOC. The other version was ‘enhanced’ to offer greater support to learners (for example, through British Sign Language, BSL), termed DEAL.

Participants (109, randomly allocated to conditions) viewed the materials in an online interview after completing tests of literacy and prior knowledge. After viewing they completed quizzes to assess learning, and questionnaires and an interview to gauge their views on and attention to various features of the materials. Additional participants (26) viewed the Robotics materials while their eye-movements were tracked.

The University’s lecture capture system Yuja stores information from the lecturn computer and an optional camera. Students can view any result on the YuJa server, controlling captions and the two streams from the computer and camera. The camera can be used to record a signer live, but a video of a signer done elsewhere can be merged with that from the lecturn.

Impact

The project recommends

  • Adding Advance Organisers (signposts given to students before they undertake an activity to help them structure the information they are about to learn and to direct their attention to key points).
  • Pre-viewing explanations of key subject specific terminology.
  • Breaking some of the information down into smaller segments with summaries.
  • Adding British Sign Language to video clips.
  • Drawing participants’ attention to how to modify and use captions.

The overriding message for online learning is that personalisation of modifications is key, and that can be achieved by systems such as

  • Ally, where students can access material in different formats
  • YuJa, where students can personalise captions and signing.

Reflection

  • For both content areas, post-viewing quiz scores for MOOC and DEAL were very similar.
  • For Robotics, DHH DEAL participants had higher average post-viewing scores than DHH MOOC participants, giving some indication that the DEAL modifications helped.
  • Across all groups, DEAL modifications were found helpful by many participants. There was however a lot of individual variation regarding what was helpful/unhelpful. Participants wanted to be able to personalise their viewing: for example, by moving the BSL to a certain area of the screen, to lessen cognitive overload.

Specifically for the DHH students, we recommend

  • Provide a BSL version that can be turned on or off. Not all DHH students find BSL helpful or use it as their first and preferred language so the option to select BSL is likely to be helpful.
  • The option to move the interpreter to other parts of the screen was also favoured, which can be achieved for instance by Yuja, see link below.

Follow Up

Currently, relevant videos in the Begin Robotics MOOC are being enhanced to incorporate relevant findings from the project. These will be available in future runs, which will also be taken by the first year Computer Science students.

Links

The project web site https://blogs.reading.ac.uk/deal/

Viewing a video and a signer on Yuja  https://reading.yuja.com/V/Video?v=186538&a=492227066

The CBT MOOC  https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/anxiety-depression-and-cbt

The Begin Robotics MOOC https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/begin-robotics