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