level up

Level up your inclusive practice

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level up
Here’s a loose attempt to apply a gaming analogy to valuing and planning for diversity in your learning community.

Level 1 star: Planning for the predictable

Imagine this scenario:

  • You have been asked at short notice to prepare lunch for 20 people
  • You don’t have an opportunity to find out about preferences/allergies
  • You are directed to go to the local supermarket (with the work credit card) to “Get something for lunch”.

Chances are you wouldn’t buy $150 of mince and cheese pies. Instead, you would probably run this little narrative in your head, “Hmm, I bet someone is vegetarian, maybe gluten-free or even dairy free, better get a range of stuff then people can choose what they want”.

That’s planning for the predictable.

We expect people to have different preferences and needs, so we plan for them. We want everyone to eat, to feel welcome. It’s about courtesy. We definitely don’t want anyone to feel excluded.

In any teaching context, the above scenario translates pretty well. As teachers or facilitators, we find ourselves in situations where we have to prepare an environment for learners we don’t know personally.

What guides planning in this context? What might be the predictable needs or preferences in a learning environment? How do you demonstrate courtesy or practise manaakitanga?

Maybe you think about:

  • The people: who they could be, what they may bring, what may be important for them
  • The tikanga you will use
  • Potential barriers hidden in the design of the environment or activities that could hinder participation and learning
  • Options and supports that can be offered to everyone

Summary: Level one is about expecting, valuing, and planning for that diversity from the outset.

Level 2 starstar: Valuing the personal

Scenario two: Kai for a friend’s birthday.
If I invite a friend over for her birthday and I know she loves strawberries, I’ll probably offer strawberries as an option for dessert. It’s a small ordinary thing: something most of us do.

When I am facilitating, and I know that there are a bunch of people in the room who love walking in the mountains, I will try to include analogies and images related to mountains, big vistas, and wild remote places in my storytelling. Again, it’s a small act, motivated by an intention to build connection and support engagement.

Again, the practice connects easily to the classroom:

  • Reflecting knowledge of learners and their histories/experiences/context in the learning design
  • Offering everyone options and supports inspired by the needs, preferences or interests of individual learners

Summary: Level 2 is really about getting to know people personally and using that knowledge to refine the learning design.

Level 3 starstarstar: Getting strategic

Adopting Level 1 and 2 practices will probably improve the usefulness of most learning environments. The downside? These approaches can be a bit random, e.g., when learners move between classes they can experience very different levels of access, options, and support.

So, what can help us establish:

  • shared foundational approaches to ensure learners get a more consistent deal as they move from class to class, course to course, school to school?
  • common language to support our practice and conversations with students, whānau, and each other?

Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is the approach I wholeheartedly recommend schools, kura, and learning organisations investigate. Although UDL originates in the US, we are learning to use it with integrity here in Aotearoa.

UDL is:

  • a strategic approach to inclusive practice
  • endorsed by the Ministry of Education
  • an explicit component of the revised approach to PB4L school-wide approach
  • provides a framework for effective use of technologies
  • applicable to all aspects of education (systems and processes, professional learning design, community partnerships, the design of physical environments, assessment practice, activity and event planning…).

Many of the practices recommended in the UDL framework are already familiar, so we’re not starting from scratch.

The value the UDL framework brings is it helps us:

  • notice aspects of our practice that we hadn’t considered before
  • identify and remove barriers to learning hidden in the way we routinely do things
  • move away from random well-intentioned acts of inclusion
  • supports us to engage actively with diversity and variability
  • guides deliberate coherent innovation in inclusive design.

Summary: Level 3 is about taking a strategic transparent approach to planning for diversity.

Rate your workplace

So, which level best represents your organisation starstarstar?

  • What’s your view and what’s your evidence?
  • What would the students say?

Getting some support to level up

If you are keen to find out more about inclusive practices and Universal Design for Learning:

Image credits
Level-up image: By Diomedes17 – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=51580060¶

Stars: By CFCF – Own work on Wikimedia, CC0,

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Madlove Wellcome

Learning from mental health: innovation in inclusive environmental design

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Madlove wellcome - vacuumcleaner
The Vacuum Cleaner and Hannah Hull’s Madlove – Designer Asylum, 2016, Design by Benjamin Koslowski and James Christian. Image credit – Wellcome.jpg

At the end of 2016, I bumped into an art project that shook up my ideas about how we collaborate with our communities to build inclusive environments.

The project was called Madlove: a designer asylum. It was conceived by artists the Vacuum Cleaner and Hannah Hull who brought together “people with and without mental health experiences, mental health professionals and academics, artists and designers – and everyone else on the spectrum” to dream a new landscape for mental health.

The project resonated with me on many levels. But I particularly loved the innovative way the project leaders:

  • supported people to deeply reflect on needs and aspirations
  • facilitated the sharing of diverse ideas
  • used the arts to convey meaning and build understanding
  • created a design that was informed by an acute sensitivity to individual differences.

For example, here’s an outline of the community workshop process:

How to re-design the asylum
Ist half of workshop process from The Vacuum Cleaner and Hannah Hull’s Madlove – Designer Asylum, 2016, Design by Benjamin Koslowski and James Christian. Image credit – Wellcome.jpg
  1. Find experts by experience: Search out people to participate in the workshops with diverse first-hand experiences and diverse perspectives. Also welcome their friends and supporters.
  2. Remove barriers to these people sharing their ideas: Seek to remove barriers both to participation and barriers in mindset; offer flexible options and supports.
  3. Stimulate imagination: Use real objects, textures to stimulate participants’ senses so that they can think about what supports wellbeing, reduces anxiety, and encourages focus and attention or connection.
  4. Consider emotional qualities: Explore what conditions will impact and influence emotional states.
  5. Create a sensory palette: What does good learning and wellbeing look, smell, taste, sound, feel like?
  6. Decide what personal qualities you need: What people and attributes will you need around you to enable you to thrive?
  7. Find out what activities and facilities help: Brainstorm all the things people would like to do in the space.
  8. Build a team to develop the design: Find an illustrator to visualise all these amazing ideas. Collaborate with a designer and an architect to create the design.
How to re-design the asylum
Second-half of workshop process from The Vacuum Cleaner and Hannah Hull’s Madlove – Designer Asylum, 2016, Design by Benjamin Koslowski and James Christian. Image credit – Wellcome.jpg

When I reflect on the above, I really like the way in which participants are supported to use all their senses to think about the design of a new space. I also like that participants are offered multiple approaches to reflect on what it is they need and what can help. It is much more than an academic exercise or a presentation and discussion. It is an in-depth inquiry into what is needed and provides real guidance for designers around what must be included in a design.

I also really like Step 8, where an illustrator is employed to distill the brainstormed ideas into a graphical representation. These graphics are then used to support the understanding of the architect and the designers and together a prototype model is developed.

Another way an illustrator was usefully employed was in the development of “Day in the Life” graphics. These were developed from interviews with participants and were again used to build the understanding of the designer and architect.

Gary's perfect day
Gary’s Day in the life from The Vacuum Cleaner and Hannah Hull’s Madlove – Designer Asylum, 2016, Design by Benjamin Koslowski and James Christian. Image credit – Wellcome.jpg

I think the “Day in the Life” idea is something we could also explore with students and whānau.

Finally, it is worth taking a close look at the key for the 3-D model which outlines the specific function of each area. Although the model surpasses our budget constraints in an education context, there is something about the way the designers are able to articulate their rationale for the design that makes me wonder if we could do the same in education.

Madlove Key
Madlove key from The Vacuum Cleaner and Hannah Hull’s Madlove – Designer Asylum, 2016, Design by Benjamin Koslowski and James Christian. Image credit – Wellcome.jpg

Example of text from the Madlove key above:

  • Topography: The landscape offers natural changes in levels of privacy, from the vibrant hubbub of the valley floor, to the solitary serenity of the hilltops. The decision of whether to join the action or get away from it all can be made at every busier location – it’s always possible to retreat from an active space, but not miss out on what’s going on”.
  • Library of good mental health: Quiet study and group learning in a library carved into the hillside. A wide selection of books to support or distract. Each book is recommended by a fellow mad person, with a note on how it helped them.
  • Tree houses: Individual ensuite bedrooms that can be adapted and personalised, with views down the valley.

 

I hope there is something in the Madlove story that captures your imagination. Right now in education we are:

Let’s do the best we can to make sure these new spaces are optimised to support the learning and wellbeing of every student. Working with the diverse perspectives of learners and whānau is a strong place to start.

Credits:
Huge thanks to the Madlove team and the Wellcome Collection for their kind permission to share these images and ideas.

Want to learn more about designing inclusive environments?

If you interested in how to design respectful, inclusive environments where everyone is learning and achieving and you want to learn more about how our diversity can be a source of strength, come and join us at:

Changing Spaces

Stonefields School, 81 Tihi Street, Auckland
Friday 28 April 2017
8.30am – 3.00pm

FIND OUT MORE

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Syllabus –Lynda Barry – Notes from an accidental professor

My dream learning environment — a flexible space that supports creative endeavour

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Syllabus –Lynda Barry – Notes from an accidental professor

What spaces makes your brain hum? Who is your dream teacher and how do they teach? What kind of learning space supports your creativity? I asked myself these questions in the podcast My dream learning environment. Here’s the transcript. Take a look:

Q: Kia ora, Chrissie — and thanks for agreeing to be interviewed.

A: No worries. It’s a pleasure.

Q: OK, so let’s start with the question we ask each guest as an opener: If you could study anywhere in the world right now, where would you go?

A: University of Wisconsin — to study with Lynda Barry.

Q: Woah, no hesitation there! Why Wisconsin?

A: Because Lynda Barry is there and she works in a way that would totally make my brain hum. I would be camping outside the door to get in each day.

Q: That’s quite an endorsement.

A: Yep, she’s a total inspiration and a mentor. A maker and a teacher and a wonderful rule breaker and explorer. Best of all, she only gives feedback by saying “good” and laughing uproariously, and for me that is the perfect fit.

Q: I think you might need to tell us a bit more.

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Hello! My name is special needs

The impact of the language we use in education

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Hello! My name is special needs

“If we do not change our language to match changes in thinking, we perpetuate what always was.” Timoti Harris

In education, certain words and phrases have become the currency of our organisational systems and processes. We have ORS students, and “gifted and talented”, and TAs, and SEG grants, priority learners, and target students. We use the terms, in good faith, to define roles and responsibilities, determine funding needs, and allocate resourcing.

However, our actions raise some questions:

  • What is the hidden impact of those words on the wellbeing and learning of students and on the expectations and actions of teachers?
  • Is there an alternative approach?
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Ask your students how you can become a better teacher

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Katrina is a year-13 student. She knows what helps her learn and what can get in the way. Earlier this year I had the chance to interview her. Take a look at the video before you read on.

So now you’ve watched the video, here’s some questions for you:

  1. If Katrina was a student in your class or a member of your school community, how could you make the learning environment more effective for her?
  2. Which of those tweaks or changes might provide additional support or options for other students? Get really specific if you can.
  3. How could you increase the usefulness or flexibility of these changes by innovatively using digital technologies?
  4. Which of the tweaks or changes you identified could just become the “way you do things”? Could they become part of practice across year groups and learning areas? How could you support this to happen?
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