Welcome to Episode 119 of the Think UDL podcast: Contextual Pathways with Lee Dale. Lee Dale is the founder and CEO of Say Yeah!, an educational tech company based in Toronto, Canada. Lee saw the accessibility gaps in online education and decided to do something about it, he created his company Say Yeah! to help unlock the potential in everyone. In this conversation, we discuss instructional design, using technology thoughtfully, and creating contextual pathways in online learning. If you have wondered how complicated teaching itself is, we discuss the various roles that are needed for online learning to be successful which include the subject matter expert, the educator, and the role of technology in online learning.
Resources
Contact Lee Dale via LinkedIn
Check out Say Yeah!’s E-learning Website or general Say Yeah! Website or Lee Dale’s personal website to learn more about Lee and Say Yeah
Here is Say Yeah!’s Educator’s Guide to Accessibility
We mention a previous Think UDL episode, Episode 93: UDL and Intersectionality with Denia Bradshaw
Lee suggests this Say Yeah! article on intersectionality and inclusive design as well as an excerpt starting at 40:46 in his “A Practical Guide to Inclusive Design” on YouTube
And as Lee says, this all stems from the point that there is no average person, or average learning. See The Average Fallacy blog post from Say Yeah! To learn more.
Lee has also provided a wonderful Glossary of Terms for Online Education that are helpful to this conversation
Want to know more about learner diversity, neurodivergence and learning models? Check out this article How to Deliver Online Learning Experiences that Engage All Learners
This article is more targeted to corporate Learning & Development programs: How to Maximize Your Company’s Learning & Development ROI in 2024
And one more article that focuses on providing products that include learner variability and neurodiversity: Improving Products and Services By Embracing Neurodiversity
Transcript
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
udl, learning, work, technology, talk, transcripts, students, barriers, learner, nuance, education, engage, pathways, variability, sharing, teaching
SPEAKERS
Lee Dale, Lillian Nave
Lillian Nave 00:02
Welcome to think UDL, the universal design for learning podcast where we hear from the people who are designing and implementing strategies with learner variability in mind. I’m your host, Lillian nave. And I’m interested in not just what you’re teaching, learning, guiding and facilitating, but how you design and implement it and why it even matters. Welcome to Episode 119 of the think UDL podcast, contextual pathways with Lee Dale. Lee Dale is the founder and CEO of say yeah, and educational edtech company based in Toronto, Canada. Lee saw the accessibility gaps in online education and decided to do something about it. He created his company say yeah, to help unlock the potential in everyone. In this conversation, we discuss instructional design, using technology thoughtfully, and creating contextual pathways in online learning. If you have wondered how complicated teaching itself is, we discussed the various roles that are needed for online learning to be successful, which include the subject matter expert, the educator, and the role of technology in online learning. Thank you for listening to this conversation on the think UDL podcast. Thank you to our sponsor, Texthelp, a global technology company helping people all over the world to understand and to be understood, it has led the way in creating innovative technology for the workplace and education sectors, including K 12. right through to higher education for the last three decades. Discover their impact at text dot help forward slash learn more, that’s l earn m o r e. So I wanted to welcome you, Lee for joining me today on the think UDL podcast. I’ve been excited to talk to you about what you’re doing and have actually spoken with several people you have helped out in the past, like it, George Brown College and the HECO report that I’ve interviewed before. So thank you for being on the think UDL podcast today.
Lee Dale 02:36
Thanks so much for having me. I’m excited to be here and dig into this important topic that we’re both, I think very passionate about. We are exactly.
Lillian Nave 02:45
So I’ll start with my same question to everybody. And that is what makes you a different kind of learner.
Lee Dale 02:53
Yeah, I think there’s something that I’m in a maybe different venue a little bit sometimes embarrassed to talk about, because and that’s in podcasting. Here we are today. Yeah. And I think the challenge that I have is that I don’t really like people kind of talking at me or talking in my ear. And one of the things that that we’ve talked about that I noticed right away when when I was listening to some of the things that UDL podcasts are looking into the think UDL podcasts as you’ve got transcripts, which is so great for someone like myself. And when I think to a lot of the programs, that courses that I’ve been engaged with, or wanted to participate in myself as a learner, so many of them are video centric. And that’s better than just audio for me. But it still puts me in a situation where I like to take notes a lot. And I’ll be listening and I’ll be trying to note take and then and then something will, you know distract me or the video keeps going. But I’m note taking and and then I’m in a panic because I’ve missed something I have to go back. And you know, trying to scrub that timeline to get back to something is so frustrating that I much prefer to read. And that’s my my thing. And thank you for the transcripts.
Lillian Nave 04:13
Oh, I’m so glad. And you know, when I first started this, I was like we have to have transcripts. And it was a little bit slow. It took about the first year before we have the transcripts out with the episode where like transcripts are coming. And I thought this is very bad for the brand right did not have transcripts immediately when we put out the episode. So you know, one of the things that I’ve talked to like faculty when I’m talking about learning, either online learning or just teaching in general, is I’ll ask them like if you had a TED talk, let’s say, alright, a 20 minute video and audio that you were supposed to watch for a class. How would you engage with it? And you know, it’s actually not the most Part one is to just watch it. Because a lot, yeah, a lot of folks will do something else. Maybe they’re driving or ironing or vacuuming and listening to it. Or maybe they’re gonna skip right to the transcript. But it’s not actually like everybody’s gonna watch it just the way it was intended. And salutely.
Lee Dale 05:19
Yeah, yeah, I think I think, you know, you touch on two things about the magic of technology. And the challenge with videos. And the magic of technology is we’ve got all of these tools now. And some of the things like like chat GPT, and AI coming out around both transcription and translation is opening these things up so that they’re much faster, and almost can be real time, which is so cool. And the other thing is, with the videos is that’s exactly the point. People have different contexts and places that they’re in, they could be doing on public transit, that could be in their car, whatever it may be. And one of the challenges that we always talk about when we’re working on courses is, if you have something in your video that’s visual, and you don’t describe it, or if it’s a really important point, but it’s maybe like a bullet list behind you. That’s a fancy, you know, edit on your video, but you don’t talk about it, you don’t say it out loud, you can bet that a bunch of people are going to miss that point, they’re going to miss whatever’s on screen, because they’re not actually watching it, they’re listening to it, or they’re reading the transcript. And it’s just not there, it’s gone. It’s only in that in that frame that’s captured. So it really is important to think about all these different facets of how are we sharing information? How are people consuming our content? Yeah. And what do we do to make it available across all of these different ways? And all these different methods?
Lillian Nave 06:43
Yeah, you know, you brought up the like, what is their context? And it makes me think I’ve interviewed before Christina Moore, who did a whole book actually on mobile, mindful teaching and learning, like, how many of our students actually their first access point is actually on their phone. It’s not watching a big screen, you know, and we have to be thinking about it. First of all, if it’s collapsed and small on a phone screen, and second of all, if they’re not even watching that phone screen, because they’re using it as kind of a podcast or something to listen to. Yeah, there’s just so many variables now that it’s no longer sit in this desk in this classroom for this one particular time for 50 minutes, three times. It’s not like that anymore. So absolutely, yeah. So I feel like you’ve already started answering my my next question. So but so forgive me if you have to backtrack at all. But what are the problems? What are the problems that you’re trying to solve? In learning? What barriers did you encounter opportunities said yes, and what opportunities are there?
Lee Dale 07:53
So yeah, I think this is one of those things where the company that I that I work at, CEO at say, yeah, and, you know, we’re 15 years old. And we’ve been focused on digital transformation across a variety of sectors over those 15 years, that have kind of our learnings, our approaches, our successes have led us to focus in the education space. Because for us, and this speaks to important about the importance of, you know, I think why we’re both passionate about UDL, from our conversations, and why I see all of the work that we’ve done to this day kind of leading towards education as a focus is that it has the ability to unlock so much potential in everyone. And at the same time, looking at digital transformation from other sector areas and other sectors that are kind of legacy. So education is one of those, right? We’ve had this practice that has been based on the classroom for so long. It hasn’t been there hasn’t been a priority for remote engagement until the pandemic hit. And then it was a necessity for everyone. And so when you have to change the way you’re working immediately, almost overnight. And technology is the only way to make that happen. There’s a whole bunch of practice that gets lost in the shuffle of we have our own way of doing things. We have to do it in this channel now remote learning as a priority, which has so much nuance in and of itself. But then there’s a technology that powers it, and what do we know about best practices when we immediately have to do something overnight. So I think that’s the same across all sectors. So this isn’t unique to education, but education is in such a unique position because it it became it’s so important, whether in the workplace or higher ed are catered to 12 how remote learning impacts everyone, every participant, every student, and it’s so important the outcomes that come out of that I wouldn’t even equate, like remote working to be as important as remote education because people worked independently before. And people people know their role in in, you know, well run organization. So, and then, of course, you know, you just get on a conference call and it feels close enough. But in education, that’s there’s so much more nuance to this. And, you know, from our perspective, the organizations that are learning technology for the first time, they have fundamental gaps that impact things like accessibility, can we provide access to everything that we’re trying to share with the world, through digital channels, and remote education or remote workplaces have actually opened up access in many, many ways. But then when you look at the fundamentals of how someone engages with content through a course, or through an interface, through an LMS, those things can be barriers. And our interest is in removing those barriers. So that’s a lot of what we’re focused on is digital accessibility. There are other factors that are so important, when we’re creating a course when we’re and when I say we, I mean anyone responsible for, for sharing subject matter expertise, or coaching people or putting something out into the world to help people learn and engage the content plays such an important role. And the wonderful thing about the technology is it removes barriers related to, you know, transportation, location, etc. So we can now serve a global community. The technology, as we talked about earlier, offers things like transcriptions almost in real time and getting into translation. So we can also, you know, change access in that way. But then also presents other barriers. So we need to make sure that we remove barriers that are related to how people interact with with technology, and things like screen readers work and things like keyboard navigation work, and things like opening up a course on your smartphone works. Everything’s visible, everything’s, you can navigate everything, you’re not sitting there, you know, missing out on something because of the way it’s designed. And, and how important is the smartphone? Yeah, as far as, you know, the standard device that people use now, not not, not as much on laptops and computers these days. So then when you get into the content, it’s this point that that a lot of courses kind of have a single form of sharing the information. It’s, they’re usually very text based, or they’re very video based. And we have to consider learner variability. And we have to consider the diversity of of learners who participate in courses. And make sure that we put content out into the world that provides people with different lenses and different frames of reference in different different channels, different media, that people can reflect on and connect with. And the nice thing is, technology enables all of that very much more open to enabling that than certainly traditional models, but how do you learn all of this stuff if you’re just thrust into it? So I think that’s a lot of, of what we try to do, what I try to do is have these conversations with people let them know what’s possible, and also how easy it can be. So that we’re not, you know, just reflecting an old practice in a new medium or new channel, which would be online. Yeah. We’re actually leveraging online learning and all that it’s capable of. Yeah.
Lillian Nave 14:08
Yeah, this is something I was just thinking, as you’re really giving us the overview of pretty much why you created a company why why you do what you do, is you saw these problems, and you just you went out and you actually created made a whole company to address these problems. And so I’m really glad about that. I don’t usually interview like industry, folks, I’m usually like, totally on that side of of education. But I’m really interested in how passionate you are and actually all of the really great things you’ve been able to help us on that education side do better. And you had mentioned about those, you know, reducing barriers and finding out you know, what is inaccessible, how do you make it accessible? So, can you give some examples about how you You are reducing barriers in online learning?
Lee Dale 15:04
Yeah, sure, I think, you know, there’s there’s an easy example. And we keep talking about it, because it’s such kind of an important part of the way that you can get access to something. Even though it starts in a single format it can become, it can be in so many more formats. And so we talked about transcripts a couple of times already. And if you think about a video, and videos are a great example, because most courses have a video on them, at least one, some courses are almost entirely videos. And tools are out there. LMSs are out there systems are out there. If you look at some of the kinds of online course systems that are there, where you can do more than just put the video where you can put a transcript or you can do captioning. Some of them also kind of like track the content. As someone’s, you know, speaking, the words will highlight. But some of the fancier tech around this stuff actually makes things a little bit more difficult, because I found that a lot of the systems that, for example, will show a transcript and will highlight the words as people are speaking, the only way those really work as if there’s almost like no paragraph spaces or breaks in the content. And so when you have like a 15 minute video, you have this endless page of words, which if you’re trying to read it, you know, on your own, it’s too much. So, you know, my interest personally, is trying to get away from tricks and like fancy looking things and get back to the basics. And if you’re providing a video in your course, there should be closed captioning. That’s a starting point for removing barriers to engagement, I use the example, people, any individual will have a certain place or position or space or context that they’re in, whether it’s you gave the example earlier of listening to something while you’re driving to work or, you know, taking public transit, where you might not have your headphones in. And you might be watching something. And what are you going to do, if you can’t hear it, you throw in the closed captioning. And there you go. Or you can take a look at the transcript. So those are like super, super basic things that that you can do. There’s a whole host of things that you can do around things like using images, for example, and having alternative descriptions on your images, for screen readers. Those the added context around things is always helpful. So we all have our kind of own impression and biases around the things we put out into the world. And you may use an image or use a chart or use any kind of kind of informational media in your course. And think this makes sense, this is clear, everyone’s going to get it. But there’s some context that we all have, especially when we’re subject matter experts that isn’t necessarily clear on the surface. And so all tags are used to describe the information that matters within the context of an image. But even something like captioning and adding a little bit of framing and perspective and really sharing your even if something seems obvious, sharing that obvious thing that you know about why this is there, why it matters, and so on. Especially when people who are engaging in your content are not subject matter experts, experts, this kind of support in framing and contextualizing things is so helpful. So it’s getting back into the content side of things rather than the, you know, digital or technology side of things.
Lillian Nave 18:54
So when you were talking about those multiple ways, like somebody could see the, the text in the words, you know, underlined or lit up or something like that as it’s going, but sometimes that can be overwhelming, right? That’s like too much do we to listen to see the video and you’ve got this all going on? So there’s also a choice, right? You could, you could hide that right? And it makes me think, of course, one of the big parts of UDL is choice and flexibility. And when you were mentioning that a lot of our online courses are video centric, really, there’s a lot of videos and that’s actually one of the, which most of them are I’ve seen, but that’s one of the things that I learned about when I was doing instructional design for online teaching is that that helps, especially if it is the professor who’s like faces up there and it’s talking, then you get a sense of the personality and you get a relationship like with that Professor which is also really important. Then it made me think about the relationship and flexibility Because whether you have a good one or a bad one, you have a relationship with your, with your professor, maybe you think they’re ornery, maybe you think they don’t like you, or maybe you think they’re really inclusive and flexible. But there’s always a relationship. And it’s sounds like when you’re talking about reducing those barriers, you’re giving opportunities for that relationship to be malleable to be to be worked on. Like, if the professor only gave you a video, no transcript, no closed captions, then that’s a one sided relationship. However, if you provide those other things, and then the student, the learner has a chance to either just listen, or to read the transcript or whatever. That’s to me, like somebody is thinking about me and my choices. And you know, instead of just saying, Here’s a seat at the party I’m throwing, it’s then saying, Do you want to help me plan this party? Right, and we can do it together. So that choice and flexibility, like we could start throwing lots of bells and whistles in, but it also sounds like you’re very mindful of those two parts that have to happen to have the relationship? Does that make sense?
Lee Dale 21:24
Absolutely, yeah, I think there, there are a few thoughts there. But I think, you know, a word that comes to mind is thoughtfulness. And in any kind of conversation, if you’re taking, you know, your own approach to, to putting something out into the world, and doesn’t matter what anybody else thinks, or how anybody else is going to perceive it, or how anybody else is going to engage with it. This I’m making my point, yeah, there’s a lack of thoughtfulness there to say, who’s on the other end, who’s on the receiving side of this, and and how can they participate? And so a lot of it is, is asking that question, and it’s a learner centered approach to say, what are we putting out into the world? Who’s going to be in the room? Whether it’s virtual or otherwise? And how can how can I engage, which is just so much of, of the importance of, of, you know, any kind of connection that you’re trying to make with, with an audience with a student with a participant in the course, is, it’s, it’s not their job, to try to figure out how to get to your point. And so this is that idea of, of removing barriers, the more that people can engage with what we put out into the world, the more likely we’re going to start a dialogue and, and create a connection and have a result that, you know, speaks to a learning outcome or, or other kind of, target or objectives that you have with with the work that you’re doing. So, there Yeah, there was a term that came out of the HECO. podcast from from your September 7, podcast, reducing logistical rigor. And I think, you know, this is all about that idea of let’s think, and and consider from the learners perspective, am I getting in the way of our shared goals or shared objectives. And I’ve always found, when we look at higher ed, in particular, their interest is largely around creating someone who’s ready for the workforce. And so much of being ready for the workforce is being able to, you know, navigate unexpected circumstances and expected places, build knowledge, and then be able to apply that knowledge. And so there’s so many factors that can get in the way of that, like that’s a tall enough ask without putting up artificial barriers. So, this concept of asking for my student for my course, participant, am I getting in the way? Yeah, and what can I do to get out of the way so that they can focus on you know, cultivating their capability and the capacity to to learn, grow and and apply that knowledge? You know, you
Lillian Nave 24:32
mentioned, you said it’s not the students job to try to get to your point. And I agree, we should be making it very easy for students to understand like, we should not be encoding it. We should not make the logistical rigor something so they have to jump through hoops. We I think are tasked as instructors to make it understandable to help our students understand them. And that is an attitude. And I guess a thought or a way of looking at education that not everybody shares. Like I think for a long time, there’s been the idea that well, you either make it or you don’t. You have to jump through all of this. And maybe you just aren’t cut out for college, or maybe you just aren’t, you know, good enough for something. And I’m not going to say yes or no to that. But I am going to say, maybe we’re need to be in the business of making it a lot easier for students to grasp the the actual learning, are they there to learn, and if you need to teach skills will teach those skills to you need to teach understanding, separate that out understanding? Sure. attitudes, okay, but be clear about all of these things. But when we were just sort of making it this diamond, we’ve wrapped up, and you have to kind of uncover it yourselves, I don’t think is serving the actual point of why we are here in education, which is to make this available and make it free. And it’s much easier for students, yes, they have to do the work, because the only person who’s learning is the one who’s doing the work. Not saying that. But I am saying, like you mentioned, we don’t need to make it so much harder. And back to our earlier point, there are a lot of times when tech does make it harder. And I appreciate how you have made that a lot easier.
Lee Dale 26:37
Yeah, I, you know, technology is not a solution to anything, right? It’s not the answer. It’s a vehicle, it’s a medium of which to achieve something. So we can’t look at it some technology is easier to work with than others. And I think that’s part of the point is we need, technology needs to get out of the way. First and foremost, it needs to remove barriers and get out of the way. So it’s not a struggle for someone to even get started. Because now there’s a piece of technology that needs to be learned in and of itself. So it’s really important that that access is facilitated through technology. And then you can get into the nuance of all the amazing benefits that come with it of giving access to different ways that content can be can be shared and giving people access to a course, whenever they’re ready. And and over time as well over a longer period of time that it’s not something that is like the snapshot. And I’ve got to kind of synthesize all of this, and I lose it. So is there’s so much more that we can do by by giving access when people are ready, and over time as they’re looking to apply that they can go back and use it as a reference and so on. So I think that’s that’s a key point. But I will also say as well, I don’t know too many educators who aren’t thrilled when their students are successful. Yeah. And I think it’s a, so I don’t think there’s an attitudinal barrier. In most cases, I think some people in every role and every job, get comfortable with what they’ve done for years and years and years. But the nice thing is, there’s a practice with UDL that helps people uncover new ways of working or new considerations that they can bring to their work. And there’s an interest, I think that the vast majority of wanting students to succeed, and seeing that result at an institutional level and at a personal individual educator level. So this is really about having a toolkit or framework or frame of reference for saying, having a to your own toolkit to say, hey, maybe if I do this, it’ll make it easier. And there’s first knowing about it and learning about it. And then there’s having ways that you can apply it. We talked a little bit with that with, you know, different ways that videos can be parsed into different kinds of content, something like that as a starting point. And it doesn’t have to be, I got to do all the UDL thing. There. There’s a starting point with with with every lesson with every course with every class. And I think there’s an important thing to say there as well that this isn’t unique to education, we talk about the digital transformation side of things. Everyone has something to learn. And I think the there’s an it’s something that you didn’t expect maybe that you would learn when you originally graduated into being a teacher and educator. Technology is is new and it accelerates and it changes over time. And there’s this practice that you have to get into Okay, I thought I knew this. But now it’s new again. And that’s, there’s almost no need to be interested and passionate about that side of things. But I think the bigger story is to be able to collaborate with others, and not be alone in this process and not be alone in this discovery.
Lillian Nave 30:26
I totally agree, because that’s why I have a podcast is I get to talk to other people. So I’m not alone in doing this. So you, you’ve actually already been telling a lot about how you’re creating these environments that are helpful and useful, and, and not fraught with barriers. But can you give some more examples about how say, Yeah, this company and in creating online learning environments creates these inclusive learning environments that maybe we haven’t talked about already?
Lee Dale 30:58
Sure, yeah. You know, one of the key points is that the technology isn’t the answer. It’s kind of a platform or facilitator. So ultimately, we’re back to what is the content? What is the course material. And there’s a lot of work beyond the technology that goes into shaping that. So that’s where we get into two ideas around concepts around learning models and instructional design. And I think one of the things that we love to facilitate, as we’ve worked with educators who have been teaching for years, and they have a program and they have a model, but online is, and a synchronous is new. So how does that change things. And so they’re there, areas that that we can support in. And I’ll come up with some specific examples to share rather than just talk theoretically, but areas that we can support in saying, this is kind of a new medium for you. So let’s take all that you know, and bring a little bit of technology expertise, bring a little bit of kind of online pedagogy process to the table, so that you can have a little bit more in your toolkit for the next one. So the part of that is knowing what the technology is capable of. So technology as a facilitator, one of the things that I really like, is creating contextual pathways. We last year, we were working on an intellectual property course. And within intellectual property, there are many sectors that are that are impacted. And there’s two sets of factors that kind of came into play when we’re thinking about these pathways. There’s who’s taking the course from within an organization. So what role do they have within the organization or the C suite? Are they kind of marketing focused? Are they product or service focus, where they’re maybe creating intellectual property? And then the other side of things is, what sectors do they belong to. So with pathways, we can say, if you’re in this role, you might want to follow a path oriented towards marketing, as an example. And if you work for an organization that is focused right now on artificial intelligence, or focused right now on a retail sector are focused right now, on any number of other kinds of technology threat, yeah, we can share a pathway that says, if you’re an automotive and you’re in marketing, here’s some narrower content that is contextual to your experience, or to a best practice that you could bring back to your organization’s. So it’s those kinds of ideas of contextualized. And so people can see themselves in the stories, they can see themselves in the case studies they can see themselves in, in any of the material that’s being shared. So there’s a there’s a general thread, that is all the high level course material. And then there are these contextual pathways where people can go a little bit deeper for themselves. And the second thing that that we find is super, super helpful, is once people have a kind of baseline of knowledge, or a baseline of understanding of whatever the subject matter is, to provide them with tools that they can take away and start to apply themselves within that program within that application. So if you’re, you know, have a responsibility in using the intellectual property example, if you have a responsibility to do an audit of your existing intellectual property. What does an audit template look like? If you have the responsibility to connect with an expert to help you, you know, quantify or qualify even some intellectual property to say this is something we want to get licensed. This is something we want to be You get copyrighted, this is a patent, we want to go go through, who are the different players in that space and give people kind of a cheat sheet they can take away to say, Okay, this is what intellectual property looks like mapped out across my organization when we’re creating something, or how do I even define intellectual property. So these kinds of cheat sheets, templates, a toolkit they can take away. And that’s another great thing with technology is all of this stuff can be online, that they can go and get access to it through a course that’s always available to them, or it’s something as well that they can maybe even download and keep within their own system. So it’s a takeaway that can then be printed. Yes. So all of this flexibility, flexibility,
Lillian Nave 35:46
flexibility and choice for all of the people who are interfacing or learning in this particular area. Yeah. So this is also interesting to me, because you’re dealing with real world situations. It’s, it’s super applicable. And you’re making it very authentic, which is the kind of thing that I talked to other faculty about is how are you making this authentic, like, important to the student? Because otherwise, it’s just, they’d see it as busy work. And there’s not much engagement? Yeah. And there’s not, you know, a real desire to learn it? Well, because they’re thinking, why is this useful? I don’t see the point, right. And so I see having those multiple pathways that would make, you know, a lot more sense, I don’t need to look at all five pathways, or however many they’re going to be, I’ll just find the one that most closely approximates the thing that I’m interested in, which sounds like a really great way to structure a class and somebody could take that pathway, I suppose. Yeah. Throughout the whole, the whole process, right.
Lee Dale 36:54
Yeah, through the technology, it’s kind of like a choose your own adventure. And yeah, you can choose many adventures if you’d like. And I think there’s so much to that contextualization, that, yeah, when we’re dealing with theory, we can maybe lose a little bit of ourselves in that and can’t see how that can maybe apply to us as a learner. And when we get into case studies and examples, and, and a toolkit or resources that we can take away, things start to become a little bit clearer. But if we can contextualize those to a practical outcome, and a scenario that somebody might actually be in, then that’s so much more powerful. And the variability of that is so much more powerful. Because not everybody in taking the course, and participating in it has the same perspective of what matters to them. Yeah. So having options, to be able to make a choice, and be flexible in that just opens up a whole other world,
Lillian Nave 38:02
I can see that you have a different perspective than a lot of us and higher ed. And it’s very practical, which I really appreciate. Although we’ve spent a lot of our time in the theory and theoretical. But I think you can see things from another perspective, which is really valuable for for all of us, in faculty and in higher ed. So I wanted to ask you about your perceptions about the problems that you see in online learning, both synchronous and asynchronous, that perhaps people like me, who are not that I’m impractical, but I am in the classroom, right? I’m not I don’t have to put a quarterly report together at the, for my students, right or about that. So what are the problems you see in online learning that perhaps professors may not realize are barriers for those students?
Lee Dale 39:05
Yeah, I think I’d take that question. In a couple of ways. You added a qualifier at the end, which is, which is for the students, but I think for faculty, for professors for educators as well. I think a lot of this, these concepts are new, like UDL is a relatively new concept is not necessarily proliferated across each individual institution. Because a lot at the institutional level, a lot of the work that’s being done a siloed. And I think the number one thing that I would say is that this work can’t be done. As an individual. There’s so much nuance to all of the concepts that you know, we deal with as an agency every day, and I deal with across my career. Digital Transformation is a super complicated thing. And we get into things like you UDL has so many facets to it. And our lens that is kind of equivalent across any other industry, we use the term inclusive design to talk about, how are we considering who is engaging with a product or service or in the case of an educational program, a course, and the diversity of those people who are engaging with it. And the another buzzword that might be new to people, the intersectionality of within each individual who’s engaging with something, all of that combined really sets us up with the concept that we have to understand. Everyone that we’re teaching, everyone that we’re engaging, is an individual with a lot of nuance. And in most industries, there’s been this concept that we can serve an average. And, yeah, it’d be good enough, we’ll get the majority through the average approach. And we know, in, you know, through through your classroom, the variability and the nuance of each individual student. And you, educators have this wonderful thing, when you’ve been in a classroom and you’ve engaged with people, even if you’ve engaged with people on a zoom, where you’ve got 30 people doing dialogue and having a back and forth, you can see the nuance and the variability, that’s kind of invisible in most industries, you don’t necessarily get to see the nuance of who you’re engaging with. So it’s a really powerful thing that that educators have, they can hopefully reflect on and say, okay, yeah, people learn in different ways I get it. This is a framework, UDL is a framework, the technology should enable to apply yourself in a way that serves the variability of the of the student group. So I think the first thing is, is knowing that this is possible, and the tools are out there, the framework is out there. And then being able to find a community of practice, to share your journey, and to be able to participate in the journey of getting better at this. So I practical examples are important. But the bottom line is this is about continuous learning and continuous improvement. And that doesn’t happen as an individual. I know my I didn’t say this earlier, when you asked How am I a different learner, I don’t think this maybe makes me a different learner. But I’m not good at setting my own objectives and meeting them. When I’m thinking about something when I’m on my own. I kind of come up with excuses, right? And, or, I plateau and struggle, because I don’t know, necessarily the best processes, and so on. So it’s important for us to have conversations like this, to have access to something like think UDL and to look within our institutions and look across institutions and say who else is trying to do this, the amazing thing is, you know, stemming from, I think that idea that it’s so rewarding to be able to change someone’s connection to learning. And if students can succeed, that’s really rewarding. And we want more of that. So there is a passion and a practice of sharing and supporting one another across the education industry. So we just need to find those people who are, yes, already doing the sharing, and already doing the practice and have conversation with them. So that’s number one. And then I think, you know, getting to more tactical things. It really is about this idea of of more flexibility and variability and what you’re putting out into the, into the world being comfortable listening, and accepting that that one way that maybe has always worked, hasn’t really always worked. It’s it worked for you. But there are always people who are left behind in the classroom if you’re kind of have the single approach to sharing information, the single approach to, to explaining things and putting things out there. And so we need to, to look at different ways of of engagement. And there are so many, you know, ways through through, you know, co creation exercises or workshopping or, or, you know, shared conversations. It’s not always, you know, speaking at people, and that, I think, is something that can be difficult to change the way that we work, but it’s so much rewarding when we have this period. I know
Lillian Nave 44:53
my eyes are lighting up all the time you’re, when you’re saying this, of course the That flexibility and variability is what you’ve allowed. And in my other conversations with HECO, and my previous guests who’ve worked with you, that it was just opened up this world of possibilities that that took down a bunch more barriers than and could only do it that way, or at least found that it was a much better solution to those problems.
Lee Dale 45:27
Yeah, I think you know, and there’s so much yeah, that comes from the collaboration, right? It’s, it’s often, you know, we see projects all the time where people say, we want to hire an inclusive, sorry, an instructional designer, to work within our LMS to translate what we’ve already defined as the course. And there’s so much that pressure, and that that puts on that individual when you’re trying to hire that individual to do this thing. Yeah, that is so nuanced. And I think when we, when we start to get into that nuance it, it becomes clear how much more we can achieve when we work in a team and bring people with different subject matter expertise to the table. And I think about one of the lenses that’s that’s maybe nascent or evolving with UDL is the idea of diversity, equity, inclusion, and a sense of belonging that can be created in a classroom environment. And these are, that’s a whole other discipline. So when we look at a framework of, of what we typically expect, of the kind of key people or key roles are involved in putting a core set of the world, we look at, at a very high level, there’s a subject matter expert, there’s an educator, and there’s a technologist or a technology component to it. And each one of those things is, is its own vocation. And then we get into the nuance of wait, I’m an educator, but I’m just learning about UDL for the first time. And I’m or I’m a subject matter expert, but I’ve never asked the question of is the material I’m putting out into the world considerate of diverse cultures and, you know, diverse lived experiences that will be within the classroom. So there’s, there’s a lot of, of nuance and expertise that necessitates us being collaborative. You know,
Lillian Nave 47:31
I, as you’re talking, I wrote down, just teaching is complicated. It, it’s so much more complicated than what you think. And I’ve said this many, many times before, when you get your, you know, graduate degree, you very rarely learn more than your subject matter. You don’t learn like how to teach it, but you become an expert in it. So I appreciate that you’ve Yeah, you’ve made those three categories about a subject matter expert, and educator, and then the kind of technology expert, because the there, people often put those two things together the subject matter expert, and educator. And I know I never took a course about how to teach my subjects in graduate school. So that whole the whole education stuff is new to me after I finished my graduate studies. And so that’s why we have things like faculty development offices and things to help to help our really brilliant colleagues who knows so much. But just because, you know, so much, how do you actually present that information in an in an acceptable and easy way? That’s, that does not have that rigor of you know, logistical nightmares, that
Lee Dale 48:52
hinder learning. And now give someone a log into an LMS.
Lillian Nave 48:57
And then add that, yeah, so I don’t know anything about instructional design. I don’t, you know, how is this this? Or really, what you’re saying is like, here’s how it works in my brain, and I’m gonna assume everybody’s brain works the same way. Like, I’m going to, you know, put this information in order. This is the order that makes the most sense to me. And you guys have at it, and it to me is like that. Okay, try and unwrap that diamond that’s sort of hidden somewhere. No, yeah. That’s
Lee Dale 49:24
not even the intent. Right. Like, I don’t think anybody’s sitting there saying that. I think in a reflective practice, you might realize that’s what you’ve been doing, but it’s not an intention. And I think this is the secret of digital transformation across any industry is, it’s not about you. It’s about the person you’re serving. And in this case, this is why terms like learner centered, are so important. If we stop thinking about our subject matter expertise or our process or Power work, and start thinking about who’s going to benefit or connect or engage with the course, who’s going to be in the classroom, it really is such a helpful mindful thing to do to shift the focus to the learner. And when we do that, we can start to see things that we didn’t see before. And that’s the case with every organization we’ve worked with over the last 15 years is we’re all often too insular. And we think we know best, we are experts in so many ways. But unless you’re connecting with the person on the other side, yeah, you’ve lost something. And, and so if we think, Wait a minute, what about them? What’s their perspective? What’s their approach? What’s their process, then we can start to adapt ourselves to do that, and ultimately, get to the result of, of helping someone participate? Yes, and engage in takeaways.
Lillian Nave 51:02
Brilliant. You make me think about that, that that idea about how do you reach your learner, as it makes me think about what we talked about before we even started recording how I got into UDL and knowing learner variability. So I have three very different children. And I love them a whole lot. And I have so much I want to teach them and so much I want to tell them about and sometimes also correct, right, and they don’t do that. But I also know that it’s going to that they one of them will not listen to me, the way I approach another one, you know, that, yeah, I can’t do the same thing all three, all the time that I know, it’s going to be a lot better if I can pull one aside and we talk quietly, in you know, go to a coffee shop or something is going to be a lot more useful. And it’s going to actually work than if I were tossing a ball right with another one that sit the the context and all those things. So knowing that, you know, I know my kids intimately. I know, you know, so I know what works. And we don’t know all of our students intimately. But we also have to understand that everybody is going to be different. And just to think about that, just being aware is is so important. I so appreciate how you phrase that. And it just makes me think about what great things you were doing already in the sphere. And I just wanted to thank you so much for being with me. spending your time to talk to me about what you’re doing. It’s a Yeah, and about the complicated world of teaching in the online space. So thank you very much Lee for being with me today. Really appreciate it. You can follow the think UDL podcast on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to find out when new episodes will be released. And also see transcripts and additional materials at the think udl.org website. Thank you again to our sponsor textile Texthelp is focused on helping all people learn, understand and communicate through the use of digital education and accessibility tools. Texthelp and its people are working towards a world where difference disability and language are no longer barriers to learning and succeeding, with over 50 million users worldwide. The Texthelp suite of products includes Read and Write equate to an orbit note. They work alongside existing platforms such as Microsoft Office and G Suite and enable them to be integrated quickly into any classroom or workspace with ease. Texthelp has changed the lives of millions worldwide and strives to impact the literacy and understanding of 1 billion people by 2030. Visit tech stock help forward slash learn more that’s l earn m o r e to unlock unlimited learner potential. The music on the podcast was performed by the Oddyssey quartet comprised of Rex Shepherd, David Pate, Bill Folwell and Jose Cochez, and I am your host, Lillian Nave. Thank you for joining us on The think UDL podcast