Welcome to Episode 89 of the Think UDL podcast: Technical and Further Education with Jen Cousins and Meredith Jackson. In this episode I speak with Meredith Jackson, the Leading Vocational Teacher at TAFE (Technical and Further Education), Queensland, and Jen Cousins, a Teaching and Learning Specialist in Accessibility and Inclusive Education at TAFE, South Australia. This is a great companion to our last episode, Episode 88 with Luis Perez and Tracey Hall from CAST who discussed Career and Technical Education in the United States of America. Now get a chance to speak with the leading voices in UDL in Technical and Vocational, or Further Education in Australia. You’ll hear a few different acronyms during this conversation besides our usual UDL. They include VET which stands for Vocational Education and Training, ADCET, which is the Australian Disability Clearinghouse on Education and Training, the NDCO, National Disability Coordination Officer Program, and of course TAFE, which is Technical and Further Education and is akin to Vocational, Technical and Community College programs in the United States. In this conversation, we hear how UDL has been integrated into Technical and Further Education in Australia to a great extent and hear about the successes of this integration!Thank you for listening and a special thank you to the folks at the UDLHE Network for their financial support of the Think UDL podcast!

Resources

ADCET– Australian Disability Clearinghouse on Education and Training

UDL in Tertiary Education course

Learn more about tafe South Australia and more about TAFE Queensland on their respective websites!
The results of these Power Point Mentimeter slides about implementing UDL and Plus One strategies are described during this episode as well

Transcript

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 89 of the Think UDL podcast, technical and further education with Jen Cousins and Meredith Jackson. In this episode, I speak with Meredith Jackson, the leading vocational teacher at TAFE, which is technical and further education in Queensland, and Jen cousins, a teaching and learning specialist in accessibility and inclusive education at TAFE. South Australia. This is a great companion to our last episode, Episode 88. With Luis Perez and Tracy Hall from CAST, who discuss career and technical education in the United States of America. Now, we get a chance to speak with the leading voices in UDL in technical and vocational or further education in Australia. You’ll hear a few different acronyms during this conversation besides our usual UDL. They include that ve T, which stands for vocational education and training, ADCET, which is the Australian Disability clearing house on education and training, the NDCO, which is the National Disability coordination Officer Program, and of course, TAFE ta fe, which is technical and further education and is akin to vocational, technical and community college programs in the United States. In this conversation, we hear how UDL has been integrated into technical and further education in Australia to a great extent, and hear about the successes of this integration. So thank you so much for listening. And a special thank you to the folks at the UD lhe network. And that stands for Universal Design for Learning and higher education for their financial support of the think UDL podcast. So I wanted to thank both of you, Jen, and Meredith, for joining me today to talk about UDL in what you’re doing in Australia. So thank you very much for joining me. Thank you. I’m so glad to have you both. Yeah, we had some technical difficulties, we’re trying a new way to record. So I appreciate your persistence. After about 35 minutes, we’re finally able to talk. So let me start first with you, Meredith, and ask you what makes you a different kind of learner.

Meredith Jackson  03:16

Great. Thanks, Lillian. And hi, to Jen as well. I guess there’s a wonderful quote that has stood with me throughout my journey of getting towards 29 years now in the TAFE sector here in Australia. And it was by John Cotton Dana, and it was “who dares to teach must never cease to learn.” And I took that to heart and I guess it’s underpinned my, my attitude to learning and also, you know, you know, when I’ve been part of that importance and knowledge to the, to the students and to staff that I’ve mentored on this journey, and my vet teaching vocational education, we’ll call it started in remote areas in Australia, you know, 2028 going on 29 years ago, web one had to be extremely resourceful, as a learner and as a teacher to acquire skills, knowledge, resources, because, I mean, this is before internet. This is back in the very early paper, that paper base days and also working with learners that were, you know, most of them were significantly marginalized. You know, we had a range of cohorts in those country areas, and all at different, different levels. So, I quickly learned to value learning and value the opportunity, because it was a big, still it’s a big responsibility as an educator To make sure that we do have the skill set and the skills and knowledge and we have teacher currency, when we are teaching our students and, you know, the one of the big benefits of being out in rural or remote areas is that you do become resourceful on your networks on, on your communities, your 24/7 looking for, for opportunities, innovative opportunities on how you can access that learning for yourself, and also for your students and those opportunities. And also being mindful that they are very valuable back to the community as well. So you know, you’re, you’re, you’re in gauging to get resources for learning from your community, but you’re also giving that back to the community, you know, with with the skills and knowledge and the different projects that we get involved with. So I guess, you know, that really sort of built my commitment as a learner. And I love learning. And I mean, I’ve just continually, you know, I mean, I guess I, you know, I’ve always valued the fact that I have modelled the importance of vet learning, you know, having completed that many certificate twos and threes, fours, diploma or advanced diploma, and then, of course, my degree and my post grad, but it’s they’ve all been equally important qualifications at different times. Because, you know, having taught, I’ve taught across the business, I’ve taught literacy, and numeracy and training, and assessment as well. So I hold the skills I learned as a set to in business, word processing and spread, spreadsheets and, and keyboarding. I hold them with equal value as the skills that I’ve learned in those higher level qualification some throughout my journey. So as I said, I’m a 24/7 learning i Great, I grasp any opportunity. And I love learning. Ty Smith.

Lillian Nave  07:01

Yeah, yeah, that’s a great answer. Yeah, off to you, Jenna. Well, how would you answer that question, what makes you a different kind of learner?

Jen Cousins  07:08

I think in terms of being a different kind of learner, similar to Meredith, that I think there’s lots of opportunities for learning and recognizing that it doesn’t all have to be formal that we can bring a whole range of experiences with us to our learning. And we can build upon what we already have experience, through a whole range of perhaps professional development and informal learning. When we learn off YouTube, when we learn off, others who are demonstrating things to us, you know, what kind of, you know, cooking, and going through recipes, we probably don’t always see those really simple things as learning, but of course, they are really critical. And I think for me, you know, having a very busy life, or juggling lots of different responsibilities, different things, different projects. I think that it’s really important for me that I understand what I absolutely have to do in my when I’m doing learning, and what’s the nice to know versus the need to know. And so for me, that sort of idea of, you know, understanding what the objectives are for my learning, understanding what’s available to me to support that learning and not being too locked down. Because I think with all those responsibilities, it needs to apply rapidly to what I’m doing. And so if it’s not flexible enough, and kind of open enough for me to do that, then I disengage pretty quickly. Because I can’t make it kind of apply to the work or the life skills that I’m looking for at that point in time. So I think that’s a really important part of it, for me, is that idea that there’s lots of variety, but lots of flexibility, and ability to apply it to my own life. And I think for me, being a learner, like Meredith, a lifelong learner, I am really big into learning myself and agreed that I like to promote vet learning as a really valuable role. And that, that really keeps me in the forefront of being a learner. So when I’m designing, learning for others, that I have that real understanding of what it’s like to be a learner. And I think that’s an important part of that process, too.

Lillian Nave  09:19

Yeah, you know, understanding the why, right, why we’re doing it what the objective is, I thought it was really important when caste who puts out the universal design for learning guidelines moved a whole column, the green column. Sorry, yeah, the green column of engagement used to be at the end, just reading left, right. And then they moved it which I thought was appropriate. You really have to start with your why you have to start with the engagement part to get students interested so they know why they are learning and what it’s going to help them do. That the motivation part is absolutely central. And you know, Jen When you were mentioning about kind of knowing what’s the need to know, and what’s the nice to know, oh, my goodness, I hadn’t thought about it that way. But that’s how I live my life. And I should be thinking about that for my children, not my children. Well, what? Well, first of all, for my students, here’s what you kind of you need to do. And it would be nice to if you’ve got the time, if you have the interest, here are the things that would be, you know, additional, but if you’ve had a week, like, you know, like me that it’s, you know, has gone all wrong, right, then here are the things that you have to get done. And I think often when we’re designing, we’re not thinking that way, we’re giving everybody the nice to know, and calling it the need to know, I agree with that, right? Yes. Okay, so. So I want to talk to you both so much about what you’re doing with universal design for learning in Australia. And, Meredith, I’ll start with you for the next question. And I know that recently, you worked in an advisory role for a UDL project of that ad set in Australia is is has put together? And can you tell me a little more about the project and what your role entailed.

Meredith Jackson  11:24

Okay, so I’ll let Jen sort of explain the more of the nitty gritty of the designing process, I’ll talk about my, my involvement. I guess, I, you know, sort of connected with this project, because I’m an active member of our national, tertiary network for, you know, educators in higher ed and vocational ed that work with students with disability. So I connected through through that and got involved, and also having been involved in some other projects over the last few years. But my main role at this time, in that is, is looking after students with disability from an educational perspective. But prior to that, you know, as I mentioned, I’ve worn a number of hats, and I’m an educator, and had a lot of involvement in staff development. So that net, the natural passion for me for UDL has been there for many, many years from both the teaching and client, student perspective, as well. And for all staff in our VET sector, as well, because we’ve all got responsibilities there, around universal design for learning for our students. So from the vocational educator perspective, I thought it was just such a good opportunity to get involved in a collaborative project, like, you know, developing these some online mode modules. And so making sure that it was written in a way that would be sort of tractive to all of our audience, you know, knowing that we’re working with academics in, in higher ed and academics in fit, but also our educational staff that are non sort of academic and I work across skill set at TAFE, Queensland. And we have four campuses. And now, our core business is what we call the traditional trades. So that’s our carpentry, electrical, construction, engineering, renewable energies, those plumbing in those areas. So our teachers are, you know, very industry based, you know, we certainly have a large cohort that have, you know, degrees, we have quite a number that don’t, and they are very, very busy teachers in this current climate in Australia, even more so in the industries that we work in our teachers are stretched with got growth, significant growth in industry and in the demand for training. So I recognize that the resource we were going to develop, if we were going to get successful by and in fact, it needed to be a nice, succinct, relevant one that they could connect and work through at their own pace. And also, you know, I knew that they wanted to in a language that they felt comfortable with, and also having some examples from the vet area was was really important as well. So being involved gave me the opportunity to contribute, we were able to put in and an excellent example from skills tech, a trade example. So that was a real win win for TAFE. Queensland. It was also a good way to get sort of that that context established with without trade teachers as well, having it to be self paced so they can jump in and jump out as they were available was a quick critical factor I really liked, you know, that side of the project for me, you know, it’s also about how I can promote and encourage so that’s one of my, you know, major selling points is that they can do a little bit, you know, a couple of days a week, and just gradually progress. Having the certificate of achievement was important. So there was recognition of completion. And that forms part of our staff currency and profile. So that’s, that was the what’s in it, for me from the teacher perspective as well, they got that back. So they were getting, of course, the learning and development from this resource, but there was also that recognition that would go into the, the records to validate that that actually done it. And just, for me, it was a good way, you know, as we talked about, in that first question about lifelong learning, this is another opportunity for me, you know, like, I’m, I don’t do a lot of teaching at the moment, I’m working with teachers and students. This keeps me engaged and in touch with, with development and writing resources and the languages. So it takes me out of my little comfort zone, it broadens and deepens my knowledge and understanding as well as universal design for learning, and also gave me more exposure to the higher ed environment. So there’s a bit of a selfish Win, win win there for me as well. I mean, that’s, that’s what it’s all about. I’ll hand over to you, Jim.

Jen Cousins  16:27

Thanks, vertiv. And completely agree, I think for me, the learning I did on the project was amazing, and really kind of helped me really apply the principles of universal design for learning. As my role was really about the content writing and the instructional learning design, we had to role model, the Universal Design for leading principles and practices, and to really, as Meredith said, really provide that opportunity for people to feel very engaged, whether they’re in higher ed, or in the VET sector. And we had debated quite significantly whether we do two, lots of elearning, one for higher ed, one for vet. But we were all around the table, having really great discussions about how we can actually support each other and learn from each other. And so we decided to keep it together. But really give people that opportunity. So all of the examples, all of the activities really had a opportunity to choose bet, or to choose higher ed, or they could choose both if they really wanted to extend some of their understanding. And I think for me, that was just a great opportunity, I learned so much about how do we really push that and a couple of times, you know, I was getting a bit fatigued. Because you know, people would say, Well, let’s try this. And I think I’ve got to go back to the drawing board on this again. But in actual fact, you know, that really taught me a lot about how do we actually think about this when we do the instructional design, and how important that is for the learning experience at the end of the day. So it’s been a really well received. Learning Program, it only takes about 90 minutes. And as Meredith said, it’s got lots of flexibility for people in terms of being able to, you know, engage as they can, rather than having to sit and complete over a long period of time. And even when you’re finished, you can keep going back in, you can log back in and still access all the materials. And any of the additional materials we had, were all downloadable, so that people could actually have some takeaways as well that they could use then for reference, in that, but certainly, we had a really active project reference group. And so that’s really where that quality has come from, I think in terms of the course, in the sense that, you know, everybody came with different skills, lots of different variability, and we were able to kind of utilize that and optimize that, in that design and development of that content. And, you know, Meredith was certainly a huge help to me in you know, really getting that language, you know, to a place where a really broad range of our educators would really feel comfortable and engage and sort of not feel like this was an academic process, that it was a simple process that they could actually just start to engage with fairly immediately. So it was a huge benefit for for us from that perspective.

Lillian Nave  19:16

Great. You know, I mentioned in my question ad set, but I didn’t explain what ad set is with. So I should probably explain that the Australian Disability clearing house on education and training, right, which is a national organization and, and then both of you from your tapes, the technical and further education areas in two different parts of Australia. Were consultants on this so so this is something that anyone in higher ed and vocational and educate in educational training could participate in and get some sort of, I don’t know if you call it a badge but get a certificate, you know, some thing that sets there Udo? Is it certified? Is that what they would call it? Or what would it

Jen Cousins  20:06

it’s free for all educational areas in Australia. I mean, it’s obviously targeted for higher ed and vet. But we do have school teachers who do complete it as well, particularly schools that have pathways to technical and vet education. So it’s really important that they often are engaged in that process. And yeah, they do get a certificate at the end of it, which people then use to demonstrate that they’re maintaining their currency in in, I guess, learning theories and learning practice. So it’s very valuable from that, that perspective. So that’s sort of verified, I guess, by ad set, ad sets a very well known organization, really, in Australia, it’s the specialist organization around inclusive education. So, you know, eat has some, I guess, integrity, you know, it’s been there for a long time. It’s a very well networked organization. And we know, we want people also to go to that organization to seek out that information. So there’s some dual purpose in having the elearning programs that we do plus the connection with ad set, because we can really get people to come back to that central source of information. It’s easier for us to all build, I guess, resources through AdSense, rather than trying to do things from our own perspectives, you know, just sort of that collaboration is really the value.

Lillian Nave  21:30

Yeah. Well, I must say, this is very exciting for me to for me to hear about and talk about it. Because this seems to be you know, a national endeavor. This is a government undertaking. A lot of the work that we’re doing in the United States is more on the private side. I mean, there are some governmental regulations, that is more sort of have to, but it doesn’t really include what UDL is, it’s sort of maybe on the accommodation side, right, something like that. And yeah, it’s not really on the design side. It’s not necessarily on the inclusion side, either. And so this is that this is one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you both is because it’s a different model than what we have here. I know Ireland has a lot of government coordination with UDL. I’ve spoken with a colleague in Ghana, who’s worked with UDL for Africa. So it’s, even though I’m stationed here, or my locality is the United States, I don’t think we have the, the the only way or the best way that we’re incorporating Universal Design for Learning in, in higher ed, are in all of our sectors. So that’s what was one of the things that was very interesting to me is how, I guess how well represented it is, and I see like it can provide professional development that your teachers of all levels would need to get. And this is just one of those ways that they can stay certified. So that’s fantastic, and that it’s coming from adset. This national disability group is a you know, one of those ideas, I wanted to get out to our listeners and see if we can learn from what you’re doing for sure. So, but But you were kind of consultants on that. And in your regular roles, you also use a lot of universal design for learning in your technical and further education positions. And so, Jen, if you don’t mind, I’ll start with you on my next question. And then you could throw it on over to Meredith, but wanting to know how you’ve included UDL in what you do in your normal role in vet, and in TAFE I love learning all these so I’m gonna use them a lot, right vectors, location, and education to training and TAFE is technical and further education. We call it the United States more technical education or vocational training. And that’s usually houses in our community colleges. I love our community colleges. My two of my sons go to community colleges, and as high schoolers are dual enrolled and will get associate’s degrees by the time they’re 18. I think it’s wonderful. My one son learned how to weld, it’s great. So as a higher education professional, I am a huge proponent of these, you know, multiple ways of learning, especially for my differently abled neurodiverse children. So, so Okay, back to the question. All right, there we go, Jen. How have you included UDL in your position that you work in? Okay, we’ve

Jen Cousins  24:52

been on a journey for a couple of years. Now. I’m similar to Merritt. It’s sort of saying we don’t. UDL is something I’ve kind of been playing with for a really long time. I’m really struggling, I think, to work out how can we scale it in our organization? You know, we can do it at that individual level. And that’s very important, but how do we kind of bring it to life across the organization. And that’s one of the reasons my role, my current role was created to see if we can think about how we might do that were based across one state within Australia, but we have 24 campuses, and six alternative training locations. And they go from kind of border to border of our state, you know, which is some of those areas are very remote, you know, areas with limited resources. So, you know, there’s some real challenges enough as an organization. So the first thing we kind of did was, think about how do we make that commitment really sort of strongly understanding that we probably need a top down and a bottom up model. So we need something coming from our leadership saying that that is our commitment, and then building strategies and practical ways for people to adopt UDL, you know, in their everyday work, and really focus on that. So we actually committed to a five year plan called a disability access and inclusion plan, where we look at the whole organization and look at all the key touchstones where we can strengthen our practice. And one of our big commitments was to use the universal design for learning as one of the kind of pillars of that plan, which just really gave us that kind of key kind of authority, I guess, across the organization, to say that, that’s what we’re going to do. And so we started to think about, you know, first of all, what’s the training opportunity. So we embedded the course, in our learning management system, which is one of the benefits of the training that we developed is that you can actually get the SCORM file and embed it in your organizational LMS for staff professional development. And there have been hundreds of organizations who have done that, which has been a great thing. We don’t make it compulsory for staff to do that. But we’re encouraging at every point for them to take that up as one of the opportunities they can do. But we do make it compulsory for all our learning designers. And anyone who is a lot of our educators do a lot of our learning design. So they must do that course, before they start the learning design process that we have in place. And we redeveloped our whole learning design processes and templates to have UDL embedded in them. We don’t name it up as UDL at per se, we just embedded it in there. And we increase the accessibility checking that we had around usability, as well as the technical accessibility of what people were doing. So we just decided to just keep strengthening it, we added it to our teaching and learning strategy to make UDL a focus, we added it to our digital learning standards. So we just tried to string within every touchpoint we possibly could, without kind of saying to people, we here’s another thing you’ve got to learn to do. We just want to try to touch it. And so then the next thing we did was really started to understand that if we call it out and in, you know the teaching and learning team when the specialists go out to work with the various educational groups, they should start to name up UDL practice. So when someone says they’re doing something, we would say that’s fantastic UDL that’s really helping people understand why they’re learning, or that’s understood helping people understand what they’ve got to learn, you know how they’ve got to learn it. So we tried to really keep naming it up. And we’re getting, what we’re seeing now is a real nice groundswell, where people starting to talk about UDL, without really kind of having, you know, done a big deep dive yet. But they’re starting to understand that that when they diversify what they’re doing, and start to offer lots more choices, and to increase, I guess, the accessibility and usability of their courses, that they’re actually starting to benefit a whole lot of students. And so one of the key messages that we’ve said about is saying that, you’re never going to get it 100%, right. Like, it’s, it’s an ongoing thing. It’s a lifelong thing to keep improving. And then the second thing was, this isn’t about students with disabilities, this is about all of our learners. And so every time we provide an example about accessibility for students with disability, we always provide two or three examples of how that would benefit our regular students, and why that’s really important. So the focus really starts to talk about all of our learners. And so we’re getting a lot of really nice conversation going really strong around all those kinds of things. So really, you know, we’ve adopted this very much, just one step at a time. You know, just just start engaging with it yourselves. And it’ll be really kind of easy from there. Don’t think of it as some big system and we didn’t want people to go on to the CAST website. With all due respect, because it’s so big, the framework, it’s overwhelmed, very overwhelming. And so we’re wanting people to kind of build to feel comfortable about doing that, we just wanted to kind of translate it for people into really simple sort of practices. So that’s really kind of been our journey to date. So we’re really at the next step, where we’re going to start to formalize and have a UDL kind of framework to sort of show people where we’re already doing it, and how we could then strengthen it beyond that. And we want to kind of do that in a very small kind of incremental way, without big, heavy targets, because they’re so busy already. We just want them to think that it’s a good thing to try.

Lillian Nave  30:34

Wow, I must say, you’re finding the bright spots. And that that’s one of the ways I’ve been reading about how you spread a movement is find people who are already doing it, and tell them this is great. You know, let’s, let’s do it more. Let’s tell other people about it. And oftentimes, I’ve found that my fellow my colleagues didn’t know that was a UDL practice, and then you kind of name it and you say, oh, that’s UDL. That’s, that’s great. You’re, you’re using this like well backed, researched, teaching and learning framework. And no wonder you’re seeing this incredible success is it’s one of those kind of easy ways that I found to get people on board, it’s first of all, is saying, Wow, what a great job you’re doing. Yes.

Jen Cousins  31:22

It’s a badge of honor.

Lillian Nave  31:25

Exactly. So I’m a little bit jealous to hear all of this, I mean, that you’re that it’s really ingrained, it’s that you’re making it an endemic part of, of how all teachers are kind of coming into the classrooms and coming into their teaching, rather than a kind of an add on. I mean, you’re just kind of bring it in early. And I really appreciate that. You’ve both said already, many times our teachers are stretched, our colleagues are stretched, it has been difficult, you don’t want to throw them one more thing to add on to to their already busy schedule, but you’re doing it in a way that makes their life easier. And, and helps. And so and making it you’ve kind of translated it into a usable form that they can go with. So those are the things I’m really excited to hear that you’re doing. And hopefully we can do that as well in more places. Yeah. So Meredith, how about you, I’ve got the same question about how you include UDL in your role there.

Meredith Jackson  32:35

Okay. My role is quite different to, to Jen’s these days, and that I’m fully focused. In one region, we’ve got six regions across Queensland, so I’m based at skills tech. But you know, just going back to that, that depth and breadth of experience that I’ve been fortunate to have, I guess, I feel I’m a little bit streetwise. And that, I still have quite a lot of opportunity through the strong networks and the knowledge and just being aware of what’s going on around me all the time, to be an influencer. And one of the particular learnings that I really picked up when I did the, when we did our pathways conference, and we had Frederick, five a present at that conference. And he told us all about the plus one approach. And it just really resonated for me, it’s a brilliant enabler for all educators, and all stakeholders in the tertiary and higher ed sector to actually build upwards and to do that, you know, one step at a time within their own context and their realm of influence as well. And, you know, using that, I’ve been able to, you know, quietly push our statewide PD team to get this to apply and get the SCORM going as well, just like Jen, and to continually remind them to get this up as a PD. You know, I’ve been in a position where I can influence and get, we didn’t have a disability, inclusion action plan. So I again, kept pushing, putting it on the agenda, encouraging people to get involved. And, you know, we’re getting towards the end of having that ready. So I’m a great believer that, you know, we’ve all got our own personal realm of influence. I’m, you know, I’m a from an education. I’m a teacher, I’m not a manager. I’m not a director. I’m not on staff development, but I’m quite happy to not bang on those doors and get in there and an influence. So it’s so small steps that are really strong. I believe. So just sharing the journey of being involved in the UDL create addition, just keeping people across my network updated, sending them drafts, inviting them to do trials TAFE, Queensland, from my knowledge had the strongest update in that trial period. And that was again, just pushing him and encouraging and getting the word out there. You know, so it’s quite empowering when you can see just what influence you can have, you know, individually and then collectively, you have a great influence, have I regularly promote the TAFE, Queensland professional learning across my own region. And when I’m doing do that, I put it in the newsletter or email our professional development manager, and I always link any PD back to the Universal Design for Learning. So if I’m sending out an email, or have a little sentence error or a section to saying, you know, can we get our staff to attend this PD session, it’s a great opportunity to build their UDL practices. So again, as Jen said, It’s that continual reinforcement of of that language and building that familiarization as well, we’re currently going through a review of our disability, fat fact sheets that we have there to provide our educators. So within that, I’m actually asking to add a section in there around Universal Design and stealing that from the modules. It’s about reminding people that whilst these fact sheets are, you know, are there and access for our students that are make Sorry, I have teachers that are making reasonable adjustments for their students. It’s all about, you know, regardless of whether a student discloses or not, the strategies and interventions that we suggest in that broad brochure are helpful and good practice for our students. And they’re a universally designed approach to learning. So again, just getting getting that word out there. I’ve also been working with a private organization who do some factsheets around working with students that identify with the autism spectrum disorder. And, again, I’ve got them now adding that paragraph in there around UDL. So there are so many ways that we can get that word out with some thoughtful planning, as well as just seizing any opportunities and keeping that plus one, really, at the, you know, the forefront of what we were doing. I don’t let any sort of formalities stop me, I will use them as a resource. So if we’re looking at procedures within the organization, you know, if I’m having a conversation about a teacher and educational procedures, or student retention and success strategies, again, I link it back to universal design. And I’ll use that language when we’re talking about it. So very, yeah, yeah, very exciting very much about, you know, continually working on it. And every day, you know, coming in and thinking, what is it that I can do today? That’s gonna be my plus one. And, you know, talk having those conversations with colleagues as well, you know, what’s your plus one? What are you doing today are recognizing that that’s a great example of, of UDL, well done.

Lillian Nave  38:06

Yeah. You know, you bring to mind that this is a marathon, not a sprint. And every day, we’re bringing in a plus one. And if I can think about buildings, that to have a sort of a metaphor, the way that buildings are now designed universally, where everybody can get into the building there, there are automatic doors, there’s ramps, and a new building is not going to be built that has to be retrofitted. Right. So I went to a college that had some old old buildings, right, small corridors, small hallways, lots of steps. And then you would see these large ramps, you know, that had to pretty much go around the building in order to, you know, make it an accessible space for that kind of caught up with the times with 100 year old building or something like that. And, and slowly, slowly now, anything that’s being built now is being built with a universe that’s universally designed. And I see the same things happening in education as new professors are coming in. As, you know, young PhD candidates are learning. They’re coming in with a lot more technology, a lot more of an eye towards accessibility. And things are changing. But it is you know, it takes time, it’s a bit slow on this, it’s not going to change overnight. And so we need that plus one mindset so that every day we’re just pushing forward a little bit at a time and it won’t be recognizable, you know, buildings now barely look like buildings used to look 100 years ago, because of all of those accessibility features. And I think our classrooms are becoming very different thankfully, that allow for various kinds of communication have various ways of expression and lots of different ways of learning. lovely, wonderful because we have such a variety of students. So I really appreciate your advocacy. That’s an inspiration for us all to keep, you know, pushing and and asking our colleagues to add, what can we add to this? It’s a great exercise for for me and my colleagues each time we get together. So, so you have been working both of you in that, and TAFE, vocational educational, training, technical and further education for many years now. And I wanted to ask you, and Jen, I’ll start with you, again. Say, why is it important? I know you could spend hours probably answering this, but maybe you can share some success stories about why it’s important that you think we need to incorporate UDL, in specifically your area in ve t vet, and tactical and further education.

Jen Cousins  41:11

I think it’s critically important. I think you kind of said it yourself, that, you know, things are changing. Our student cohorts are really very diverse and a lot of variability. And I think we’re recognizing that better than we did before, that there isn’t like kind of one size fits all, or the sort of mythical average student. And I think there’s been a bit of a revelation about that in recent times. And I think the rapid transition to online in the last few years has really probably brought that into spotlight again, because students who perhaps did well in a classroom aren’t doing as well online. And so we’re seeing you know, that people have different strengths and capabilities. And when we shift up some of those things, and I think if we want to really focus on, you know, the learner at the heart of this learning journey, then UDL is critical. Because it’s the way that we are actually going to help play to people’s strengths, the way we’re going to help enable and empower students to find their own lifelong learning journey and vision, I guess, for themselves. And I think that’s a really important way that we can do it is using that UDL, particularly when we’re strengthening their or their own study skills, their perhaps their own self regulation, their own self directed capacity to do that, and their online learning is really kind of perhaps helping with some of that. But we’ve learned a lot about what the scaffolding is required for that to happen successfully for those students. And I think that’s really important. The other thing that I think is the huge success is that we are starting to have some really big conversations about the need to reduce reasonable adjustments that aren’t quite minimal. Really, what we’re saying is, you know, we’re drafting up these big documents making people demonstrate they have a disability. And if we just use universal design, they wouldn’t need to ask for those things, they could just access those things. So for example, we introduce Blackboard ally, a plugin for our learning management system, which allows for conversion to alternative formats. So we’re already seeing the huge benefit there. And hours for the Student Services staff are saying, I don’t think you need to request that because here’s what’s available to you, and I’ll show you how to use that. And you know, we’re just seeing that. And I think the more we can take away that need to say, I’ve got a disability, I need these things, and offer people those opportunities, then, you know, we’re going to truly enable and empower people in their learning journey. And I think for me, that’s the really critical reason we need it. And that’s where our success is really starting to emerge. Do I think,

Lillian Nave  43:56

you know, let me jump in here to you maybe think about the role of that teacher is changing, because you point out that the teacher, the instructor, is more of a facilitator. In that case, like we have these tools, and I can point you to those tools, and make sure you know how to use them like Blackboard ally. So making sure things are accessible. So if you needed to have a recording of something or you needed to have an accessible document, then instead of going through all of these hoops, we have them in the United States, from there all over the place to document that you need some sort of extra step you need somebody to take notes, you need some some different format, right because of a documented disability. There are ways that we can take away those barriers and we didn’t realize they were barriers, right? But as the professor it’s not that I have to transcribe all my notes, I have to make multiple copies I I just have to be able to be aware of a tool and then to be able to point my students in that direction, and it takes the pressure off me to have going through the really the set of hoops and barriers that universities and institutions have set up, really to be compliant to laws. And now we’re just trying to take away those. I mean, this is great, let’s get rid of all of that if we can. I mean, those, as you said, they were kind of the low level low lying barriers, we’re not, I’m not trying to say that we don’t need accommodations, I know you’re not trying to say that. But we can make it much more accessible for all of our students, if we know what’s available, as professors as instructors, and we can point our students in that way. And we’re kind of all dealing in a level playing field or an accessible playing field that allows for that thing, and it’s just easier for everybody. And it used to be thinking maybe a generation ago, it was set up more like I’m creating some fences for you to have to hop over to prove that you can handle whatever this education is right to prove that you can pass. And what a terrible system that was right? I

Jen Cousins  46:14

don’t think it served people well. And it has given the perception, you know, that? Yeah, inclusion isn’t the theme here, when we did those kinds of things, and I mean, we tried to promote things like the Microsoft Learning Tools, the ease of access, you know, functions and features that are just readily available to people not to have to buy in other big programs or apps or anything, but to use what’s really just there, because they will translate to my next steps, I’ll be able to take those tools and skills with me and apply them in my workplace. And I think that’s a really important part. And I think that’s what UDL really promotes for us is that, you know, don’t don’t make it a big huge thing. Strengthen what you have, and scaffold people effectively, and then they can make that journey, you know, successfully for themselves.

Lillian Nave  47:05

Yeah, and, you know, one of the things you both mentioned before, was about when you were consultants, for the adset UDL, coursework, professional development, about having multiple examples and showing how it might help somebody with a disability, but then also how it could help another student who doesn’t necessarily have a visible disability, or might have a temporary disability, I think about when I was very pregnant, and how hard it was for me to, you know, go across campus to, you know, teach a class and I was also very sick, you know, so a temporary disability, being able to have flexibility in where to teach right or, or to have flexibility and when I could teach. So like, online, you know, or something like that. It’s not because I need it all the time. But it would have been helpful there. Things like having an audio transcript for young people who work a 40 hour job and might need to listen to it, or commute and need to listen to a textbook rather than read it. You know, we’ve all have these, maybe inconveniences, maybe temporary disabilities. And it used to be that we would think, Oh, this is an accommodation for only this small subset of people. But it turns out, probably most of your students could benefit from these small interventions, and we just have to be, you know, putting on that mindset a lot more than than we have. So Meredith, wanted to get your answer as well about why you think it’s important to have UDL in vet, and TAFE. I’m going to use those acronyms now that I know what they are, and that success stories that you can share with us.

Meredith Jackson  48:47

This is just sort of my experiences around my my own region, that managing the students identify with disability and working with the educators around the adjustments. In my time, I’ve certainly noticed, you know, a significant increase in in students that are being referred to me, and, you know, with teachers that are coming to me as well, with wanting adjustments, and that’s very reflective of what Dan said earlier with the growing diversity in our class environments, as well. I was fortunate at the beginning of this year to be invited to present at our staff Professional Development Week, and I grabbed that opportunity to showcase and promote our new UDL resource that had only recently been rolled out. So it was very timely, and I had about 200 staff members that attended this online session. So I thought as my plus one, I would try using mentee meter. And that was a great opportunity just to take myself out of the comfort zone and just to you know, just show the teachers But it’s okay to do, you know, to try new things. And it was part of me built building up my, my skill set as a teacher, this was an opportunity for me to ask this collection of teachers, what, what was really making it hard for them to take to take on a UDL approach and to, you know, start building their skill sets, you know, recognizing that there are challenges within our VET sector, which includes, you know, there’s less and less funding available for their, their teaching, what they’re finding is the hours that they’re getting to teach a shorter, they don’t have as much time to teach, you know, the skills, knowledge and edit and aptitudes for the units that they’re responsible for. But the five areas that I asked them to rank as to what was the most challenging was the first one had 60%, or 60%, found that the master product added stability, we have what we call master product in TAFE, Queensland, where the training resources, and the assessments are written. And we have one set that goes across the state that the teachers share and use. So I was quite interested there that out of my 200 staff 60 felt that that was a challenge. And I thought to myself, Well, I actually think that that would be an opportunity, because, you know, I’m already getting given resources to use and I, you know, I’ve got sort of a capacity here to be able to contextualize them in and have a bit of fun and build a really good learning experience that I thought, Well, I’m gonna pat that for now and start working on that one later. But other areas that they identified, 43 said that they had difficulty allocating some time to do UDL. So I needed to look at, well, how can I build it into their, you know, their weekly load of work so that it isn’t too time consuming. And that’s where I really saw the value in continuing on my approach to encourage the one steps and to show them and communicate to them, that it is very easy to make, you know, some great improvements with just the little steps of you know, the Frederick five a model 32 of them identified knowledge of UDL and confidence. So I could clearly see there that the actual UDL modules were going to be very valuable there for our staff 32 said the limited access to technology, resources, budget and staff. And I mean, that’s yeah, that’s an ongoing, we’d sort of already addressed that. And then 23 said minimal team opportunity to plan UDL changes. So I thought, Aha, here’s an opportunity. Now, I’m going to really push to get UDL added as a standing item on our teams meetings. So that’s on that’s now one of my plus ones on my list is I’m going to try and get it done across the region. So when they come together to their meetings, they’re actually going to have it there as an item that they’ll discuss and share just, you know, within each other, I then had a conversation around what would be some achievable changes that they could implement around UDL, and I gave them what I call seven plus one, that in a role in student services like I am, where I’m moving around the region all the time working across different teams and working with the students, I’d already you know, had that insight as to what I felt would be the, you know, the seven areas that they could achieve, and not knowing what my teachers are like and knowing their environment. So I collected seven put them up there and gave them a chance to do some rank ranking again, giving me that opportunity to get some really valuable intel from from my captured audience of about 200 Tie, giving them seven choices and asking them to to rank from the most achievable, and to the least achievable. And remembering we’ve got 200 teachers here that were doing it, I found that the most achievable plus one they could do was to just simply provide learning schedules with timeframes for units of competency, because what I was finding that there was, you know, a number of our teachers were sort of moving into that more sort of, you know, flexible online delivery, and they still weren’t providing adequate learning schedules to our students. So I thought that’s, that’s an achievable one that’s just a matter of sharing the template that we already have, and then having a conversation with with them. The second most achievable was estimating time on learning activities. You know, they’re writing these resources since they’re designing their courses. Let’s get some time built in so students can roughly identify how long are they going to need to allocate to get this done? The third most popular ranking was providing opportunity for developing digital literacy prior to starting the course, we have a digital literacy framework now in Australia. And we need to look at how we can really improve that opportunity for students to build that foundation skill, as it you know, either before or as they’re starting their courses, because that lack of skills, I could see it’s really impacting on students participation and progress. Number four was around allocating time to teach students how to use technology. The fifth achievable, one was determining and addressing what we call the pinch points in their student learning. So pinch point, meaning what areas are continually tripping our students over and stopping them from achieving or areas that they’re, you know, many of them continually get wrong. Number six, achievable was around inviting Meritus. So inviting me to the next team. So always there’s a selfish what’s in it for me there. Because that way, I can get my foot into the door, and have that conversation with them around Universal Design for Learning. And I’m happy to tell you that I am now going to about two meetings a week, you know, an hour long, it’ll be online or in person. And I’m doing I’m very much doing that having that conversation, reminding them to go and on online and do their modules. And I’m getting some some really good traction with this approach. I’m getting an uptake in participation of the modules, and I’m getting a more openness to the conversations. And number seven was just to start using some, you know, read aloud, for example, accessibility programs for all of their students in class, let’s say moving them away from that mindset, that that’s just for the students that I worked with that identified disability, but it’s for everyone. So getting them to encourage their students to use the range of apps that are available. So that was a really powerful, powerful way to get to get that into hell, but also to have the conversation starting and also to make them realize that Universal Design for Learning is achievable. And every single step is equally as important.

Lillian Nave  57:20

All right, so I guess my last kind of going out, what can we take from this question? And I’ll just go back to you, Jen, and start with you about what’s been the biggest impact that you can share that this program, what you’ve been doing, that you’ve seen with, with that, and TAFE vocational education in, in your area, which is South Australia?

Jen Cousins  57:43

Yeah. So I think the first thing is really the number of organizations who have selected to get the SCORM files and embed it in their learning management systems. I think, you know, while that was an objective for us, I think we’ve been a bit shocked about how many organizations have actually gone ahead and done that. So I think that’s been a huge outcome for the elearning program itself. But for me, the other really big thing is that we started a community of practice across the country, around Universal Design in tertiary education. And we currently have 75 members. And so we’re having meetings every sort of six weeks. And we really now got to a point where, you know, one person does a presentation about what they’re doing so similar to our discussions today. And then we usually set a practice challenge, where it may have been prompted by something that got said at the previous meeting, or something that’s come up, there is an opportunity for people to submit a practice challenge via the headset website. And then we as a group, unpack that, document it and then we share it via a newsletter from the community of practice. And so it’s just really consolidating that opportunity there, keep applying and practicing, understanding, you know, that it’s still a big, long journey, as you say, it’s, you know, it’s a marathon. And we just, this has been a great way for us to keep our own motivations to keep the conversations very fresh and alive for ourselves. But really sharing what people are doing, and really consolidating how we can go about that. And I think for me, that’s really, you know, those professional conversations and the practical sharing is, you know, been a huge outcome for me.

Lillian Nave  59:22

Great. And how about you, Meredith, what’s the biggest impact that you’ve seen?

Meredith Jackson  59:29

I guess, like, personally, it’s have been being involved in this whole you UDL process has really re ignited sort of my my passion now not because I’m not teaching so much now my passion around you know, UDL and building our educator practices. It’s made me aware that there are so many resources out there already and we know we’ve had such a good Um, collection of, you know, professional development along the way, and it doesn’t have to be an expensive process, you know, it’s just about connecting our educators to ways that they can build their, their skills, in Universal Design for Learning efficiently, effectively. And appropriately. I mean, I can, you know, I look back, and one of the best programs I was ever involved with years ago was around instructional intelligence by Barry Bennett. So, you know, there’s just a wealth of tools there are around, you know, strategies and approach approaches and resources that a teacher can access. And they are very much written for an academic or for a, you know, a professional educator, like we tend to have in vet. There’s also, we did a inclusive learning framework back in 2012, which I was involved with, and that just really brought back to the forefront that, you know, the four principles or that was, you know, everyone learns differently. And being inclusive with our practices is everyone’s responsibility. And that really reinforced to me that it doesn’t matter, what you do, or who you are in an organization, it is our responsibility, and we are influences. And also, our students do come with us and for skills and knowledge. So you know, there’s so many great opportunities there to bring that diversity and richness that we have into our classroom, you know, again, efficiently and effectively. And, also, what we can do to to build our we have a core skills framework here as well. And an unfortunate side of it is that the skills and our will, in our country is, you know, skills in numeracy and reading and writing, you know, dropping, you know, like, it’s we’ve got a bigger, bigger gap, if that makes sense in those skills. So we need to really invest as well, in some UDL approaches that are going to build those skills and the digital literacy, as well. And learning skills, we need to invest more in ensuring that we’re building our students learning so that they’re getting a more rich and fulfilling experience. So they’re not just coming in and quickly surface learning. And then, you know, walking out the door, you know, we want them to, to love and quiet the passion for learning that, you know, yourself, Lily, and Jen and I obviously have because we’re here we are sitting here getting overly excited and passionate, which I think is pretty, pretty awesome. Yeah, yeah, I can honestly say, I’m as passionate about, you know, being involved in our educational sector as I was when I started, do you know, at the end of sort of 1993?

Lillian Nave  1:02:55

You know, you when you’re talking about the diversity of your students, you know, I didn’t ask this question before send it to you. I’m, I’m thinking about something my listeners, our listeners can’t see, which is you have a background on your zoom, Meredith, that looks like it is Aboriginal drawing, or at least inspired by that. And I know that there’s a really great cultural diversity in Australia. And that UDL is not just for accommodations, it’s not just for accessibility. And it’s not just for certain students, it’s for all students, and I see a lot of overlap. And, and, you know, direct attention to cultural diversity, I teach a course called intercultural dialogues, and having choice and flexibility, and multiple ways to come into the lesson, multiple ways things to get out of the lesson. And especially allowing for lots of choice is really, really important. And we have noted already that, you know, our students are changing, the world is changing, we get a lot more students than we didn’t have before. And I want to share a story and maybe you can expand on this because it was my very, you know, small slice of being in Queensland. About nine years ago, I went to a volunteering, volunteerism conference, because I do service learning for my students and went to Gold Coast, Australia, which I’m from Florida, so uh, similar to kind of the aesthetic over on Gold Coast. But the beginning of the conference, we had an incredible presentation by the kind of the indigenous or the local Aboriginal peoples who sang in their language, who explained and saying about a creation myth, and introduce me to a whole different way of beings and storytelling, that sort of thing. And I remember The other educators that were with me, and this is, this is around 2013, I think were had tears in their eyes, because these happen to be at a table of all women. And they said, these students couldn’t even weren’t allowed to speak in their language. You know, it used to be that this wasn’t this was against the law. And now, now we’re putting, you know, other cultures this kind of interesting mix, and encouraging it and putting it on the stage. And we want to learn from each other. And it was, I mean, it’s something I had no idea about. And the other educators I was with was saying, you know, things are changing, things are changing in Australia, this is not something that we used to do. And now we’re seeing this much more inclusive, bent, where we’re learning from each other, in in different ways. And, for me, Universal Design for Learning is the method is the design process that allows for us to learn most from each other. So I guess I wanted to ask, in short notice, you know, though, that cultural diversity, that that you see also in in your work,

Jen Cousins  1:06:18

I think it’s a really critical thing to raise. And I think, you know, rightly so we are probably early in that journey. Australia has always said, it’s been a very diverse place, you know, and I diversity and multiculturalism has been probably a big label that’s been used to describe the lifestyle in Australia. And we’ve probably only now just started to understand, you know, what that brings, particularly in an education and training. When you’ve got a class, and you’ve got so many diverse people who have had really different experiences around education. They’re not, you know, even having the same types of education. They’re coming with different language levels, and different literacy skills, all of those types of things. But I think it’s really important that we understand UDL does cover all of those groups. And that diversity, we have a lot of students who returned to vet, you know, after having long periods of time of unemployment, they might have needed to retrain. So, you know, there are a lot there, there might be downsizing their job roles, you know, we’ve got such diversity, I think, and I think that’s what I love about UDL, because we’re not just talking about the cultural diversity, which is an impact things like gender and sexual orientation, like perhaps our traditional diversity categories. But now we’re talking about the variability about what my experience might have been through trauma. And, you know, certainly our indigenous people have had a lot of, you know, systemic trauma that’s been, you know, really applied to them as a group of people. And, you know, we’re starting to really realize that things like UDL really offer some wonderful opportunities for them to to engage better in the learning where they may have traditionally felt quite left out. Meredith, what’s your thoughts?

Meredith Jackson  1:08:12

Look, I think you’ve just summed that up, so well. Jan, I totally, totally agree. And, you know, you, you, when I have that conversation with with the teachers around UDL, you know, we talk also about, you know, the diversity and about what richness, you know, by just making some changes to their practices that they can bring within the classes, their classroom and the advantages. I think we’ve still got a long way to go through education, and that’s just going to take time. Again, I wish we had, we weren’t in an environment where the, the time our teachers get to spend with their students is shrinking. So there’s more and more pressure to and it’s and it’s that pressures from, from funding and resourcing, and the, you know, our, our training practices, it’s also pressure from the learners as well, they don’t seem to want to spend as much time in the learning environment as perhaps they could, you know, they want to get in, quickly get their qualification and get out. So, one of the challenges we have you have here is because we have a lot of students, a migrant or refugees, and, you know, they have significantly different backgrounds as far as their educational experiences, their acquisition of of language, that the trauma as Jen pointed out before, but they you know, they come into our country and they really want to get in and start working and and engage and start living their lives and they don’t want to spend, you know, much time in the learning environment either because they want to get in and get the qualification. So I’m hopeful that having a I’m I brought her in investment in UDL will build the perception and attitude of, of our teachers and also of our students, students and our employers and our government funding as well. Because, you know, vocational education is not just about getting a certificate or a diploma, it’s, it’s getting those learning that now lifelong learning that they get. And those experiences and I think we’ve dropped the ball a little bit in that I think we need to move back. And you know, and recognize the power of developing people in the community that a vocational education environment brings. Sorry, that’s just me,

Jen Cousins  1:10:42

also had never thought, talking about that. Diversity, the cultural diversity, I always, I’m really constantly now talking about when people are building their online learning environment and their resources, I really want them to think about does that imagery that they’re using the language they’re using represent everybody’s experience. And I think that’s really important, because we have some very stereotyped kind of images, if we were talking about courses in community services, where we might be doing disability studies, aged care, home and community care, mental health, those types of areas. And a lot of the imagery that’s used is very traditionally, you know, white young people, you know, providing care to a perfectly groomed older person, do you mean, and we’re saying that’s not actually representing the experience, because, you know, our aged care services are so multicultural. We know in terms of the client groups, as well as the staff groups, and you know, so really, I think that’s one of the really simple ways people can shift up on UDL is by thinking about the imagery they’re using, the language they’re using, and how they’re actually using that, to engage their learners to understand this is the context of their learning. This is where they’re going in their job role. And, you know, they need to be really aware of that cultural diversity as well. So I think, you know, that’s, that’s a good example. I think we’re we’re starting to see it a little differently.

Meredith Jackson  1:12:14

Yeah. Yeah. Funny, actually, because working at at school stick at the trade, trade tastes, we’ve really moved into, you know, having our advert advertising and having our imagery more around that sort of gender equality, because, you know, when I started, it was just most of it was just young males in construction. We’ve, we’ve, we’ve got a great, we’ve had great growth in uptake from, you know, from women coming into trades, and we’ve worked on that, and also mature age entry as well. So our imagery, thankfully, has, has improved.

Lillian Nave  1:12:53

Yeah. And it reflects the real world. As I’ve said, my, my sons go to community college, and, and one of my sons went to the prom, and his female date, her degree is in auto refinishing, auto, you know, fixing automobiles, and I thought, Really, that’s fantastic. I love this. And she’s, uh, you know, they, they were prom king and queen. So and that was her. That was her major. And I loved that. And honestly, I wouldn’t have thought that was, you know, that was offered there, I didn’t know. And we’ve got more and more women going into it. And of course, just more and more diversity, our, our nations are becoming more and more diverse. Our images should reflect that. And UDL gives me that set of glasses or lenses for me to be thinking about that in the design. So I appreciate you both bringing that up. So, wow, I really appreciate the fact that you’ve been on line with me for almost two hours, because it took us almost an hour. So I just want to say thank you so much, Jen and Meredith, for telling us about the really wonderful news coming out of Australia, and what you’re doing with UDL, both in South Australia and in Queensland, and how you have advocated nationally with APSET. And I’m gonna keep using TAFE, and vet and all of these new words I’m learning so that we can, maybe we can learn a lot from each other. So thank you very much.

Jen Cousins  1:14:29

Thanks, Lillian. And thanks for giving us the opportunity. As you can see, we’re happy always to share.

Meredith Jackson  1:14:34

Yes, absolutely. Thanks. It’s been a great chat this morning. Yes, right.

Lillian Nave  1:14:40

So have a great day and I’m gonna get ready to bed because we’re about 13 hours apart. So. So thank you very much. 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. The think UDL podcast is made possible by college star. The star stands for supporting transition, access and retention in post secondary settings, and the website provides free resources and instructional aides based on UDL principles. If you’d like to know more, go to the college star.org website. Additional support for the podcast is made possible by Appalachian State University where if you call it Appalachian, I’ll throw in Appalachia. The music on the podcast was performed by the Odyssey quartet comprised of Rex Shepherd, David Pate, Bill Folwell and Jose Coachez, our sound engineer is Tanner Jones and I am your host, Lillian Nave. Thank you for joining us on The Think UDL podcast