Episode 18-Accessibility and Trust
0-0:12 Orthotonics Accessible as Gravity plays and fades out
0:13 Hello and welcome to Accessagogy a podcast about accessibility and pedagogy. I’m your host Ann Gagné and this podcast is recorded on land covered by the Upper Canada Treaties and within land protected by the Dish with One Spoon Wampum Agreement, which is the traditional territory of the Haudenosaunee and Anishinaabe peoples.
0:34 Welcome to episode eighteen. In this episode, we’re going to go easy into 2024 , maybe, with a topic that I would like to see a lot more of in higher educational spaces, which is trust. I want to talk about how trust and accessibility are connected, and what we can do to have trust be part of our accessible pedagogical strategies. Also want to add a caveat that it has been very windy here lately and I will try to edit out that sound, but I’m sorry if the sound quality of this episode is a bit different.
1:09 I spend a lot of time thinking about trust. Trust as a word has its origins in faith, but also strength. I will post a link to the etymology of trust on the episode page if you’re interested. Because I spend a lot of time thinking about trust, not just because it is a principle of trauma-aware pedagogy, but because I think the pandemic has really brought issues of trust to the forefront in higher education and how trust is often lacking in educational spaces.
1:41 So today I wanted to spend some time highlighting some pedagogical strategies that are part of accessible pedagogy, but that can also build trust. Ultimately as I hope to show in the four examples that I will give today, trust is foundational to accessible pedagogy, and you can’t say that you’re accessible or inclusive in your pedagogy if you have not thought about how trust factors into that.
2:05 So, One. Trust and Pedagogical Consistency. In order to build trust in any space or with any relationship, there needs to be consistency. Pedagogically what consistency looks like is often transparency around goals, and why learners are being asked to do a particular activity, or how to contact the teaching team, or where the information about different assignments and activities can be found. Consistency means that all that information is consistently accessible. This means that if you’re posting videos, they’re captioned, accurately, that means that if you ask learners to engage with a podcast that the podcast episode you suggest has transcripts. That sort of consistency in demonstration and engagement and care with accessibility builds trust with disabled learners, but also with learners who do not identify as disabled.
2:59 A lot of the ways to achieve this accessibility and this accessible consistency is in devising work flows that work for you as an instructor, and work flows that work for your teaching team so that they can also produce accessible content and communicate accessibly. That way a sense of trust can be built for learners, that when they go to find information they’ll find it, and when they go to reach out to the member or members of the teaching team they will find someone to communicate with in ways that are inclusive to them.
3:32 Second. Trust and Technology. The tools that we choose in our classes can either build trust and inclusive awareness, or demonstrate that the learning space is not one where necessarily that individual feels like their needs are considered. Thinking about the kinds of technology that is suggested as part of ways of learners completing assignments, or the resources that are shared as part of the course, and maybe even doing a bit of research on the accessibility of those tools that you want to use in your class, will go a long way to build trust and decrease frustration for learners. If you don’t feel comfortable about reading about different tech tools that you want to use in your class to ensure that they’re accessible, you have support I am sure at your institution, either in the teaching and learning centre (if you have one), or at the library, or if you’re lucky enough to have an educational technology team or even the IT team, they would be able to talk to you about the accessible choices in particular and things that already work with the learning management systems or the platforms that you have at your school, so for example if you’re a Microsoft school or a Google school.
4:41 Third, Trust and Communication. Often at the beginning of the term teaching assistants, instructors, lab assistants, and other members of the teaching team, will start with a set of communication strategies to ensure that inclusive and respectful communication happens. This is a great space to embed you know working towards trust as a model for the learning space. Include things that you’d like to make sure are there, talk about ableist language for example, and how that is going to be addressed in the learning space. That can build trust and a sense of belonging for disabled learners. If disabled learners know that the teaching team will support them, acknowledge them, and address inappropriate and harmful comments when they occur, this can help situate that particular classroom space as one where their lived experience is included.
5:33 So I was going to end this episode with this example and as I said before was supposed to record this episode a few days ago. But as fate would have it, the weather patterns conspired and there has been not to one single non-windy day this week and I’ve waited to the very last minute to record this episode. But what this has also done is it has allowed some news to reach to me about a large educational development and faculty development conference that has decided to remove online and hybrid options for participation for this year’s conference.
6:08 And so well this leads to example Four which is trust and Trust in Our Academic Associations. It actually builds on the previous points of consistency, and technology, and communication. So as academics we choose to be part of academic associations, networks or groups because that is how we try to find and build our community. I have abandoned many associations over the last two years and stopped paying fees because it was clear that they did not care about the accessibility of that space in a foundational way. They say that they do but nothing about their actions builds on that trust and I need to trust them to give them the funds, and I want to trust them that the funds that I am going to give them will not be used to create and uphold inequitable spaces. Trust is consistency, and if you consistently fail to have ways for disabled members to participate then why would I trust you with my fees. I also don’t think a lot of these associations truly realize the ethical responsibility that they have to their field or discipline. If they create inaccessible events and conferences that sort of says to the membership, it’s okay to design inaccessible courses and assessments.
7:34 So I want to end this episode with something that I added over two years ago to my Educational Development Philosophy Statement that lives in my Educational Developer Portfolio. I’m sharing this because well when I wrote it, I wrote it for the community, and I’ve I never really had an opportunity to share it in a meaningful way, ironically enough probably because I wanted to share it at educational developer conference and none of them have been accessible to me, so. I want to share this here because I want folk to take up this call for change. And please feel free to use this language in your own spaces, but of course if you do, it would be super great from a social justice citational practice point of view to acknowledge where you got it from. Because I see a lot of my work sometimes and me not being acknowledged. So, it is called The Educational Developer Ethical Resistance Clause and it goes as follows:
8:30 “In order to model and uphold the ethical relationality that is foundational to educational development work, educational developers should resist participating in or actively being part of academic groups or associations that do not have a clear commitment to inclusion work which includes accessibility and clear support for Educational Developers with equity-deserving positionalities that is modelled in their professional development offerings and conferences.” (Gagné, 2022)
9:04 So I’m leaving that there for you to ponder. If you’re looking for the text of this clause please refer to the transcript of this episode. I welcome comments and I hope that it’s something that helps folks think about all the important ethical connections our pedagogical actions have, both individually and as a group.
9:24 So that’s it, that’s episode 18 of Accessagogy, with a discussion of accessible pedagogical strategies that build trust, and hopefully a bit of a demonstration of how trust can be foundational to accessibility.
9:37 Remember as well that I also want this to be a space where you can ask questions and share concepts that you would like me to discuss. So if there’s anything that I mentioned here, especially around that ethical resistance clause, that you would like me to clarify, please ask. If you have any suggestions to share also please do so.
9:53 As always if you have any ideas or aspects of your pedagogy that you would like me to address in this podcast, please feel free to send me an email at Accessagogy so that’s acc e ss a gogy at gmail dot com. I will try to include as many suggestions as possible in this podcast because ultimately, this podcast is for you. So that’s it, that’s episode 18 of Accessagogy, thanks so much for following along and asking how can I make my space more accessible today? Have a great week!