Accessibility, Equity, and Inclusion

Join us for a pizza lunch and receive an introduction to accessibility, universal design, and how you can support all students. Jenny Malecha will present an overview of accessibility, explain why it is important, and share examples of issues that students with disabilities face. Dr. Ye Chen will share a checklist faculty can use to check for accessibility basics, and Maureen O'Halloran will present tools and resources for making accessible course materials, like PDF files, Word documents, and closed captioned videos. Be prepared to ask questions and let us know what further information and support you need to make your class accessible. CELT will offer more in depth tutorials on specific accessibility tools and resources throughout the remainder of the the semester.

This meeting will be available through Blackboard Collaborate at http://bit.ly/celtcollab, and via Conference Now.

Handouts: http://bit.ly/celtaccess5oct18 

Join us Thursday, November 8th from 1-3pm for this workshop. The session will introduce the openly licensed, free teaching and learning tools known as open educational resources (OER). While student savings and access are the most commonly mentioned benefits of OER use in higher education, more than a dozen published studies (Fischer, Hilton et. al, 2015; Hilton, 2016) have found a correlation between OER and as-good-or-better student outcomes, including increased course completion, higher grades and increased credit load. The 2018 Educause Horizon Report lists OER as one of the key trends accelerating technology adoption in higher education for the next three to five years.

Jonas Lamb from the UAS Egan Library will present an overview of OER in the higher ed and UAS contexts, facilitate discussion, and share best practices and success stories for using OER or low-cost course materials. So what can I do? What are UAS faculty doing already? What support services are available to help me reboot my courses using OER? What resources are available to help me think more broadly about open educational practices? What if I want to create my own OER? Anyone seeking answers to these questions are invited to attend. Participants will begin exploring OER in their teaching areas.

This session will take place in person at the UAS Sitka campus in room 230. The session will also be broadcast from the CELT classroom in Juneau (Egan Library 103), or you can join from your desk with one of the following options:

Join Hangouts Meet | meet.google.com/bhg-ggei-kqq
Join by phone | ‪+1 385-352-0486‬ PIN: ‪584 663 461‬#

Dr. Alberta Jones, AK College of Education, presents on her research. An investigation of nearly all living Alaska Native PhD's revealed influential factors both supporting and hindering their PhD degree journey. Data from a survey instrument was validated by personal interviews as PhD's imparted advice to aspiring graduate students and universities seeking to recruit, retain, and graduate Alaska Native graduate students. These suggestions can apply to undergraduate students as well. This presentation will primarily focus on the suggestions to universities and Alaska Native students for the PhDs and the research. There will be time for discussion after the presentation.

Snacks will be provided. Join us in person on the Juneau campus in the CELT classroom (Egan Library 103), via Blackboard Collaborate at http://bit.ly/celtcollab, or through Conference Now. 

Please note the new day and time - moved from Wed. March 6th to Fri. March 8th, 9-10am.

Heather Batchelder will present on creating accessibility for all students through Universal Design for Learning. This program will take place on the Juneau Campus in the CELT classroom (Egan Library room 103). It will also be broadcast via Blackboard Collaborate at http://bit.ly/celtcollab and through Conference Now.

Jonas Lamb will present on how to use Curriculum Builder, a new Blackboard tool that enables you to create reading lists that link directly to articles and ebooks from Egan Library within your course site. With this tool, you can also provide links to web resources, as well as add notes for students about required reading in their assigned textbooks or other printed materials.

By using the Curriculum Builder reading list tool, students will connect to texts directly through Egan Library's databases, giving them access to additional accessibility tools (like the ability to increase font sizes and use screen readers) that are not available when reading photocopied or scanned documents. By using resources directly from the library's databases, you can also be sure you are in compliance with copyright regulations for use of the articles and ebooks on your reading list.

This program will take place in person on the Juneau campus in the CELT classroom (Egan Library 103), and will also be available via Blackboard Collaborate at http://bit.ly/celtcollab.

Bring your questions and ideas about supporting students to the Advising Roundtable, Friday, November 2nd from 12-1pm. You do not have to be a faculty advisor to attend – anyone who works with students can benefit from this informal opportunity to meet with advising and counseling staff.

Aimee Richards and Denise Carl will be on hand to answer advising questions, Shayla Sulser will be available for EAB-related questions, and Margie Thomson will be there representing Counseling and Disability Services. Snacks will be available.
This program will take place on the Juneau Campus in the CELT classroom (Egan Library room 103). It will also be broadcast via Blackboard Collaborate at http://bit.ly/celtcollab and through Conference Now.

Lunch is provided. Join us for a discussion of Chapter 3 ("This is Your Brain on Culture") from Zaretta Hammond's book Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain. Zaretta Hammond is a former classroom English teacher who has been doing instructional design, school coaching, and professional development around the issues of equity, literacy, and culturally responsive teaching for the past 18 years. Copies of the book will be available for faculty to borrow / keep. If you are outside of Juneau, email Kaia Henrickson or uas.celt@alaska.edu for a PDF copy of the chapter. Participate in person in the CELT classroom, Egan Library 103, or via Blackboard Collaborate at http://bit.ly/celtcollab.

Lunch is provided. We'll discuss Mahzarin Banaji’s podcast on Implicit Bias: https://onbeing.org/programs/mahzarin-banaji-the-mind-is-a-difference-seeking-machine-aug2018/. Mahzarin Rustum Banaji FBA is an American psychologist at Harvard University, known for her work popularizing the concept of implicit bias in regards to race, gender, sexual orientation, and other factors. Participate in person in the CELT classroom, Egan Library 103, or via Blackboard Collaborate at http://bit.ly/celtcollab.

Join us for a discussion of Taiye Selasi’s TED Talk Don’t ask where I’m from, ask where I’m a local. “The difference between ‘Where are you from?’ and ‘Where are you a local?’ isn’t the specificity of the answer but the intention of the question… ‘Where are you from?’ is just as often code for ‘Why are you here?’ Naming someone’s country can become a proxy for giving or taking away power.” Taiye Selasi is a writer and photographer who explores our relationships with multiple identities.

Lunch will be provided. Attend in person in the CELT classroom (Egan Library 103) or remotely via Zoom.