Session 5 Guide
Learning Objectives
By the end of this session, you will
- Be able to see how traditional barriers cast marginalized students as problem learners, and tackle those assumptions.
- Understand the guidelines of Universal Design for Learning so you can apply them in developing your OER.
- Understand the fundamentals of Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy.
- Be able to build an interactive discussion community on your chosen publishing platform with Hypothes.is (Pressbooks) or social annotation (on Manifold).
Agenda
We’re deep into planning our OER. Here’s what we’re going to do today to support you as you further shape and refine your thinking about Universal Design for Learning and ensure that your OER supports culturally sustaining pedagogy.
- Identify barriers that marginalized students face.
- Learn about the Universal Design for Learning Guidelines for Engagement, Representation, and Action & Expression.
- Learn how Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy envisions the institution as a place where cultural ways of being are sustained.
- See how social annotation tools like Hypothes.is can encourage and facilitate discussion outside the classroom.
You can download the Session 5 slides [PDF] for an additional overview of the session.
Activities
In-session Discussion
In a breakout room with colleagues, discuss where you can apply Universal Design for Learning and/or Culturally Sustaining Pedagogical elements in your project.
Homework Activity
Prepare a 7–10 minute presentation of your project for the next session. In your presentation, you may discuss the following:
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Where are you at in your process?
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What are some pain points that have popped up for you far? What can we help you with?
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What from the sessions has resonated with you, and what do you think you’ll be incorporating into your process or your text?
Additional Resources
On Universal Design for Learning
- A Comprehensive Guide to Applying Universal Design for Learning by Dr. Seanna Takacs, Junsong Zhang, Helen Lee, Lynn Truong, and David Smulders
- Universal Design for Learning (UDL) for Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Accessibility (IDEA) by Darla Benton Kearney
- Transforming Practice: Learning Equity, Learning Excellence by Social Equity Working Group Curriculum Committee
- UDL Guidelines: Downloads
On Culturally Sustaining Practices/Pedagogy
- Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy: A Needed Change in Stance, Terminology, and Practice by Django Paris
This article includes an overview of the history of approaches to teaching marginalized students, from deficit approaches to difference approaches to resource approaches (what we also call asset-based pedagogies). Paris explains why a shift toward culturally sustaining pedagogies—rather than culturally relevant (also called culturally responsive) pedagogies—is needed: “Culturally sustaining pedagogy seeks to perpetuate and foster—to sustain—linguistic, literate, and cultural pluralism as part of the democratic project of schooling.” - Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies: Teaching and Learning for Justice in a Changing World, edited by Django Paris and H. Samy Alim
- Agency and Pedagogy in Literacy Education by Heeok Jeong
“This study provides significant implications about how teachers, who will be working in classrooms and schools and encountering deficit discourses about immigrant students and standardization forces, can create agentive pedagogical spaces where the linguistic, cultural, and community resources of immigrant students are identified, understood, centered, and can connect those resources with classroom and community practices.”
