Accessible teaching with Ashley Anderson
Meet Ashley Anderson, Senior Learning Designer – Accessibility, who, in her role in the Teaching and Learning Innovation department improves student experience every day
How would you describe your job?
I use my background in learning design to help academics create more accessible LMS subjects. I also help out with the University's commitment to providing a Universal Design for Learning (UDL) community of practice, and UDL professional development, working with advocates and educators all over the University.
What did you do before this job?
Before this role, I was a learning designer for many years. Early on in my learning design experience, I attended an accessibility training session, heard a sample of what screen readers sound like, and I was hooked – I wanted everything I created to be screen-reader friendly. After that, my comprehension of 'web accessibility' expanded, and it became something of a passion project.
How does your team work to improve student experience?
The Teaching and Learning Innovation team is all about the student experience! In my group, Learning Design and Assessment, we collaborate with academics to create meaningful, impactful (and accessible!) learning experiences.
The sizeable Digital Learning Environments team supports the student experience in everything from digital exams to the LMS to custom-built learning tools. The Scholarly Development teams, meanwhile, build student capacity directly, whether it's their capacity in the English language, in writing well or in preparing for exams.
What sort of actions do you do take in your role to improve student experience?
I support academic staff in creating more accessible assignments, LMS subjects and activities. I provide resources, advice, and suggest ideas.
It’s important that the teaching staff are in the driver's seat – they're the experts in their students' needs and in their disciplines. I can help them achieve their accessibility goals and create equitable and fair practices. I also create central resources and training sessions so that academics feel empowered to create their own more inclusive experiences.
Perhaps the most joyful part of my role is connecting people up with each other, so that ideas can spread from one department/school/faculty to another.
Why is this work important?
I sustain myself by thinking about that student who will log in and find a more navigable, intuitive LMS site. The cohort who will have an easier time understanding their assessment instructions. The students who need captions for videos or HTML versions of texts, and don't have to sit on their hands waiting for the accessible formatting team to help them.
What do you see as your most important piece of work right now that will improve student experience?
I'm really loving collaborating with academics who are doing the Plus One Pledge. The Plus One Pledge approach is one in which staff decide on one change to make – whether it's clarifying rubrics, improving the accessibility of their site, or experimenting with a different approach in lectures and tutorials. They then workshop that change over the course of one or two semesters.
I love supporting academics directly in their important work, seeing the passion they bring to the project, and then seeing the improvements live in the subject.
My hope is that the improved practices can ripple out from one subject to whole courses and to faculties and schools.
What is one simple thing teaching staff could do to significantly improve the experience of their students?
Upload a PowerPoint or Word document next to your PDF – or better yet, build your content as a web page in HTML. PDFs are not accessible for people who use screen readers.
Not doable for you? That's totally fine. Start by creating accessible links. You can create them by copying the URL to your clipboard; selecting the title of the resource; and then either right-clicking the text and adding a link OR using cmnd+k/ctrl+k to open up a link window. Paste the link in and you're ready to go!
Hint: Use the title of the reading rather than the words 'click here' or 'more information'. The link itself needs to tell you where it's going.
What will be the future focus of your work?
My short, medium and long term goals are all about changing the culture of this university. One day, I hope that we will become a university where no one would dream of uploading an image without including alt-text, or hyperlinking a URL. It will take us a while, but I want us to create an atmosphere where accessibility and equity are just second nature.
Curious to learn more about accessible education practices?