Implementing Plain Language Summaries to Promote Access in College Courses (Lieke van Heumen)
CATE Seminar Series
October 29, 2024
10:00 AM - 11:30 AM
Location
Teaching Excellence Building (TEB) Room 201 or online on Zoom
Address
924 S. Morgan St., Rm 201, Chicago, IL 60607
Calendar
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The CATE Seminar Series features the work of UIC instructors who are investigating how their teaching practices impact the learning experiences of their students in their courses. In this session, participants will hear from scholars about their research findings in the first hour. In the second half hour, participants in-person will be able to consult with CATE staff on how to apply the scholars’ teaching strategies, research methodology, and/or research findings to their own practice and research. All faculty, staff, graduate students and postdocs are welcome to attend. Light refreshments will be provided at the session.
Speaker: Lieke van Heumen, Disability and Human Development
Title: Implementing Plain Language Summaries to Promote Access in College Courses
Abstract: Plain Language is communication your audience can understand the first time they read or hear it. Plain Language has created access and promoted social justice for people with disabilities in spaces such as health care, public transportation, and research participation. We know little about the use of Plain Language Summaries (PLSs) as a strategy to promote access for students with disabilities in higher education. The Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework values proactively improving accessibility of course materials to create an inclusive learning environment, and providing PLSs of course materials such as readings and lectures can be one way to achieve the goals of this framework. Survey findings across four semesters showed that the majority of the students in my disability studies college course (both those with and without disabilities) used the PLSs we developed, and found them valuable to their learning. This finding convinced me that PLSs have important potential in improving access and benefiting the learning of all students, regardless of their lived experience of disability. In this interactive presentation I share our process and findings when developing, implementing and evaluating PLSs, and engage the audience in exploring the potential of PLSs in their classrooms and contexts.
Format: This seminar will be in a synchronous-distributed format. It is an on-campus, in-person event with option to join online via live streaming.
Inclusion and Accessibility Information: CATE is committed to making events accessible. CATE’s in-person events typically involve a combination of presentation and discussion-based activities. We welcome ASL interpreters, note-takers, and accompanying assistants to in-person CATE events. The TEB is wheelchair accessible with an elevator to the second floor space. The TEB space is equipped with fixed-height tables that are moveable and can be reconfigured. There are single-occupancy, all-gender, accessible bathrooms on the second and basement levels of TEB. CATE’s online events are delivered through Zoom, will use Zoom auto-captions, and may include breakout rooms and group discussion. Sessions will use Zoom projected with the Zoom into the physical space. The TEB space also has built-in ceiling microphones throughout the room so Zoom attendees can hear the session facilitators and conversation from in-person attendees. If you have any accessibility questions, requests, or to coordinate accommodations, please contact the CATE team at teaching@uic.edu.
Date posted
Aug 1, 2024
Date updated
Oct 8, 2024