WOW, my first new blog in many years.  This one is towards satisfying the requirements of Assignment #2 in my VCC course (PIDP 3100).  The initial requirement is to "simply" create a blog (that was a steep re-learning curve let me tell you).  That also required setting up 14 sections.  I believe that has been accomplished with the pages I created that -should- be visible when you click on the little spot next to the blog site name.

Another component was to add the creative commons (or similar) to the blog. I've done that on the page that speaks to copyright.  There are also pages containing a brief and partial autobiography along with a list of resources used.

A major component of this assignment was to collaborate with a partner to research and discuss two trends in adult education.  I was fortunate enough to draw Jan as my partner.  She was a delight to work with.  We have such different perspectives that it made our discussions that much more interesting (she appreciates the qualitative aspects more while I, with my engineering background, am much more comfortable with quantitative aspects).

The article I chose was a slightly older and longer one than I anticipated but it caught my interest.  A link to the article is provided on the resource page but I've recreated the citation here for your interest:

• Russell, Debra, and Demka, Robin, (n.d.). Accommodating Learners with Disabilities in Post-Secondary Education in Alberta: A Review of Policies, Programs, and Support Services.  Retrieved from http://www.assembly.ab.ca/lao/library/egovdocs/2005/alle/151924.pdf.

Last night, Jan and I had a long conversation over the two trends.  Here are some of my findings.

TRENDS - 

My trend had to do with the growing need for post-secondary institutions to accommodate students with disabilities.  Unlike most other school policies, the duty to accommodate students is somewhat protected through the Canadian and provincial charter of rights.  These guarantee access to education for people with disabilities.  The definition of disability, as decided upon by the Supreme Court of Canada, includes physical limitations.  It also includes ailments (including mental illness) and even perceived limitations.  The latter acknowledges that a person may have no limitations in every day activities but may still be considered disabled if limitations are created by prejudice or stereotypes.  

Educational institutions are required by law to accommodate students up to a level of undue hardship on the institute.  Accommodations include such measures as extra time on exams, special quiet rooms, use of a scribe, part-time attendance, extra instructor contact, and so forth.  Students being accommodated must still meet the requirements of the program, must not interfere with the rights of other students, and pose no significant health or safety risks to other.  

The length to which a university or college must go to for a disabled student can be quite expensive and some institutions might argue an undue financial hardship.  However, the larger the institute, the more difficult it would be to  make that argument.  According to the article, in Alberta, across 11 ministries containing 34 disability-related programs, about 1.7 billion dollars was spent each year for accommodation (this includes work and social programs too).  

My partner's article was on Inquiry-based Learning based on a study of five European physiotherapists.  It covered the concept of giving more autonomy to adult learners.  It is a timely article as I had just finished chapter 3 in the course text that dealt with the issue of adult learning.  Here's the citation for the article

Hammarlund, Catharina Sjodahl; Nordmark, Eva; and Gummesson, Christina. (2013) Integrating theory and practice by self-directing inquiry-based learning? [sic] A pilot study.  European Journal of Physiotherapy, 15, 225-230.

Inquiry-based learning starts with questions or scenarios and allows learners to self-direct and an instructor works more as a facilitator than a lecturer.  This is very much contrary to the way most, if not all, my engineering classes were taught so it is a pretty foreign concept to me.  That doesn't mean it's not interesting to me though.  I heard at some point that this was an essential difference between the North American standard teaching method compared to that of Japan's primary school system.  We're pretty much a plug and play type of crowd in the sciences whereas in Japan, from what I have been told, they tend to use a system more akin to inquiry-based learning.

A very interesting aspect of Jan's choice of article was that students in these programs reported significantly more interactions with one another than they anticipated.  The suggestion was made that there were more discussion online than there would have been in a classroom setting.  

IMPLICATIONS - 

Both of these trends will have large impacts on how I perform my job over the next few years.

Let me deal with the principle of duty to accommodate first.   The number of students I see that require special accommodations has increased considerably in my years teaching and I see no sign that the rate at which its increasing will slow down anytime soon.  The paper I chose speaks specifically to that.  It shows an increase in the number of students that required use of the University of Alberta disability resource center grow almost three-fold from 1999 to 2005.  The reasons why that trend has been seen at most educational institutes are not as important from the instructional point of view as to how best to accommodate them.

As an instructor this will require more development time to create extra tests and generally adopt a universal design approach to courses.  The universal design is essentially a way to ensure that a course is designed to accommodate as many people as possible.  This may require recognizing that online courses may be subject to some sort of screen readers for visually-impaired students, extra exams will need to be prepared (so students can write separately yet still reduce risk of sharing exams), and so forth.  

The most important accommodation for an instructor, in my opinion, is patience and protection.  As an instructor, a disabled student requiring accommodation may be seen as extra work in an already full day.  However, developing the patience to recognize the student's needs as simply that, needs, rather than some sort of convoluted strategy to circumvent the system is vital.  At the same time, it's important that instructors recognize their roles as classroom leaders and provide a safe haven for those students, protecting them from potentially damaging stereotyping.

As for the second trend, inquiry-based learning and student autonomy, I am unsure of what the implications are.  I do, however, fully recognize that it will be important to address this trend.  Right now we seem to be in a down cycle for the oil and gas industry.  When that happens, my experience is that post-secondary institutions tends to have more mature students looking, essentially, for job re-training.  These students certainly expect more autonomy and chafe more under a lecturing type format.  They also have a wealth of experience that can be drawn on to help further the entire class' education. The challenge for me will be how to incorporate that into an engineering style,  Chapter three of our text provided some good leads towards achieving that goal.

Even younger students coming directly from secondary schools have higher expectations of autonomy than previous years.  The struggle that I have, as an instructor, is while I can somewhat understand the value of inquiry-based learning, I wonder how much of the confidence and self-efficacy the students develop is really just perceived expertise.  As an analogy, I'd say there's nothing scarier than a pilot who is convinced they're a good pilot when the opposite is true.  As an instructor it will be a challenge to have the perceived and actual expertise converge.

"AHA" MOMENT - 

There were a few "aha" moments for me during this exercise (well apart from the recognition that creating a blog was much more work than I had anticipated):

- The entire notion that an institute's duty to accommodate was actually in the Charter of Rights.  At times it can absolutely feel like the student is playing the system and more work than it merits.  But I guess I have a lot less concern about accommodating now, knowing that it is legally required.  I guess that also goes towards my quantitative nature :-)

- Even prejudice and stereotyping can be construed as a disability.  This was an eye-opener.  I guess it gives me a legal leg to stand on when I nip that sort of behaviour in the bud in class, or really anywhere on campus.  

-  As much as I dislike them, Jan's article suggested to me that ice breakers at the start of a class may actually serve a useful purpose.  They are not my favorite.  I guess I'm somewhat of an introvert (although it would be hard to guess) and they make me uncomfortable.  At the same time, I think I have better appreciation for the opportunity they present to connect and collaborate with colleagues.

- It was really interesting to see how differently Jan and I sometimes saw things in our discussions.  The qualitative measures which would drive me nuts were soothing and familiar to her.  The opposite was true for the quantitative features.