Category Archives: Inclusivity

International Something: Why You Should Care #DigPed

Accessibility, Contexts Matter, Diversity, Inclusivity, MOOCs



flickr photo shared by andreas.klodt under a Creative Commons ( BY-NC-SA ) license

This article was co-authored over THREE timezones, by Maha Bali (in Cairo, Egypt), Kate Bowles (in Wollongong, Australia) and Paul Prinsloo (South African currently in Virginia, USA) and refers to a workshop we are co-facilitating at the Digital Pedagogy Lab Institute in UMW. You can watch live (or recorded) at this YouTube link (we hope YouTube works or at least streams well enough in your country). The workshop takes place Thursday August 11 at 4pm EDT (Virtually connecting website converts to your timezone – because we know we all live in different timezones – it will already by Friday for Kate!)

Yesterday, in a Virtually Connecting conversation, Ken Bauer commented on having virtual participants located in Mexico, Austria, South Africa and Egypt, compared to a regular VC hangout where most people were usually from the US. He asked how we could create more such conversations. Audrey Watters commented on the importance of this given the limited US-centric views of ed tech. Jesse Stommel and Maha Bali talked about intentionality: recognizing the importance of internationalism and acting upon it are very different things.

A while ago, Digital Pedagogy Lab co-directors Jesse Stommel and Sean Michael Morris asked Maha to create a hybrid workshop for DPLI UMW on “something international”, to invite other facilitators and organize it however she saw fit. This invitation is encouraging: it recognizes the value of having international voices be part of such an intensively local event, with the freedom to speak for themselves, including in quite critical ways.

Maha invited Paul Prinsloo from South Africa (who will be onsite) and Kate Bowles from Australia (who like Maha will be a virtual participant). Working in various-sized education systems outside the US we’re all familiar with complications of wrangling international digital pedagogy out of faulty internet connections, language confusion, and above all timezone mismatches. This is also the infrastructure of our research and professional networking; for us, working as academics means international-first, not as an afterthought. So we responded enthusiastically.

Our collaboration in developing this workshop has itself been about the practicalities of working internationally. Sometimes we’ve all been online at the same time; just as often we’ve left messages for each other to find on waking up or getting to work. And while doing this, we’ve learned about each other’s work schedules, life histories and work spaces, as we’ve become sensitised to the work-life rhythms of our three lives. We use some but not all of the same channels, so even our three-way conversation isn’t completely contained anywhere. We don’t use the same digital devices and this has had a surprising impact on how we each work when we’re away from our desks. We can work together in English, but we’ve had to look things up to fully understand their meaning. And even though we’re familiar with each other’s work, it turns out we’re still unfamiliar with important elements in each other’s political, cultural and national context.

Since 2012 critical educators have been hearing regularly about how open digital pedagogy or social networking expands access to learning to everyone in the world. This is now such a familiar claim that we don’t need to name the edtech visionaries and entrepreneurial capitalists who’ve been relentlessly promoting it—it has become a defining truism in digital pedagogy. However, for most of us not in the US (or the UK), this vision has often signalled top-down, US-to-world, Anglo-oriented, decontextualized, culturally irrelevant, infrastructure-insensitive, and timezone-ignorant aspirations, even when the invitation for us to join in may be well-intentioned.

We want to rethink this one-way flow of benefits, and argue instead that all learning is enriched when we have the opportunity to hear from voices markedly different from our own. We want to suggest that when US culture and educational systems are the default for MOOCs and similar platforms, international voices are exoticized, marginalized and silenced at once. We also want to challenge the tendency to call something “global” when only two or three countries are involved, often including only participants from powerful institutions, and everything is in English.

But even for those learners/educators outside the US who do have both the internet and the English to participate, there are power dynamics that need to be made explicit. Whenever you connect online, you connect on someone’s terms, and in digital pedagogy these are often the terms designed by educators who enjoy the network infrastructure and cultural capital associated with US institutions. And while overcoming technical access barriers to the internet is critical for learners around the world, access on US terms or to spaces and platforms controlled by US assumptions can often introduce new cultural barriers for learners outside the US. Being more sensitive about these issues also allows us to recognize the fact that we often disregard issues of access and the different cultural and class barriers and the (in)visible fault-lines of race, gender and class in the US.

Our workshop is therefore an attempt to talk openly about how things look like from our respective non-US perspectives. We’ll be sharing case studies of our own experiences that will demonstrate different angles on the complexity of transnational education. And we will invite participants (onsite and virtually) to consider ways to build more inclusive networked learning experiences. While we are talking particularly about networked learning, much of what we discuss will apply to both onsite and online international learners and teachers.

We also recognize that inclusivity and cultural relevance are not unique to international learners, but connect to issues of identity and difference that are pressing within the US. There are learners inside the US for whom language or technology access are immediate practical barriers; and learners whose experience is continually affected by educators with a poor understanding of their cultural context or their personal priorities.

And this is why after one hour of discussing internationalness, we will have a hallway conversation with Annemarie Perez, Chris Gilliard (both onsite) and Sherri Spelic (virtually) on how identity and difference shape their practice in digital pedagogy.

If you can’t come to our workshop, we encourage you to read this article by Maha which is detailed but not very long case study on the shortcomings of an attempt at global learning). But we hope you can join us, as we explore what can be achieved in a three-timezone workshop relying on a network of regional and domestic internet technologies.

You can watch the workshop live here:

And the hallway conversation following it here:

And we will be working on a Google doc if you can’t be part of the live session but would like to contribute: http://bit.ly/inclusiveDigPed

Plugged in or turned off: A critical reflection on the digital literacy of 21st century students in higher education

Contexts Matter, Inclusivity, pedagogy, Teaching, , ,

By Heather Thaxter (UK) and Suzan Koseoglu (USA)

Heather and Suzan met for the first time at the Digital Pedagogies Conference (2015) this year. Heather chose the metaphorical title, “Connectivism: Plugged in or turned off? Does Connectivity equal Inclusivity?”, for a paper she co-presented with her colleague, Jane Hunt, in which they critically examined inclusivity in connectivist learning environments. In this post, we use the same metaphor Heather used in her presentation – being plugged in and turned off – to refer to our understanding and use of digital technologies in general.

Since the conference, we have exchanged many e-mails and Twitter messages discussing issues around inclusivity and digital literacy in connectivism, connected learning, and networked learning in general. Through our conversations, we discovered that we shared similar educational visions and concerns with regard to learning on the World Wide Web. We decided to open this conversation to a wider audience because as Freire noted:

Knowledge emerges only through invention and re-invention, through the restless, impatient, continuing, hopeful inquiry human beings pursue in the world, with the world, and with each other. (p. 72)

In this post, we challenge common assumptions about digital literacies and access to technology in the 21st century classes based on our experiences. We hope you will join the conversation too by leaving a comment.

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Are you plugged in or turned off? What is the impact of technology on your teaching and learning? If you are like us, you feel simultaneously plugged in or turned off. No matter how hard we try, we still may not be aware of the bigger picture of how digital technologies can enable learning in so many different ways. We seem to be running flat out to keep up with emerging technologies whilst desperately trying to respond to the growing consensus that traditional learning theories are either obsolete or, at the very least, need adapting to meet the evolving needs of the 21st century learner.

Quite rightly, there is a sense of urgency to bring education into the digital age, but we believe caution is needed when introducing new digital technologies and learning theories/approaches aligning with those into our classes. We refer to the assumptions surrounding the digital literacy of our students. Our experience is that the 21st century learner may not be as connected and as technological savvy as one might think. In addition, even if students use digital technologies in everyday life, this doesn’t mean that they are comfortable or experienced in using them for their learning. This highlights the fact that the affordances of digital technology are not being fully utilised or indeed understood by a proportion of the student population. So what are the reasons?

In Heather’s experience of a widening participation context: primarily non-traditional students (mature, low socio-economic demographic) studying at a university centre in the UK,  there are students who are the first in their families to enter higher education and are still very much finding their voices. This directly links to having the self-confidence that they have something to say and, perhaps more significantly, that others will want to hear it. This seems to be more evident in mature students who are often less familiar with the affordances of emerging technology, especially in relation to learning. That is not to say that this is true of all students within that context. One digitally literate student used Twitter very effectively to garner opinion concerning the educational policies of opposing political parties and then after critical analysis, incorporated the results into a poster presentation. This student was confident both in terms of using technology as a learning tool and already having an online presence. Whilst he is certainly not unique perhaps this is where we are in danger of cultivating a one size fits all mentality, despite the fact that not all students, or indeed lecturers, are keeping up with the pace: their digital footprint is barely visible in some cases.

Mature students in particular who have not been born into the digital world (in the context of widening participation), generally have certain fears and expectations about their return to education. Their educational biography is often shaped by a bad school experience, external social/familial/economic pressures and lack of opportunities, which sometimes results in learning anxiety. Often a student who has previously had a less than ideal educational experience and has taken the life-changing step to return to education will be hoping for, if not expecting, a nurturing, supportive experience the second time around. Learning anxiety may be further exacerbated due to economic disadvantage because contrary to common assumptions not everyone has the financial means to buy digital devices or connect to the internet. Therefore, if we are to introduce theories which are more compatible with the digitally connected world in which we live and learn, we will need to take such factors into account. The Connectivist approach, for example, promotes self directed learning where the onus is on the student to build a strong, individualised learning network because ‘learning and knowledge is distributed across nodes’ and then the student has to have the skill to make immediate decisions regarding the currency of that knowledge because the “capacity to know is more critical than what is currently known.” Whilst Heather acknowledges the potential of students plugging into a network which enables them to engage with and analyse diverse perspectives which they would not otherwise have been exposed to, she has also identified challenges that may turn them off. If the student is digitally illiterate, or digitally disadvantaged, this theory may be further alienating which, given the premise of connectivity and collaboration, is quite ironic.  

In Suzan’s experience of teaching completely online courses in her program area (learning technologies), her students’ expectations are not that different from Heather’s students. We think this is remarkable considering the differences in the two contexts.  Suzan’s courses are highly social  and encourage students to learn in a community via a social networking platform. Most of Suzan’s undergraduate students (US) have been born into the digital world and are affluent users of social media, but they too have challenges in using technology for their learning. It is common for undergraduate students to take more than four classes during each academic semester (typically equivalent to 12 credits; the expected workload for each credit is 3 hours a week) and work part-time to help with the high costs of college tuition. Students generally choose to enroll in online classes because they offer the flexibility they need to juggle work, study and social life. It is not uncommon for Suzan to see her students responding to discussions and working on class projects late at night until the early hours of the morning. Not surprisingly, many students have limited time to figure out new technologies on their own and need ample time and support to familiarize themselves with their course site and its structure.

The challenges are not merely technical or due to a lack of experience and/or knowledge. Students also have learning anxieties that directly tie into the traditional culture of teaching and learning in higher education. For example, they might feel the pressure to earn a good grade or feel deeply concerned about how they present themselves to others in class discussions and openly shared class projects. For some students using a highly structured classroom management system such as Moodle or Blackboard is more reassuring than a social networking site with loosely defined boundaries.

Last semester, Suzan taught a class in which students explored youths’ use of social media from an educational perspective. Inspired by David Wiley’s call to end disposable assignments, and to encourage students have hands-on experience with an emergent technology relevant to the focus of the class, Suzan asked her students to create a blog (optional; the blog could be open on the web or visible to course participants only) for their independent research projects. But it was challenging for Suzan to explain to her students the ethos of blogging and the necessity of creating something that would have value outside of “class walls.” Some students posted long traditional essays for their blog posts (with course descriptions at the beginning and paper-based citation formats), some students copied to their posts large chunks of content from other sites, some students created beautiful designs ticking every box for the minimum requirements for the assignment, but nothing more. Suzan was struck by the diversity in how students approached blogging – getting rid of the disposable assignments wasn’t as easy as she thought it would be. Students had blogs but not everyone had a voice in them – it hadn’t become a space for them to be present on the web.

How can we help our students have a voice in a networked learning context, informally or otherwise? How can we facilitate a welcoming and a suitable environment for our students: a space which enables each learner to get the most out of their learning experience?

These are not easy questions to address, but we argue that we can at least start by critically reflecting on our assumptions regarding the digital literacy of our students. To be precise, we should not assume that our students have easy access to the Internet and tools/devices; are technologically competent; and are confident in using digital technologies. To be “plugged in,” we have to ensure everyone (teachers included) has access to the tools and competency in using them efficiently. Perhaps, more importantly, we have to nurture students in this process so that, hopefully, they will gain the confidence and willingness to use technology effectively for their learning, and rather than being “turned off,” their learning will extend beyond the confines of the classroom into the connected world.

Without dismissing the need for scaffolding strategies, being connected implies partnership and we believe the best guidance happens when we work alongside our students, when we see ourselves as learners as well. Suzan, for example, could have blogged along with her students to model writing for a public audience on the web and engage in a more authentic dialogue with her students. That way perhaps she could better help her students “develop the awareness, skills, habits and dispositions necessary to take full advantage of the affordances of the web.” Heather could strengthen her own digital presence and become a node in the network, thereby providing a familiar starting point for her students, whilst guiding them to other nodes.

It is important for students to know that we don’t know everything and are still learners ourselves especially with regard to technology. Showing our willingness to explore and attempt new things…sharing our failures as well as successes…learning with and from our students… These are the types of things we might consider in our teaching because we (students and teachers) are all in the same boat with regard to navigating the open sea of numerous, unimaginable possibilities. There will be waves that may threaten to rock the boat or even capsize it and the fear of this (setbacks, failures) is often at the heart of the resistance to change/reluctance to explore those possibilities but connectivity – the idea that we are learning together – offers a lifejacket.

 

About the Authors:

Heather Thaxter profile pic

Heather Thaxter is (about to begin) studying for an MA in Literature and Digital Culture and has a background in English, specialising in literacy. Having taught in further and higher education, most recently on the Initial Teacher Training programme at University Centre Doncaster, Heather’s research focus is on digital literacy in the context of widening participation. Heather is currently researching connectivism through the lens of inclusivity.


Suzan Koseoglu profile pic
Suzan Koseoglu is a PhD candidate in Learning Technologies in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Minnesota. Suzan's research focus is on online education with an emphasis on pedagogy and socio-cultural aspects of learning. Suzan has taught classes on the ethics of online technologies, youths’ use of social media, and online learning communities.

#IfMalalaWasMyStudent

Contexts Matter, Diversity, EdConteXts, Inclusivity, Inspiration, pedagogy, Teaching, Twitter

This post is republished with permission from Sherif Osman’s blog, and we invite readers to use the hashtag #IfMalalaWasMyStudent on Twitter and their blogs, and Sherif and Edcontexts will compile responses and storify them, then publish here.

by Sherif Osman, Cairo, Egypt

I was watching the Jon Stewart show [the other day] and he was interviewing Malala, interestingly enough we were just talking about her at work that morning. It got me thinking, what if Malala was a girl in my class? Would I realise her potential? Would I encourage her? Would I be intimidated? Would I differentiate for her? Would I modify my teaching?

A better way to think about this, if one of your students was a Nobel peace laureate and has an international fund raising organisation dedicated to education access and educational reform. Would you feel you had to up your game? If so, does that mean that teachers need students that will challenge them in order to excel? What does that mean for ‘low ability’ group settings? Is that beneficial for students or teachers if that’s the case? Hmm…

As I continued to watch the show, I was intrigued. Her knowledge and vocab were excellent for a student her age; you could tell it wasn’t something she’d practiced, her wit and confidence shone through. I’ve met many students who surprised me with their knowledge, or their passion, or their confidence, or their attitude, or initiative, but rarely all those combined. I began to remember certain students, and wonder what they were up to now and if they had realised their potential? Are they enjoying what they are doing?

Earlier this year, a colleague at work asked me to write an article about an incident that happened to me as a student and how that affected my teaching. Since writing that article, I frequently started thinking about my time in the classroom as a student and what I can learn from it now as a teacher.

This got me thinking that I am who I am today because of my interactions in the classroom for a large portion of my life. My interactions with the teachers and other students have had a massive impact on my life and hence who I am today. That then begs the question, could I have been much better at something had my teachers or one of my teachers realised my potential in a particular area? A more positive way to look at this, have I excelled at something because someone helped me realise my potential? Who where they and what did they do differently? Perhaps this reflection can help me help my students.

When speaking to a colleague at work about this post idea, she suggested that I follow this post up with several posts where I reflect on those incidents and how they affected me. She then jokingly suggested I start a twitter movement #ifMalalaWasMyStudent where people can post their views on this. I liked the idea so much that I am going to do it. So I invite you all to share your stories or reflections on this hashtag. I will try and compile all the responses in a blog post to follow this up.

#ifMalalaWasMyStudent

About the Author:
Sherif Osman
Sherif Osman (@the_sosman) currently works as part of the Pedagogy & Assessment team at the Center for Learning & Teaching at the American University in Cairo. He also teaches a range of courses at the Professional Educator's Diploma, a teacher education program at the same institution. Sherif has a rich background that encompasses academic and professional experiences in education. He holds a Master of Arts in Education along with the Post Graduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) from the UK where he also taught in a range of schools. Teaching in different cultures and contexts fuels Sherif's passion towards education and educational research.

Making space for critical pedagogy: Challenges and opportunities

Inclusivity, Inspiration, pedagogy

by Joanna Joseph Jeyaraj, Malaysia

When I was first asked to contribute to this blog all I could think of was how I did not have a story of inspiration. Instead, my story is one of struggle and despair. However, as I think about all the challenges I am facing as a new academic, I am beginning to see that amidst these struggles, lies immense opportunity – and that I should be transforming these challenges into productive pathways.

I teach in a university in Malaysia and started about six months ago, eager and excited to begin my career in academia. Before coming here, I lived in New Zealand, where I pursued my doctoral studies in higher education. My research focused on English language teachers in higher education who used critical pedagogy in their teaching. As you may know, critical pedagogy is generally attributed to the ideas of Paulo Freire and has a strong agenda for social change and justice through the development of active and engaged citizens (Freire, 2005; McArthur, 2010; Crookes, 2013). Thus, having read the scholarship in this area, I came to strongly believe that education should bring forth societal reform and that my role as a teacher is to nurture intellectual development as well as social activism among students. My research explored the experiences of critical pedagogues from different parts of the world who sought to transform society through language education. After listening to numerous stories of how these teachers strove to make a difference in students’ lives and the communities that students lived in, I was inspired and motivated to do the same in my own teaching.

Instead, my eagerness and perhaps naiveté was quickly replaced with frustration because I felt restricted in the higher education environment that I had entered. Viewed from the perspectives of critical pedagogy, many things in the new system seemed to make education less meaningful and purposeful. The first big challenge was teaching a course that was so focussed on assessments; it seemed to take out the joy of the whole learning process for students. Students were piled with assignments and exams, and teachers were mostly required to prepare  students for these various assessments. After a few weeks wallowing in self-pity, I decided to contemplate and reflect on what I could learn from teaching in this environment. I believed that I could turn my struggles into a learning experience for students, and find answers and solutions to their problems. So, here are just a few of my thoughts and observations that teachers in similar situations may find useful:

1.     To “do” critical pedagogy, you have to struggle. Freire struggled. In the process, he was accused of being subversive and subsequently jailed and exiled. Although my struggles are not as extreme as Freire’s, still critical pedagogy is all about facing resistance. Sometimes, it comes in the form of facing opposition from the institution that one is in, or even from other colleagues or students. The path is not an easy one, and if I want to take the critical pedagogy route, I should be prepared to persevere and keep on fighting to create a legitimate space for critical pedagogy.

2.    In many educational systems around the world, creativity and autonomy are destroyed in the name of ‘consistency’ and ‘standardisation’. To ensure teachers mark fairly and consistently, certain standardized processes are put in place. For instance, although I had worked with my students over 9 weeks on their research topics, their reports as a rule are marked by a different teacher. This allowed no flexibility and I found myself wanting to stick strictly to the prescribed syllabus as it is expected of all teachers. There were times when I felt stifled and constrained, because having to focus almost exclusively on preparing students for their assignments and exams often clashed with my pedagogical values as a teacher.

However, there came a point of realisation that helped me feel less powerless against a system that limited my students’ and my own creativity. I remembered the  words of a TESOL teacher educator whom I had interviewed for my research project on critical pedagogy. Although our interview took place some years back when I was still a graduate student, his words could not have rang truer as they do right now. He told me that he constantly reminded his students: ‘… no matter how many constraints there are, you have to find ways to subvert the system … you are trailblazers in this area’. I was keenly aware that the structure of the course I was teaching differed greatly from a typical critical pedagogy class which Shor (1987) mentions is dialogic, creative and invented in-progress. I realised that learning was not student-driven and knowledge was not negotiated and co-constructed between the teacher and the student.  When knowledge is jointly created, students have the right to co-develop and evaluate the syllabus (Shor, 1993). Instead autonomy was restricted because students were assigned research topics and many were given strict instructions on how their research topics should be interpreted.  And yet, I started realising that if I tried, I could find small ways of engaging students in critical discourse, motivating them about the content of the curriculum and helping them master the skills to be successful within the current system.

3.     Oral feedback is just as important as written feedback, and it should be provided by the person who has marked the assignment. One problem I found was justifying another teacher’s marks to my students. Many came to me and asked why they were given a particular grade, and I noticed myself saying ‘Maybe the marker thought…’, or ‘I think the marker did this because…’. There were some rare occasions when I could not understand why students were marked down, especially for things that were not specified in the marking criteria. I understand that in mass-higher education, managers put certain systems in place to maintain standards – but at times, good intentions become an obstacle to learning. Perhaps another alternative would be to have a moderation system – where teachers grade their own students, but another teacher moderates to ensure consistency.

4.     Whatever the intentions may be, technologies like  ‘SafeAssign’ (a text-matching detection tool) and stringent ‘plagiarism’ policies too often frighten and intimidate students. My students are right out of high school – some in their second semester of university while others in their first. Throughout primary and secondary school, students mostly write guided and creative essays. The world of academic writing is something new that they encounter only at university. From conversations with students, I learnt that they were neither taught nor encouraged to paraphrase in high school. Instead, most teachers would tell students to copy or memorise ‘model’ essays and phrases for examination purposes. These conversations brought back memories of when I first started teaching. I encountered students who would blatantly copy chunks of text and not bother paraphrasing or citing sources. I initially became very frustrated and thought students were deliberately being lazy. But after talking to my students, I was told that this is how they had been taught to write. Many students, especially those who studied in Chinese vernacular schools were often asked to copy ‘good’ pieces of writing. To alter the words of another writer was deemed inappropriate – it would not be acceptable to change the words of the original writer who is perceived as being the knowledge source and expert on the subject. However, upon entering university, students are expected to unlearn the way of writing learnt in primary and secondary school. Many students find this challenging, especially because they have not been taught the necessary skills. In university, students are suddenly confronted with the big ‘plagiarism’ word and there is suddenly so much distrust. For the subject I teach, almost everything (except for mid and final exams) is SafeAssigned – questionnaires that students send out to respondents, PowerPoint presentations and even speech outlines. Most students are so petrified that they would be called in for a plagiarism hearing and be penalised and many attempt to change important keywords and generic phrases just to avoid text matching. Oddly enough, one of the reasons why I think there is a high SafeAssign text matching rate is because of the very structure of the course. Research topics are recycled year after year and student intakes are large each semester. While there is no easy solution, perhaps new topics should be introduced or students should be given the freedom to choose their own topics. I believe that giving students the option to choose their own topics will empower and enable them to develop their own ideas and voice.

It is my first time teaching this subject and maybe these struggles are just part of the difficulties that beginner teachers face. For now, I plan to turn my challenges into opportunities. Hopefully, I will continue to find ways to engage and empower students in spite of the challenges. I may not have answers and solutions to all or even most of my challenges, but I will use the perspectives and inspiration of critical pedagogy to keep striving for a more equal playing field for all involved and make teaching and learning more connected, purposeful and relevant to students’ lives.

JoannaAbout the Author

Joanna Joseph Jeyaraj currently works and lives in Sarawak, land of the hornbills. She is interested in researching critical pedagogies in English language teaching and is eager to make connections and collaborate with others who have similar interests.

References

Crookes, G. (2013). Critical ELT in action : Foundations, promises, praxis   Retrieved fromhttp://otago.eblib.com.au/patron/FullRecord.aspx?p=1157739

Freire, P. (2005). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Continuum

McArthur, J. (2010). Achieving social justice within and through higher education: The challenge for critical pedagogy. Teaching in Higher Education, 15(5), 493-504.

Shor, I. (1987). A pedagogy for liberation: Dialogues on transforming education Basingstoke, Hampshire: Macmillan.

Shor, I. (1993). Education is politics : Paulo Freire’s critical pedagogy. In P. McLaren & P. Leonard (Eds.), Paulo Freire: a critical encounter. New York: Routledge

There’s a Place for Us

Accessibility, Diversity, Inclusivity

By Yin Wah Kreher, USA; Singapore

I was born and obtained my undergraduate education in Singapore, “the little red dot” or “the Lion City.” In late 1999, I relocated to the USA and have had much adventure navigating cross-cultural zones of change. As a Singaporean Chinese, I am often perceived as someone from the Republic of China, which is not a problem or a bad thing at all. It is when I am expected to exhibit behaviors that go along with that misperception that things get awkward and challenging. What follows are little snippets of the faux pas some people have committed in an attempt to relate to me. These illustrations highlight the fact that there is substantial work to be done in the area of education and awareness about dealing with difference.

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American White Male prof: “The opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics was wonderful. Those Chinese girls didn’t smile at all while performing.” (Looks at Yin to explain why.)

Yin: *scratches head* [couldn’t explain to prof]

Note: This is a faux pas that tends to happen because most people see me as Chinese, but I am a Singaporean. My grandparents migrated to Malaya (pre-independent Singapore was a part of Malaya) and then to Singapore.

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American White Male: “You speak such good English compared to other Chinese. How is that so?”

Note: Again, this is a social blunder that happens because most people see me as a Chinese from China, but I am a Singaporean. And there is a presumption that Chinese internationals don’t speak or write good English. This is an overgeneralization. I’m always amused more than offended to see the shock on people’s faces when they read my writing or hear me speak.

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American White Male: “So do you eat dog meat or cat meat?”

Note: This is a bad joke. The perception and assumption that I’m Chinese is associated with the idea that Chinese people eat strange stuff like monkey brains or dog meat. This is an overgeneralization.

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International Female faculty client. I interacted with her substantially at our Center’s training sessions. I presented her my business card and offered to work with her. She subsequently chose to work with a Female White designer.

Note: This is not an indictment of the faculty decision. She has her reasons for her choices. I chose to include these next three examples because I want to highlight that sometimes, we may not be aware of our unconscious decisions. In Singapore, for instance, we were a colony of Britain and at times, the colonial mentality remains and is exhibited in some behaviors. Some Singaporeans consider Caucasians to be superior to Asians and look to them for solutions to their problems. It could work the other way too; people may be intimidated by the supposedly model minority, Asians.

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Black Female client contacts African colleague to work with her on accessibility issues after checking out our web bios. She was redirected to me.

Note: People are comfortable with people who appear to be more like them. It’s human nature.

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White Female client was assigned to work with me. Emailed me subsequently to say she was going to switch and work with another Female designer (who also happened to be White).

Note: Same rationale as above.

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Invited to a large corporate firm for an interview which was then delayed for some time. At the meeting, interviewers made snide remarks about my being overqualified. I was subsequently not hired.

Note: This happened quite frequently to me and my international friends who were selected for interviews to meet diversity requirements. Unfortunately, I think this is how people play games to beat bureaucracy.

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Diversity. Accessibility. Inclusivity. These are buzzwords in higher education. We hear them mentioned so often, I wonder if they lose their meaning for those in privileged circumstances. To me, diversity includes supporting accessibility, that is, the ability to access information and services. More often, it relates to the design of products and services for people with disability. Our VCU Institute for Inclusive Teaching planning committee regards inclusivity as a fluid concept:

Moving towards inclusivity includes an intention of reflecting on ideas and assumptions, and becoming aware of differences in order to gain insight and transform our practices.

How is accessibility related to diversity, many might ask? Individuals with disability are often not able to participate or have access to information and services because of differences that require special accommodations. When I think of diversity and accessibility, I include the discussion of people with disability too, because to some people with disability, disability is not pathological nor an impairment. It is an identity they proudly embrace and I support their desire to be a community of their own with their specific norms and values. Society is filled with individuals and groups with different traits, norms, values and ways of communicating, and it may be maddeningly chaotic, but perplexingly charming at the same time. It is okay to be different.

Personally, I was desensitized to these popularly used terms (that is, diversity, accessibility, and inclusivity), because I grew up in a multiracial society in Singapore and race was hardly an issue. I became aware of the need to be culturally responsive when I increasingly encountered these social blunders in America, began working on my dissertation and when I first got involved with a planning committee that does work related to inclusivity (which to us encompasses diversity and accessibility).

To be a tad more precise, I believe my advocacy and work for inclusivity began when I first taught a deaf student in Singapore just before I came over to the USA. I experienced first-hand the challenges of designing lessons for her without adequate training in inclusive design. Another watershed moment for me was when I worked with a faculty member to design his first online course. He had mobility and vision challenges, the severity of which I was ignorant of until I met him in person. Little wonder he took so long to reply to my emails! He had to use a screen reader and a screen magnifier which expanded small portions of text, a chunk at a time. With mobility challenges, he could not use the mouse easily. For those of us without any disabilities, such challenges are not the first things we think of when we wonder why someone does not respond to our emails. After all, we scan web pages and skim for content without much hesitation.

During doctoral studies, I joined the Access Project team, an interdisciplinary research and community education project directed by Professors Marjorie DeVault (my dissertation advisor), Rebecca Garden and Michael Schwartz (faculty members at Syracuse University and Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, NY). Combining perspectives from law, social science, and health humanities, the Access team explored communication access in health care (DeVault, Schwartz & Garden, 2011). Drawing from Schwartz’s research on deaf people’s perspectives (Schwartz, 2006), the team engaged in research and community outreach activities meant to illuminate and address the social and organizational barriers to quality health care for deaf patients. The central goal of the project was to engage healthcare professionals with deaf perspectives on the healthcare encounter, and our discussions raised questions about the most effective approaches to designing and delivering healthcare education in this area.

In VCU, I missed the opportunity to work with the community as I had done during graduate school. I was grateful to be invited to be a part of the  Institute on Inclusive Teaching (May 18-22, 2015).

It is one work project that keeps me going, even on days when I feel irrelevant and wonder what all my 30 years of specialized training in Instructional Design is for. When I do anything, no matter how small, for the project, I feel that I’m making a difference, and I know that what I’m doing will have a ripple effect, through time. There are real problems to solve, awareness to create, educational sessions to design and facilitate. There is a reason why I’m there, in the committee. There’s a reason for all those years of education.

When I’m with the committee, I work less at making people understand the implications of diversity. I don’t have to negotiate so hard at the intersections. People in the committee have been misunderstood in some way by someone (unintentionally?), have lived experiences of these issues and thus know how important it is to be inclusive and to educate people to be inclusive. I am at home in such a diverse multicultural setting like Singapore.

“If you don’t live it, it won’t come out of your horn.” – Charlie Parker, musician.

Among my committee friends, I find myself. And in turn I can help others to find themselves and not feel lost.

The Institute focuses on issues of access and equity in education, core goals of education. We touch on issues of social justice, stereotype threats, solo status, inclusive learning design, international students’ acculturative stress and facilitate the transfer of this knowledge to instructors’ design of courses. A week is not enough time to learn everything there is about inclusivity, but we try our best to design and model a learning experience that has the potential to make participants rethink their perspectives towards making their classrooms more inclusive.

At the 2009 UNESCO World Conference on Higher Ed, the OECD Secretary-General said:

“The first priority is access and equity… the second priority area is efficiency and effectiveness [and] the third area is quality and relevance.”

– Angel Gurria, OECD Secretary-General.

Access and equity. These are two priority areas that make me get up in the morning to go to work. If I don’t find myself in a position to fight for these causes anymore, I think my work will have lost a significant bout of meaning.

By highlighting challenges of difference that many others and I face, I work at contributing to and becoming a part of the solution; at using education to create awareness. Working on the Access project with my professors, I saw that litigation could not resolve the complex challenges that deaf patients face; it could not narrow health disparities between them and other ethnic or minority groups. Addressing the top priority area of concern in education does not eliminate the need to work on other priority areas. As a learning innovation designer, efforts to innovate and transform education can also serve to improve access and equity. I look forward to a society that increasingly recognizes that difference is not a problem, but a beautiful gift that contributes to creative expression and transformative learning experiences.

 

About the Author:

Yin Wah Kreher profile picture

Yin Wah Kreher 
I am a learning innovation design specialist at Virginia Commonwealth University. A multifaceted border-crosser, I believe that breakthroughs happen at intersections! I like to look for the exquisite in writing, design, learning, arts, life; to explore cross-cultural/cross-field engagement, creativity, cognition, arts. Originally from Singapore, I've spent most of my professional life anchored in the field of learning sciences. I write about learning design, mind, culture and life as it unfolds at http://justywk.blogspot.com